Hanna Amirzadeh January 17 2016 Chapter 1 Introduction to the Study of Crime Criminology Test 1 Criminal Justice System made up of the agencies of social control such as police departments courts and correctional institutions that handle criminal offenders Criminological Enterprise The various subareas included within the scholarly discipline of criminology which taken as a whole define the field of study We control criminology through deterrence Imprisonment What is Criminology Law changes over time as does what is considered criminal Criminology The scientific study of the nature and extent of criminal behavior Crime Statistics Crime Measurement Criminal Statistics Gathering valid crime data Devising new research methods Measuring crime patterns and trends Criminologists interested in computing criminal statistics focus on creating valid and reliable measures of criminal behavior Valid Measure A measure that actually measures what it purports to measure a measure that is factual measurement to another Reliable Measure A measure that produces consistent results from one To analyze the activities of police and court agencies they formulate techniques for collecting and analyzing institutional records and activities To measure criminal activity not reported to the police by victims they develop survey instruments that estimate the percentage of people who commit crimes but escape detection by the justice system To identify the victims of crime they create surveys designed to have victims report loss and injury that may not have been reported to the police To test the theories they create databases that make it possible to investigate the relationship between an independent variable such as percentage of population living in poverty and a dependent variable such as neighborhood violent crime rates Sociology of Law Law and Society Sociolegal Studies Determining the origin of law Measuring the forces that can change laws and security Sociology of law law and society sociolegal studies is a subarea of criminology concerned with the role that social forces play in shaping criminal law and the role of criminal law in shaping society Criminologists interested in the sociology of law conduct research on the effects of legal change on society Take for example the Supreme Court s ruling in Miller v Alabama barring mandatory life sentences for juveniles convicted of murder Criminologists may be called upon to test public opinion whether on whether violent young felons have the potential for rehabilitation They may also try to measure the factors that may have influenced judicial decision making In this case they may ry to determine whether scientific research an adolescent brain development influenced the ruling Developing Theories of Crime Causation Some who have a psychological orientation view crime as a function of personality development social learning or cognition Others investigate the biological correlates of antisocial behavior and study the biochemical genetic and neurological linkages to crime interaction child molesting offender homicide Those with a sociological orientation look at the social forces producing criminal behavior including neighborhood conditions poverty socialization and group Research indicates that registration has little effect on either offenders or rates of Understanding and Describing Criminal Behavior Marvin Wolfgang s 1958 study Patterns in Criminal Homicide is a landmark analysis of the nature of homicide and the relationship between victim and Wolfgang discovered that in many instances victims caused or precipitated the violent confrontation that led to their death spawning the term victim precipitated Victim Precipitated Homicide Refers to those killings in which the victim is a direct positive precipitator of the incident Edward Sutherland s analysis of business related offenses also helped coin a new phrase white collar crime to describe economic crime activities of the affluent Mental illness is not a critical factor in explaining terrorist behavior Also most terrorists are not psychopaths There is no terrorist personality nor is there any accurate profile psychological or otherwise of the terrorist Histories of childhood abuse and trauma and themes of perceived injustice and humiliation often are prominent in terrorist biographies but these elements do not really help to explain terrorism Criminologists interested in penology direct their research efforts at evaluating the effectiveness of crime control programs For example one recent evaluation of the Risk Need Responsivity RNR program which classifies people on probation and orders the placement of some in anger management and cognitive behavioral therapy programs has been found to cut the recidivism of high risk offenders by as much s 20 percent Penology punishment sanctions and corrections Penology Subarea of criminology focuses on the correction and control of criminal offenders Studying the correction and control of criminal behavior Using the scientific method to assess the effectiveness of criminal sanctions designed to control crime through the application of criminal punishments Rehabilitation Treatment of criminal offenders that is aimed at preventing future criminal behavior 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 Capital Punishment The execution of criminal offenders the death penalty Victimology Victimology The study of the victim s role in criminal events Studying the nature and cause of victimization Aiding crime victims understanding the nature and extent of victimization developing theories of victimization risk Criminologists recognize that the victim plays a critical role in the criminal process and that the victim s behavior is often a key determinate of crime Victimology includes the following areas of interest Using victim surveys to measure the nature and extent of criminal behavior and to calculate the actual costs of crime to victims Calculating probabilities of victimization risks Studying victim culpability in the precipitation of crime Designing services of crime victims such as counseling and compensation programs crime Interestingly criminals have been found to be at greater risk of victimization than noncriminals victims may themselves be engaging in a high risk behavior such as crime that increases their victimization risk and renders them
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