Criminology - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Criminology (from Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

, "accusation"; and Greek

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

, -logia
-logy
-logy is a suffix in the English language, used with words originally adapted from Ancient Greek language ending in -λογία...

) is the scientific study of the nature, extent, causes, and control of criminal behavior in both the individual and in society. Criminology is an interdisciplinary field in the behavioral sciences, drawing especially upon the research of sociologists

Sociology

Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

(particularly in the sociology of deviance), psychologists

Psychology

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

and psychiatrists

Psychiatry

Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...

, social anthropologists

Social anthropology

Social Anthropology is one of the four or five branches of anthropology that studies how contemporary human beings behave in social groups. Practitioners of social anthropology investigate, often through long-term, intensive field studies , the social organization of a particular person: customs,...

as well as on writings in law

Law

Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...

.

Areas of research in criminology include the incidence, forms, causes and consequences of crime, as well as social and governmental regulations and reaction to crime. For studying the distribution and causes of crime, criminology mainly relies upon quantitative methods

Quantitative methods in criminology

Since the inception of the discipline, quantitative methods have provided the primary research methods for studying the distribution and causes of crime. Quantitative methods provide numerous ways to obtain data that are useful to many aspects of society...

. The term criminology was coined in 1885 by Italian law professor Raffaele Garofalo

Raffaele Garofalo

Raffaele Garofalo was an Italian jurist and a student of Cesare Lombroso, often regard as the father of criminology. He rejected the doctrine of free will and supported the position that crime can be understood only if it is studied by scientific methods...

as criminologia. Around the same time, but later, French anthropologist Paul Topinard

Paul Topinard

Paul Topinard was a French physician and anthropologist who was a student of Paul Broca and whose views influenced the methodology adopted by Herbert Hope Risley in his ethnographic surveys of the people of India...

used the analogous French term criminologie.

Schools of thought

In the mid-18th century, criminology arose as social philosophers

Social philosophy

Social philosophy is the philosophical study of questions about social behavior . Social philosophy addresses a wide range of subjects, from individual meanings to legitimacy of laws, from the social contract to criteria for revolution, from the functions of everyday actions to the effects of...

gave thought to crime and concepts of law. Over time, several schools of thought have developed. There are three main schools of thought in early criminological theory spanning the period from the mid-18th century to the mid-twentieth century , which are Classical, Positive, and Chicago. These schools of thought were superseded by several contemporary paradigms of criminology, such as the sub-culture, control, strain, labelling, critical criminology, cultural criminology, postmodern criminology, feminist criminology and others discussed below.

Classical School

The Classical School

Classical school

The Classical School in criminology is usually a reference to the 18th-century work during the Enlightenment by the utilitarian and social contract philosophers Jeremy Bentham and Cesare Beccaria. Their interests lay in the system of criminal justice and penology and, indirectly through the...

, which developed in the mid 18th century, was based on utilitarian

Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is an ethical theory holding that the proper course of action is the one that maximizes the overall "happiness", by whatever means necessary. It is thus a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined only by its resulting outcome, and that one can...

philosophy. Cesare Beccaria, author of On Crimes and Punishments (1763–64), Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham was an English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. He became a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law, and a political radical whose ideas influenced the development of welfarism...

, inventor of the panopticon
Panopticon
The Panopticon is a type of building designed by English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the late eighteenth century. The concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe all inmates of an institution without them being able to tell whether or not they are being watched...

, and other classical school philosophers argued that (1) people have free will to choose how to act. (2) Deterrence is based upon the notion of the human being as a 'hedonist' who seeks pleasure and avoids pain, and a 'rational calculator' weighing up the costs and benefits of the consequences of each action. Thus, it ignores the possibility of irrationality and unconscious drives as motivational factors (3) Punishment

Punishment

Punishment is the authoritative imposition of something negative or unpleasant on a person or animal in response to behavior deemed wrong by an individual or group....

(of sufficient severity) can deter people from crime, as the costs (penalties) outweigh benefits, and that severity of punishment should be proportionate to the crime. (4) The more swift and certain the punishment, the more effective it is in deterring criminal behavior. The Classical school of thought came about at a time when major reform in penology

Penology

Penology is a section of criminology that deals with the philosophy and practice of various societies in their attempts to repress criminal activities, and satisfy public opinion via an appropriate treatment regime for persons convicted of criminal offenses.The Oxford English Dictionary defines...

occurred, with prison

Prison

A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...

s developed as a form of punishment. Also, this time period saw many legal

Law

reforms, the French Revolution

French Revolution

The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

, and the development of the legal system

Law of the United States

The law of the United States consists of many levels of codified and uncodified forms of law, of which the most important is the United States Constitution, the foundation of the federal government of the United States...

in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

Positivist School

The Positivist school

Positivist school

In criminology, the Positivist School has attempted to find scientific objectivity for the measurement and quantification of criminal behavior. As the scientific method became the major paradigm in the search for all knowledge, the Classical School's social philosophy was replaced by the quest for...

presumes that criminal behavior is caused by internal and external factors outside of the individual's control. The scientific method

Scientific method

Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of...

was introduced and applied to study human behavior. Positivism can be broken up into three segments which include biological, psychological and social positivism.

Italian School

Cesare Lombroso

Cesare Lombroso, born Ezechia Marco Lombroso was an Italian criminologist and founder of the Italian School of Positivist Criminology. Lombroso rejected the established Classical School, which held that crime was a characteristic trait of human nature...

, an Italian prison doctor working in the late 19th century and sometimes regarded as the "father" of criminology, was one of the largest contributors to biological positivism and founder of the Italian school of criminology

Italian school of criminology

The Italian school of criminology was founded at the end of the 19th century by Cesare Lombroso and two of his Italian disciples, Enrico Ferri and Raffaele Garofalo .- Lombroso's conception of the "atavistic born criminal" :...

