CCJ 3011 Chapter Outlines Chapter 1 I Crime and Criminology 1 2 3 4 Ponzi scheme Returning money to earlier investors with money received from subsequent in vestors Criminology the scientific study of nature extent cause and control of criminal behav ior Criminology is an interdisciplinary science Meaning it is involving two or more aca demic fields Most common is sociology Criminal Justice system made up of the agencies of social control such as polive depart ments the courts and correctional institutions that handle criminal offenders Subareas exist within the broader arena of criminology together the subareas make up the criminological enterprise II Criminal Statistics Crime Measurement This subarea involved calculating the amounts and trends of criminal activity Common questions How much crime occurs annually Who commits it When and where does it occur Which crimes are the most serious criminologists interested in computing criminal statistics focus on creating valid and reli able measures of criminal behavior to analyze the activities of police and court agencies they formulate techniques for col lecting and analyzing institutional records to measure criminal activity not reported to police by victims develop survey instruments that estimate of people who commit crimes yet escape detection by the justice system to identify victims of crime create surveys designed to have victims report loss and in to test theories create databases to investigate the relationship between independent vari jury able and dependent variable III Sociology of law Law and Society Socio Legal Studies This subarea of criminology is concerned with the role that social forces play in shaping criminal law and the role of criminal law in shaping society criminologists interested in this area investigate the history of legal thought in an effort to understand how criminal acts i e theft rape murder evolved in their present form Sex offender registration lists do not help deter potential offenders or reduce the incidence of child molestation Research has shown it has little effect IV Developing Theories of Crime Causation psychological view crime as a function of personality development social learning or biological correlates of antisocial behavior and study the biochemical genetic and neu cognition rological linkages to crime sociological look at the social forces producing criminal behavior including neighbor hood conditions poverty socialization and group interaction Criminologists also evaluate the impact that new laws have had on society after they have been in affect for a while Megan Laws requires convicted sex offenders to register with local law enforcement agencies whenever they move into a community these provisions were created in memory of Megan Kanka who was killed in 1994 by a sex offender who moved unannounced into her New Jersey neighborhood Connecticut Dept of Public Safety v Doe 2003 US Supreme court upheld legality of sex offender registration V Understanding and Describing Criminal Behavior Another subarea of criminology involved research on specific criminal types and pat terns Violent crime Theft crime Public Order crime Organized crime so on Marvin Wolfgang did a study on Patterns in Homicide He did landmark analysis of the nature of homicide and the relationship between victim and offender Edwin Sutherland did an analysis of business related offenses and helped coin a new phrase white collar crime to describe economic activities of the affluent White Collar Crime Illegal acs that capitalize on a person s status in the marketplace These crimes may include theft embezzlement fraud market manipulation restraint of trade and false advertising VI Penology Punishment Sanctions and Corrections Penology subarea of criminology that focuses on the correction and control of criminal Rehabilitation treatment of criminal offenders that is aimed at preventing future criminal offenders behavior Capital Punishment the execution of criminal offenders the death penalty Mandatory Sentences a statutory requirement that a certain penalty shall be carried out in all cases of conviction for a specified offense or series of offenses Samuel Gross research illustrates how important it is to evaluate penal measures such as capital punishment in order to determine their effectiveness and reliability Penologists evaluate the criminal justice system Concept Summary 1 1 The Criminological Enterprise The Discipline of Criminology Criminal Statistics gathering valid crime data Devising new research methods measur ing crime patterns and trends Sociology of Law Law and Society Socio legal Studies determining the origin of law Measuring the forces that can change laws and society Theory Construction predicting individual behavior Understanding cause of crime rates and trends Criminal Behavior Systems determining the nature and cause of specific crime patterns Studying violence theft organized crime white collar crime and public order crimes Penology Punishment Sanctions and Corrections studying the correction and control of criminal behavior Using scientific method to asses the effectiveness of criminal sanctions de signed to control crime through the application of criminal punishments Victimology studying the nature and cause of victimization Aiding crime victims un derstanding the nature and extent of victimization developing theories of victimization risk VII Victimology noncriminals Victimology the study of the victim s role in criminal events Findings indicate criminals have been found to be at greater risk of victimization than Rather than being passive targets in wrong place at the wrong time victims engaging in high risk behavior increase their victimization risk and render them vulnerable to crime Victimologists try to understand why some people become crime victims VIII Classical Criminology Cesare Beccaria 1738 1794 one of the first scholars to develop a systematic under standing of why people commit crime Believed in utilitarianism Utilitarianism the view that people s behavior is motivated by the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain When potential pleasure and reward outweigh likely pains of punish ment Beccaria s famous theorem was that in order for punishment to be effective it must be public prompt necessary the least possible in the given circumstances proportionate and dic tated by law Classical Criminology theoretical perspective suggesting that 1 people have free will to choose
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