. Lombroso took a scientific approach, insisting on empirical evidence, for studying crime. Considered as the founder of criminal anthropology, he suggested that physiological traits such as the measurements of one's cheek bones or hairline, or a cleft palate, considered to be throwbacks to Neanderthal

Neanderthal

The Neanderthal is an extinct member of the Homo genus known from Pleistocene specimens found in Europe and parts of western and central Asia...

man, were indicative of "atavistic

Atavism

Atavism is the tendency to revert to ancestral type. In biology, an atavism is an evolutionary throwback, such as traits reappearing which had disappeared generations before. Atavisms can occur in several ways...

" criminal tendencies. This approach, influenced by the earlier theory of phrenology

Phrenology

Phrenology is a pseudoscience primarily focused on measurements of the human skull, based on the concept that the brain is the organ of the mind, and that certain brain areas have localized, specific functions or modules...

and by Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin

Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...

and his theory of evolution, has been superseded. Enrico Ferri

Enrico Ferri

Enrico Ferri was an Italian criminologist, socialist, and student of Cesare Lombroso. However, whereas Lombroso researched the physiological factors that motivated criminals, Ferri investigated social and economic factors. Ferri was the author of Criminal Sociology in 1884 and the editor for...

, a student of Lombroso, believed that social as well as biological factors played a role, and held the view that criminals should not be held responsible when factors causing their criminality were beyond their control. Criminologists have since rejected Lombroso's biological theories, with control groups not used in his studies.

Sociological positivism

Sociological positivism postulates that societal factors such as poverty

Poverty

Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...

, membership of subcultures, or low levels of education

Education

Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...

can predispose people to crime. Adolphe Quetelet

Adolphe Quetelet

Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet was a Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociologist. He founded and directed the Brussels Observatory and was influential in introducing statistical methods to the social sciences...

made use of data

Data

The term data refers to qualitative or quantitative attributes of a variable or set of variables. Data are typically the results of measurements and can be the basis of graphs, images, or observations of a set of variables. Data are often viewed as the lowest level of abstraction from which...

and statistical

Statistics

Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....

analysis to gain insight into relationship between crime

Crime

Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...

and sociological

Sociology

factors. He found that age, gender

Gender

Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...

, poverty

Poverty

, education

Education

, and alcohol

Alcohol

In chemistry, an alcohol is an organic compound in which the hydroxy functional group is bound to a carbon atom. In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms....

consumption were important factors related to crime.
Rawson W. Rawson utilized crime statistics

Crime statistics

Crime statistics attempt to provide statistical measures of the crime in societies. Given that crime is usually secretive by nature, measurements of it are likely to be inaccurate....

to suggest a link between population density

Population density

Population density is a measurement of population per unit area or unit volume. It is frequently applied to living organisms, and particularly to humans...

and crime rates, with crowded cities creating an environment conducive for crime. Joseph Fletcher

Joseph Fletcher

Joseph Fletcher was an American professor who founded the theory of situational ethics in the 1960s, and was a pioneer in the field of bioethics. Fletcher was a leading academic involved in the topics of abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, eugenics, and cloning. Ordained as an Episcopal priest, he...

and John Glyde also presented papers to the Statistical Society of London on their studies of crime and its distribution. Henry Mayhew

Henry Mayhew

Henry Mayhew was an English social researcher, journalist, playwright and advocate of reform. He was one of the two founders of the satirical and humorous magazine Punch, and the magazine's joint-editor, with Mark Lemon, in its early days...

used empirical

Empirical

The word empirical denotes information gained by means of observation or experimentation. Empirical data are data produced by an experiment or observation....

methods and an ethnographic

Ethnography

Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...

approach to address social questions and poverty

Poverty

, and presented his studies in London Labour and the London Poor
London Labour and the London Poor
London Labour and the London Poor is a work of Victorian journalism by Henry Mayhew. In the 1840s he observed, documented and described the state of working people in London for a series of articles in a newspaper, the Morning Chronicle, that were later compiled into book form.-Overview:The...

. Émile Durkheim

Émile Durkheim

David Émile Durkheim was a French sociologist. He formally established the academic discipline and, with Karl Marx and Max Weber, is commonly cited as the principal architect of modern social science and father of sociology.Much of Durkheim's work was concerned with how societies could maintain...

viewed crime as an inevitable aspect of society

Society

A society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations...

, with uneven distribution of wealth

Wealth

Wealth is the abundance of valuable resources or material possessions. The word wealth is derived from the old English wela, which is from an Indo-European word stem...

and other differences among people.

Differential Association (Subcultural)

Crime is learned through association

Differential association

In criminology, Differential Association is a theory developed by Edwin Sutherland proposing that through interaction with others, individuals learn the values, attitudes, techniques, and motives for criminal behavior....

. The criminal acts learned might be generally condoning criminal conduct or be justifying crime only under specific circumstances. Interacting with antisocial

Anti-social behaviour

Anti-social behaviour is behaviour that lacks consideration for others and that may cause damage to society, whether intentionally or through negligence, as opposed to pro-social behaviour, behaviour that helps or benefits society...

peers is a major cause of crime. Criminal behavior will be repeated and become chronic

Chronic

Chronic may refer to:* Chronic , a disease that is long-lasting and reoccurring.* Chronic toxicity, a substance with toxic effects after continuous or repeated exposure* The Chronic, a 1992 album by Dr. Dre...

if reinforced. When criminal subcultures exist, many individuals can learn associatively to commit crime and crime rates may increase in those specific locations .

Chicago School

The Chicago school

Chicago school (sociology)

In sociology and later criminology, the Chicago School was the first major body of works emerging during the 1920s and 1930s specialising in urban sociology, and the research into the urban environment by combining theory and ethnographic fieldwork in Chicago, now applied elsewhere...

arose in the early twentieth century, through the work of Robert E. Park

Robert E. Park

Robert Ezra Park was an American urban sociologist, one of the main founders of the original Chicago School of sociology.-Life:...

, Ernest Burgess

Ernest Burgess

Ernest Watson Burgess was an urban sociologist born in Tilbury, Ontario. He was educated at Kingfisher College in Oklahoma and continued graduate studies in sociology at the University of Chicago. In 1916, he returned to the University of Chicago, as a faculty member. Burgess was hired as an...

, and other urban sociologists

Urban sociology

Urban sociology is the sociological study of social life and human interaction in metropolitan areas. It is a normative discipline of sociology seeking to study the structures, processes, changes and problems of an urban area and by doing so providing inputs for planning and policy making. Like...

at the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

. In the 1920s, Park and Burgess identified five concentric zones that often exist as cities grow, including the "zone in transition" which was identified as most volatile and subject to disorder. In the 1940s, Henry McKay and Clifford R. Shaw focused on juvenile delinquents

Juvenile delinquency

Juvenile delinquency is participation in illegal behavior by minors who fall under a statutory age limit. Most legal systems prescribe specific procedures for dealing with juveniles, such as juvenile detention centers. There are a multitude of different theories on the causes of crime, most if not...

, finding that they were concentrated in the zone of transition.

Chicago School sociologists adopted a social ecology

Social ecology

Social ecology is a philosophy developed by Murray Bookchin in the 1960s.It holds that present ecological problems are rooted in deep-seated social problems, particularly in dominatory hierarchical political and social systems. These have resulted in an uncritical acceptance of an overly...

approach to studying cities, and postulated that urban neighborhoods with high levels of poverty

Poverty

often experience breakdown in the social structure

Social structure

Social structure is a term used in the social sciences to refer to patterned social arrangements in society that are both emergent from and determinant of the actions of the individuals. The usage of the term "social structure" has changed over time and may reflect the various levels of analysis...

and institutions such as family

Family

In human context, a family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence. In most societies it is the principal institution for the socialization of children...

and school

School

A school is an institution designed for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is commonly compulsory. In these systems, students progress through a series of schools...

s. This results in social disorganization, which reduces the ability of these institutions to control behavior

Behavior

Behavior or behaviour refers to the actions and mannerisms made by organisms, systems, or artificial entities in conjunction with its environment, which includes the other systems or organisms around as well as the physical environment...

and creates an environment ripe for deviant behavior

Deviant Behavior

Deviant Behavior is an interdisciplinary journal which focuses on social deviance, including criminal, sexual, and narcotic behaviors.The journal is published by Taylor and Francis, Inc., and was ranked 41st out of 46 psychology journals and 46th out of 90 sociology journals in 2004 by the...

.

Other researchers suggested an added social-psychological link. Edwin Sutherland

Edwin Sutherland

Edwin H. Sutherland was an American sociologist. He is considered as one of the most influential criminologists of the twentieth century...

suggested that people learn criminal behavior from older, more experienced criminals that they may associate with.

Theories of crime

Theoretical perspectives used in criminology include psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...

, functionalism, interactionism

Interactionism

In sociology, interactionism is a theoretical perspective that derives social processes from human interaction. It is the study of individuals and how they act within society. Interactionist theory has grown in the latter half of the twentieth century and has become one of the dominant...

, Marxism

Marxism

Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...

, econometrics

Econometrics

Econometrics has been defined as "the application of mathematics and statistical methods to economic data" and described as the branch of economics "that aims to give empirical content to economic relations." More precisely, it is "the quantitative analysis of actual economic phenomena based on...

, systems theory

Systems theory

Systems theory is the transdisciplinary study of systems in general, with the goal of elucidating principles that can be applied to all types of systems at all nesting levels in all fields of research...

, postmodernism

Postmodernism

Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...

, etc.

Social structure theories

This theory is applied to a variety of approaches within criminology in particular and in sociology more generally as a conflict theory

Conflict theory

Conflict theories are perspectives in social science that emphasize the social, political or material inequality of a social group, that critique the broad socio-political system, or that otherwise detract from structural functionalism and ideological conservativism...

or structural conflict perspective in sociology and sociology of crime. As this perspective is itself broad enough, embracing as it does a diversity of positions.

Social disorganization (neighborhoods)

Social disorganization theory is based on the work of Henry McKay and Clifford R. Shaw of the Chicago School. Social disorganization theory postulates that neighborhoods plagued with poverty and economic deprivation tend to experience high rates of population

Population

A population is all the organisms that both belong to the same group or species and live in the same geographical area. The area that is used to define a sexual population is such that inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with individuals...

turnover. These neighborhoods also tend to have high population heterogeneity. With high turnover, informal social structure

Social structure

often fails to develop, which in turn makes it difficult to maintain social order

Social order

Social order is a concept used in sociology, history and other social sciences. It refers to a set of linked social structures, social institutions and social practices which conserve, maintain and enforce "normal" ways of relating and behaving....

in a community.

Social ecology

Since the 1950s, social ecology studies have built on the social disorganization theories. Many studies have found that crime rates are associated with poverty, disorder, high numbers of abandoned buildings, and other signs of community deterioration. As working

Working class

Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...

and middle class

Middle class

The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....

people leave deteriorating neighborhoods, the most disadvantaged portions of the population may remain. William Julius Wilson

William Julius Wilson

William Julius Wilson is an American sociologist. He worked at the University of Chicago 1972-1996 before moving to Harvard....

suggested a poverty "concentration effect", which may cause neighborhoods to be isolated from the mainstream of society and become prone to violence

Violence

Violence is the use of physical force to apply a state to others contrary to their wishes. violence, while often a stand-alone issue, is often the culmination of other kinds of conflict, e.g...

Strain theory (social class)

Strain theory

Strain theory (sociology)

In criminology, the strain theory states that social structures within society may pressure citizens to commit crime. Following on the work of Émile Durkheim, Strain Theories have been advanced by Robert King Merton , Albert K. Cohen , Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin , Robert Agnew , and Steven...

, (also known as Mertonian Anomie), advanced by American sociologist Robert Merton

Robert K. Merton

Robert King Merton was a distinguished American sociologist. He spent most of his career teaching at Columbia University, where he attained the rank of University Professor...

, suggests that mainstream culture

Culture

Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...

, especially in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, is saturated with dreams of opportunity, freedom and prosperity; as Merton put it, the American Dream
American Dream
The American Dream is a national ethos of the United States in which freedom includes a promise of the possibility of prosperity and success. In the definition of the American Dream by James Truslow Adams in 1931, "life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each...

. Most people buy into this dream and it becomes a powerful cultural and psychological motivation. Merton also used the term anomie
Anomie
Anomie is a term meaning "without Law" to describe a lack of social norms; "normlessness". It describes the breakdown of social bonds between an individual and their community ties, with fragmentation of social identity and rejection of self-regulatory values. It was popularized by French...

, but it meant something slightly different for him than it did for Durkheim

Émile Durkheim

. Merton saw the term as meaning a dichotomy

Dichotomy

A dichotomy is any splitting of a whole into exactly two non-overlapping parts, meaning it is a procedure in which a whole is divided into two parts...

between what society expected of its citizens, and what those citizens could actually achieve. Therefore, if the social structure of opportunities is unequal and prevents the majority from realizing the dream, some of them will turn to illegitimate means (crime) in order to realize it. Others will retreat or drop out into deviant

Deviant Behavior

subcultures (gang members

Gang

A gang is a group of people who, through the organization, formation, and establishment of an assemblage, share a common identity. In current usage it typically denotes a criminal organization or else a criminal affiliation. In early usage, the word gang referred to a group of workmen...

, "hobos": urban homeless drunks and drug abuse

Drug abuse

Substance abuse, also known as drug abuse, refers to a maladaptive pattern of use of a substance that is not considered dependent. The term "drug abuse" does not exclude dependency, but is otherwise used in a similar manner in nonmedical contexts...

rs).

Subcultural theory

Following on from the Chicago school

Chicago school (sociology)

and Strain Theory, and also drawing on Edwin Sutherland

Edwin Sutherland

Edwin H. Sutherland was an American sociologist. He is considered as one of the most influential criminologists of the twentieth century...

's idea of differential association

Differential association

, subcultural theorists focused on small cultural groups fragmenting away from the mainstream to form their own values and meanings about life.

Albert K. Cohen

Albert K. Cohen

Albert K. Cohen is a prominent American criminologist. He is known for his Subcultural Theory of delinquent urban gangs, including his influential book Delinquent Boys: Culture of the Gang. He has served as Vice President of the American Society of Criminology, and in 1993 he received the...

tied anomie theory with Freud

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...

's reaction formation

Reaction formation

In psychoanalytic theory, reaction formation is a defensive process in which anxiety-producing or unacceptable emotions and impulses are mastered by exaggeration of the directly opposing tendency.-Theory:...

idea, suggesting that delinquency among lower class youths is a reaction against the social norm

Norm (sociology)

Social norms are the accepted behaviors within a society or group. This sociological and social psychological term has been defined as "the rules that a group uses for appropriate and inappropriate values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. These rules may be explicit or implicit...

s of the middle class. Some youth, especially from poorer areas where opportunities are scarce, might adopt social norms specific to those places which may include "toughness" and disrespect for authority. Criminal acts may result when youths conform to norms of the deviant subculture.

Richard Cloward

Richard Cloward

Richard Andrew Cloward was an American sociologist and an activist. He influenced the Strain theory of criminal behavior and the concept of anomie, and was a primary motivator for the passage of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 known as "Motor Voter"...

and Lloyd Ohlin

Lloyd Ohlin

Lloyd Edgar Ohlin was an American sociologist and criminologist who taught at Harvard Law School, Columbia University, and the University of Chicago over his career where he studied the causes and effects of crime and punishment, especially as it related to youthful offenders and delinquents.Ohlin...

suggested that delinquency can result from differential opportunity for lower class youth. Such youths may be tempted to take up criminal activities, choosing an illegitimate path that provides them more lucrative economic benefits than conventional, over legal options such as minimum wage

Minimum wage

A minimum wage is the lowest hourly, daily or monthly remuneration that employers may legally pay to workers. Equivalently, it is the lowest wage at which workers may sell their labour. Although minimum wage laws are in effect in a great many jurisdictions, there are differences of opinion about...

-paying jobs available to them.

British subcultural theorists focused more heavily on the issue of class, where some criminal activities were seen as 'imaginary solutions' to the problem of belonging to a subordinate class. A further study by the Chicago school looked at gangs and the influence of the interaction of gang leaders under the observation of adults.

Sociologists such as Raymond D. Gastil, have explored the impact of a Southern culture of honor

Southern culture of honor

The prevailing culture of the Southern United States is said to be a "culture of honor", that is a culture where people avoid unintentional offense to others and maintain a reputation for not accepting improper conduct by others....

on violent crime rates.

Control theories

Another approach is made by the social bond or social control theory

Social control theory

In criminology, Social Control Theory Travis Hirschi fits into the Positivist School, Neo-Classical School, and, later, Right Realism. It proposes that exploiting the process of socialization and social learning builds self-control and reduces the inclination to indulge in behavior recognized as...

. Instead of looking for factors that make people become criminal, those theories try to explain why people do not become criminal. Travis Hirschi identified four main characteristics: "attachment to others", "belief in moral validity of rules", "commitment to achievement" and "involvement in conventional activities". The more a person features those characteristics, the less are the chances that he or she becomes deviant (or criminal). On the other hand, if those factors are not present in a person, it is more likely that he or she might become criminal. Hirschi expanded on this theory, with the idea that a person with low self control

Self control

Self control is the ability to control one's emotions, behavior and desires in order to obtain some reward later. In psychology it is sometimes called self-regulation...

is more likely to become criminal.

A simple example: someone wants to have a big yacht, but does not have the means to buy one. If the person cannot exert self-control, he or she might try to get the yacht (or the means for it) in an illegal way; whereas someone with high self-control will (more likely) either wait or deny themselves that need. Social bonds, through peer

Peer group

A peer group is a social group consisting of humans. Peer groups are an informal primary group of people who share a similar or equal status and who are usually of roughly the same age, tended to travel around and interact within the social aggregate Members of a particular peer group often have...

s, parent

Parent

A parent is a caretaker of the offspring in their own species. In humans, a parent is of a child . Children can have one or more parents, but they must have two biological parents. Biological parents consist of the male who sired the child and the female who gave birth to the child...

s, and others, can have a countering effect on one's low self-control. For families of low socio-economic status, a factor that distinguishes families with delinquent children from those who are not delinquent is the control exerted by parents or chaperonage. In addition, theorists such as Matza and Sykes argued that criminals are able to temporarily neutralize internal moral and social behavioral constraints through techniques of neutralization

Techniques of neutralization

Techniques of neutralization are a theoretical series of methods by which those who commit illegitimate acts temporarily neutralize certain values within themselves which would normally prohibit them from carrying out such acts, such as morality, obligation to abide by the law, and so on...

Symbolic interactionism

Symbolic Interaction, also known as interactionism, is a sociological theory that places emphasis on micro-scale social interaction to provide subjective meaning in human behavior, the social process and pragmatism.-History:...

draws on the phenomenology

Phenomenology (psychology)

Phenomenology is an approach to psychological subject matter that has its roots in the philosophical work of Edmund Husserl. Early phenomenologists such as Husserl, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty conducted their own psychological investigations in the early 20th century...

of Edmund Husserl

Edmund Husserl

Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a philosopher and mathematician and the founder of the 20th century philosophical school of phenomenology. He broke with the positivist orientation of the science and philosophy of his day, yet he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic...

and George Herbert Mead

George Herbert Mead

George Herbert Mead was an American philosopher, sociologist and psychologist, primarily affiliated with the University of Chicago, where he was one of several distinguished pragmatists. He is regarded as one of the founders of social psychology and the American sociological tradition in general.-...

, as well as subcultural theory

Subcultural theory

In criminology, subcultural theory emerged from the work of the Chicago School on gangs and developed through the symbolic interactionism school into a set of theories arguing that certain groups or subcultures in society have values and attitudes that are conducive to crime and violence...

and conflict theory

Conflict theory

. This school of thought focused on the relationship between the powerful state, media and conservative ruling elite on the one hand, and the less powerful groups on the other. The powerful groups had the ability to become the 'significant other' in the less powerful groups' processes of generating meaning. The former could to some extent impose their meanings on the latter, and therefore they were able to 'label' minor delinquent youngsters as criminal. These youngsters would often take on board the label, indulge in crime more readily and become actors in the 'self-fulfilling prophecy' of the powerful groups. Later developments in this set of theories were by Howard Becker

Howard S. Becker

Howard Saul Becker is an American sociologist who made major contributions to the sociology of deviance, sociology of art, and sociology of music. Becker also wrote extensively on sociological writing styles and methodologies. In addition, Becker's book The Outsiders provided the foundations for...

and Edwin Lemert, in the mid 20th century. Stanley Cohen

Stanley Cohen (sociologist)

Professor Stanley Cohen is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics.-Life:Cohen was born in Johannesberg, South Africa in 1942. He grew up in South Africa and was an undergraduate at the University of Witwatersrand, studying Sociology and Social Work. He came to London in...

who developed the concept of "moral panic

Moral panic

A moral panic is the intensity of feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order. According to Stanley Cohen, author of Folk Devils and Moral Panics and credited creator of the term, a moral panic occurs when "[a] condition, episode, person or group of...

" (describing societal reaction to spectacular, alarming social phenomena such as post-World War Two youth cultures (e.g. the Mods and Rockers
Mods and Rockers
The Mods and Rockers were two conflicting British youth subcultures of the early-mid 1960s. Mods and rockers fighting in 1964 sparked a moral panic about British youths, and the two groups were seen as folk devils. The rockers were motorcyclists, wearing clothes such as black leather jackets. The...

in the UK in 1964), AIDS and football hooliganism

Football hooliganism

Football hooliganism, sometimes referred to by the British media as the English Disease, is unruly and destructive behaviour—such as brawls, vandalism and intimidation—by association football club fans...

Labeling Theory

Labeling theory refers to an individual being labeled in a particular way and was studied in great detail by Howard Becker . It arrives originally from sociology but is regularly used in criminological studies. It is said that when someone is give the label of a criminal, some reject it whilst others accept it and go on to commit crime. Even those that initially reject the label can eventually accept it as the label becomes more well known particularly amongst their peers. This can become even more profound when the labels are about deviancy and it is said they can lead to deviancy amplification. Klein (1986) conducted a test which showed that labeling theory affected some youth offenders but not others.

Contemporary cultural and critical criminology

Today's cultural and critical criminologists

Critical criminology

Critical criminology is a theoretical perspective in criminology which takes a conflict perspective, such as marxism, feminism, political economy theory or critical theory. The focus of critical criminology is the genesis of crime and nature of ‘justice’ within a structure of class and status...

define themselves through their opposition to positivism, which reduces complex emotional and communicative human beings to statistics, and to rational choice-inspired theories, which they perceive to rest on an ontologically simplistic conception of human beings as hedonistic opportunists whose behaviour can be manipulated by adjustments of costs, benefits, opportunities and technologies of control.

Early romantic accounts of crime/delinquency as a form of seduction or proto-political resistance to the powerlessness and dull monotony of working life are now being challenged by late-modern hybrid theories. These theories examine the ways in which criminals are incorporated into consumerism's value-system and fantasies, as argued by Robert Reiner in his book Law and Order, yet initially excluded in their economic and social lives. Combining elements of strain theory with cultural theory and symbolic interactionism, Jock Young

Jock Young

This article is about the sociologist. For the rapper, see Yung JocJock Young is a British sociologist and criminologist.He began teaching at Enfield College of Technology....

, in The Exclusive Society, uses the metaphor of bulimia to depict the tense opposition between inclusion and exclusion. Simon Hallsworth and Keith Hayward adopt a similar approach in their respective works Street Crime and City Limits.

In further work Hayward reintroduces the Freudian term 'narcissism

Narcissism

Narcissism is a term with a wide range of meanings, depending on whether it is used to describe a central concept of psychoanalytic theory, a mental illness, a social or cultural problem, or simply a personality trait...

' to explain the insecure yet aggressive, acquisitive sentiments and motivations behind criminality. In Criminal Identities and Consumer Culture, Steve Hall

Steve Hall

Steve Hall born 10 July 1979 in St Helens, Merseyside, England is a rugby league player.Hall's position of choice is on the wing. He played for London Broncos, St. Helens and Widnes Vikings in the Super League and also French club Saint-Gaudens Bears....

, Simon Winlow

Simon Winlow

-Biography:Dr Simon Winlow is a British sociologist and criminologist working at the University of York, UK. Specialising in crime, violence, masculinity and criminology, he is an internationally respected ethnographer and theorist who produces 'qualitative sociology at its best'. His recent work...

and Craig Ancrum draw upon Continental philosophy

Continental philosophy

Continental philosophy, in contemporary usage, refers to a set of traditions of 19th and 20th century philosophy from mainland Europe. This sense of the term originated among English-speaking philosophers in the second half of the 20th century, who used it to refer to a range of thinkers and...

and Lacanian psychoanalysis to take late-modern hybrid theories to a new level of sophistication as they explain how the dynamic tension between inclusion and exclusion prolongs the narcissistic subject throughout the life-course in an aggressive struggle for identities of social distinction expressed by the acquisition and display of consumer culture's status-symbols.

Trait theories

At the other side of the spectrum, criminologist Lonnie Athens developed a theory about how a process of brutalization by parents or peers that usually occurs in childhood results in violent crimes in adulthood. Richard Rhodes

Richard Rhodes

Richard Lee Rhodes is an American journalist, historian, and author of both fiction and non-fiction , including the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Making of the Atomic Bomb , and most recently, The Twilight of the Bombs...

' Why They Kill describes Athens' observations about domestic and societal violence in the criminals' backgrounds. Both Athens and Rhodes reject the genetic inheritance theories.

Rational choice theory

Rational choice theory (criminology)

In criminology, the rational choice theory adopts a utilitarian belief that man is a reasoning actor who weighs means and ends, costs and benefits, and makes a ra...

is based on the utilitarian

Utilitarianism

, classical school philosophies of Cesare Beccaria, which were popularized by Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham

. They argued that punishment, if certain, swift, and proportionate to the crime, was a deterrent for crime, with risks outweighing possible benefits to the offender. In Dei delitti e delle pene (On Crimes and Punishments, 1763–1764), Beccaria advocated a rational penology

Penology

. Beccaria conceived of punishment as the necessary application of the law for a crime: thus, the judge was simply to conform his sentence to the law. Beccaria also distinguished between crime and sin

Sin

In religion, sin is the violation or deviation of an eternal divine law or standard. The term sin may also refer to the state of having committed such a violation. Christians believe the moral code of conduct is decreed by God In religion, sin (also called peccancy) is the violation or deviation...

, and advocated against the death penalty

Capital punishment

Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...

, as well as torture

Torture

Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...

and inhumane treatments, as he did not consider them as rational deterrents.

This philosophy was replaced by the Positivist and Chicago Schools, and not revived until the 1970s with the writings of James Q. Wilson

James Q. Wilson

James Q. Wilson is an American academic political scientist and an authority on public administration. He is a professor and senior fellow at the Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy at Boston College....

, Gary Becker

Gary Becker

Gary Stanley Becker is an American economist. He is a professor of economics, sociology at the University of Chicago and a professor at the Booth School of Business. He was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1992, and received the United States' Presidential Medal of Freedom...

's 1965 article titled "Crime and Punishment" and George Stigler

George Stigler

George Joseph Stigler was a U.S. economist. He won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1982, and was a key leader of the Chicago School of Economics, along with his close friend Milton Friedman....

's 1970 article "The Optimum Enforcement of Laws". Rational choice theory argues that criminals, like other people, weigh costs/risks and benefits when deciding whether or not to commit crime and think in economic

Economy

An economy consists of the economic system of a country or other area; the labor, capital and land resources; and the manufacturing, trade, distribution, and consumption of goods and services of that area...

terms. They will also try to minimize risks of crime by considering the time, place, and other situational factors.

Gary Becker, for example, acknowledged that many people operate under a high moral and ethical constraint, but considered that criminals rationally see that the benefits of their crime outweigh the cost such as the probability of apprehension, conviction, punishment, as well as their current set of opportunities. From the public policy perspective, since the cost of increasing the fine is marginal to that of the cost of increasing surveillance

Surveillance

Surveillance is the monitoring of the behavior, activities, or other changing information, usually of people. It is sometimes done in a surreptitious manner...

, one can conclude that the best policy is to maximize the fine and minimize surveillance.

With this perspective, crime prevention

Crime prevention

Crime prevention is the attempt to reduce victimization and to deter crime and criminals. It is applied specifically to efforts made by governments to reduce crime, enforce the law, and maintain criminal justice.-Studies:...

or reduction measures can be devised that increase effort required to commit the crime, such as target hardening. Rational choice theories also suggest that increasing risk of offending and likelihood of being caught, through added surveillance, police

Police

The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...

or security guard

Security guard

A security guard is a person who is paid to protect property, assets, or people. Security guards are usually privately and formally employed personnel...

presence, added street light

Street light

A street light, lamppost, street lamp, light standard, or lamp standard is a raised source of light on the edge of a road or walkway, which is turned on or lit at a certain time every night. Modern lamps may also have light-sensitive photocells to turn them on at dusk, off at dawn, or activate...

ing, and other measures, are effective in reducing crime.

One of the main differences between this theory and Jeremy Bentham's rational choice theory, which had been abandoned in criminology, is that if Bentham considered it possible to completely annihilate crime (through the panopticon

Panopticon

The Panopticon is a type of building designed by English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the late eighteenth century. The concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe all inmates of an institution without them being able to tell whether or not they are being watched...

), Becker's theory acknowledged that a society could not eradicate crime beneath a certain level. For example, if 25% of a supermarket's products were stolen, it would be very easy to reduce this rate to 15%, quite easy to reduce it until 5%, difficult to reduce it under 3% and nearly impossible to reduce it to zero (a feat which would cost the supermarket so much in surveillance, etc., that it would outweigh the benefits). This reveals that the goals of utilitarianism and classical liberalism

Classical liberalism

Classical liberalism is the philosophy committed to the ideal of limited government, constitutionalism, rule of law, due process, and liberty of individuals including freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and free markets....

have to be tempered and reduced to more modest proposals to be practically applicable.

Such rational choice theories, linked to neoliberalism

Neoliberalism

Neoliberalism is a market-driven approach to economic and social policy based on neoclassical theories of economics that emphasizes the efficiency of private enterprise, liberalized trade and relatively open markets, and therefore seeks to maximize the role of the private sector in determining the...

, have been at the basics of crime prevention through environmental design

Crime prevention through environmental design

Crime prevention through environmental design is a multi-disciplinary approach to deterring criminal behavior through environmental design. CPTED strategies rely upon the ability to influence offender decisions that precede criminal acts...

and underpin the Market Reduction Approach

Market Reduction Approach

In 1796, the London magistrate Patrick Colquhoun observed that "It rarely happens that thieves go upon the highway, or commit burglaries, until the money they have previously acquired is exhausted," and that "...without a safe and ready market he [the thief] is undone." Recognizing the key role...

to theft by Mike Sutton

Mike Sutton (criminologist)

Michael "Mike" Sutton is the originator of the Market Reduction Approach to theft. Described by Marcus Felson as classic research and as a simple idea, Sutton's MRA has had a significant influence upon theory and practice regarding stolen goods markets and markets for other illicit commodities...

, which is a systematic toolkit for those seeking to focus attention on "crime facilitators" by tackling the markets for stolen goods that provide motivation for thieves to supply them by theft.

Routine activity theory

Routine activity theory is a sub-field of rational choice and criminology, developed by Marcus Felson and Lawrence E. Cohen.Routine activity theory says that crime is normal and depends on the opportunities available. If a target is not protected enough, and if the reward is worth it, crime will...

, developed by Marcus Felson and Lawrence Cohen, draws upon control theories and explains crime in terms of crime opportunities that occur in everyday life. A crime opportunity requires that elements converge in time and place including (1) a motivated offender (2) suitable target or victim (3) lack of a capable guardian

Legal guardian

A legal guardian is a person who has the legal authority to care for the personal and property interests of another person, called a ward. Usually, a person has the status of guardian because the ward is incapable of caring for his or her own interests due to infancy, incapacity, or disability...

. A guardian at a place, such as a street, could include security guards or even ordinary pedestrian

Pedestrian

A pedestrian is a person traveling on foot, whether walking or running. In some communities, those traveling using roller skates or skateboards are also considered to be pedestrians. In modern times, the term mostly refers to someone walking on a road or footpath, but this was not the case...

s who would witness the criminal act and possibly intervene or report it to police. Routine activity theory was expanded by John Eck, who added a fourth element of "place manager" such as rental property managers who can take nuisance

Nuisance

Nuisance is a common law tort. It means that which causes offence, annoyance, trouble or injury. A nuisance can be either public or private. A public nuisance was defined by English scholar Sir J. F...

abatement measures.

Types and definitions of crime

Both the Positivist and Classical Schools take a consensus view of crime — that a crime is an act that violates the basic values and beliefs of society. Those values and beliefs are manifested as laws that society agrees upon. However, there are two types of laws:

Natural laws are rooted in core values shared by many cultures. Natural laws protect against harm to persons (e.g. murder, rape, assault) or property (theft, larceny, robbery), and form the basis of common law
Common law
Common law is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals rather than through legislative statutes or executive branch action...

systems.
Statutes
Statutory law
Statutory law or statute law is written law set down by a legislature or by a legislator .Statutes may originate with national, state legislatures or local municipalities...

are enacted by legislature
Legislature
A legislature is a kind of deliberative assembly with the power to pass, amend, and repeal laws. The law created by a legislature is called legislation or statutory law. In addition to enacting laws, legislatures usually have exclusive authority to raise or lower taxes and adopt the budget and...

s and reflect current cultural mores
Mores
Mores, in sociology, are any given society's particular norms, virtues, or values. The word mores is a plurale tantum term borrowed from Latin, which has been used in the English language since the 1890s....

, albeit that some laws may be controversial, e.g. laws that prohibit cannabis
Cannabis
Cannabis is a genus of flowering plants that includes three putative species, Cannabis sativa, Cannabis indica, and Cannabis ruderalis. These three taxa are indigenous to Central Asia, and South Asia. Cannabis has long been used for fibre , for seed and seed oils, for medicinal purposes, and as a...

use and gambling
Gambling
Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods...

. Marxist criminology
Marxist criminology
Marxist criminology is one of the schools of criminology. It parallels the work of the functionalist school which focuses on what produces stability and continuity in society but, unlike the functionalists, it adopts a predefined political philosophy...

, Conflict criminology
Conflict criminology
Largely based on the writings of Karl Marx, conflict criminology claims that crime is inevitable in capitalist societies, as invariably certain groups will become marginalised and unequal. In seeking equality, members of these groups may often turn to crime in order to gain the material wealth...

and Critical Criminology claim that most relationships between state
State (polity)
A state is an organized political community, living under a government. States may be sovereign and may enjoy a monopoly on the legal initiation of force and are not dependent on, or subject to any other power or state. Many states are federated states which participate in a federal union...

and citizen
Citizenship
Citizenship is the state of being a citizen of a particular social, political, national, or human resource community. Citizenship status, under social contract theory, carries with it both rights and responsibilities...

are non-consensual and, as such, criminal law
Criminal law
Criminal law, is the body of law that relates to crime. It might be defined as the body of rules that defines conduct that is not allowed because it is held to threaten, harm or endanger the safety and welfare of people, and that sets out the punishment to be imposed on people who do not obey...

is not necessarily representative of public beliefs and wishes: it is exercised in the interests of the ruling or dominant class. The more right wing criminologies tend to posit that there is a consensual social contract
Social contract
The social contract is an intellectual device intended to explain the appropriate relationship between individuals and their governments. Social contract arguments assert that individuals unite into political societies by a process of mutual consent, agreeing to abide by common rules and accept...

between State and citizen.

Therefore, definitions of crimes will vary from place to place, in accordance to the cultural norms

Norm (sociology)

and mores, but may be broadly classified as blue-collar crime

Blue-collar crime

In criminology, blue-collar crime is any crime committed by an individual from a lower social class as opposed to white-collar crime which is associated with crime committed by individuals of a higher social class.-Crime and unemployment:...

, corporate crime

Corporate crime

In criminology, corporate crime refers to crimes committed either by a corporation , or by individuals acting on behalf of a corporation or other business entity...

, organized crime

Organized crime

Organized crime or criminal organizations are transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals for the purpose of engaging in illegal activity, most commonly for monetary profit. Some criminal organizations, such as terrorist organizations, are...

, political crime

Political crime

In criminology, a political crime is an offence involving overt acts or omissions , which prejudice the interests of the state, its government or the political system...

, public order crime

Public order crime

In criminology, public-order crime is defined by Siegel as "...crime which involves acts that interfere with the operations of society and the ability of people to function efficiently", i.e. it is behaviour that has been labelled criminal because it is contrary to shared norms, social values, and...

, state crime

State crime

In criminology, state crime is activity or failures to act that break the state's own criminal law or public international law. For these purposes, Ross defines a "state" as the elected and appointed officials, the bureaucracy, and the institutions, bodies and organisations comprising the...

, state-corporate crime

State-corporate crime

In criminology, the concept of state-corporate crime refers to crimes that result from Public-private partnership and inherent distorted relations of the state and the policies and practices of commercial corporations surfacing as budget-bonus crime. The term was coined by Kramer and Michalowski ,...

, and white-collar crime

White-collar crime

Within the field of criminology, white-collar crime has been defined by Edwin Sutherland as "a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation" . Sutherland was a proponent of Symbolic Interactionism, and believed that criminal behavior was...

. However, there have been moves in contemporary criminological theory to move away from liberal pluralism, culturalism and postmodernism by introducing the universal term 'harm' into the criminological debate as a replacement for the legal term 'crime' .

Causes and correlates of crime

Many different causes and correlates of crime

Causes and correlates of crime

Many different causes and correlates of crime have been proposed with varying degree of empirical support.-Research and sources:The causes of crime is one of the major research areas in criminology....

have been proposed with varying degree of empirical support.

Subtopics

Areas of study in criminology include:

Comparative criminology, which is the study of the social phenomenon of crime across cultures, to identify differences and similarities in crime patterns.
Crime prevention
Crime prevention
Crime prevention is the attempt to reduce victimization and to deter crime and criminals. It is applied specifically to efforts made by governments to reduce crime, enforce the law, and maintain criminal justice.-Studies:...
Crime statistics
Crime statistics
Crime statistics attempt to provide statistical measures of the crime in societies. Given that crime is usually secretive by nature, measurements of it are likely to be inaccurate....
Criminal behavior
Criminal careers and desistance
Domestic violence
Domestic violence
Domestic violence, also known as domestic abuse, spousal abuse, battering, family violence, and intimate partner violence , is broadly defined as a pattern of abusive behaviors by one or both partners in an intimate relationship such as marriage, dating, family, or cohabitation...
Deviant behavior
Deviant Behavior
Deviant Behavior is an interdisciplinary journal which focuses on social deviance, including criminal, sexual, and narcotic behaviors.The journal is published by Taylor and Francis, Inc., and was ranked 41st out of 46 psychology journals and 46th out of 90 sociology journals in 2004 by the...
Evaluation
Evaluation
Evaluation is systematic determination of merit, worth, and significance of something or someone using criteria against a set of standards.Evaluation often is used to characterize and appraise subjects of interest in a wide range of human enterprises, including the arts, criminal justice,...

of criminal justice agencies
Fear of crime
Fear of crime
The fear of crime refers to the fear of being a victim of crime as opposed to the actual probability of being a victim of crime.The fear of crime, along with fear of the streets and the fear of youth, is said to have been in Western culture for "time immemorial"...
The International Crime Victims Survey
Juvenile delinquency
Juvenile delinquency
Juvenile delinquency is participation in illegal behavior by minors who fall under a statutory age limit. Most legal systems prescribe specific procedures for dealing with juveniles, such as juvenile detention centers. There are a multitude of different theories on the causes of crime, most if not...
Penology
Penology
Penology is a section of criminology that deals with the philosophy and practice of various societies in their attempts to repress criminal activities, and satisfy public opinion via an appropriate treatment regime for persons convicted of criminal offenses.The Oxford English Dictionary defines...
Sociology of law
Sociology of law
The sociology of law is often described as a sub-discipline of sociology or an interdisciplinary approach within legal studies...
Victimology
Victimology
Victimology is the scientific study of victimization, including the relationships between victims and offenders, the interactions between victims and the criminal justice system — that is, the police and courts, and corrections officials — and the connections between victims and other social groups...

Schools of thought

Classical School

Positivist School

Italian School

Sociological positivism

Differential Association (Subcultural)

Chicago School

Theories of crime

Social structure theories

Social disorganization (neighborhoods)

Social ecology

Strain theory (social class)

Subcultural theory

Control theories

Symbolic interactionism

Labeling Theory

Contemporary cultural and critical criminology

Trait theories

Rational choice theory

Routine activity theory

Types and definitions of crime

Causes and correlates of crime

Subtopics

See also