Week 1,
part 1: Understanding crime and criminology
- Crime: legal/law
- Deviance: social point of view
- What is criminology?
- -Logy = systematic (scientific, methodolical) study of something
- Crimen (latin) = act of breaking a law, or the judicial process, and/or the process of
criminalization
- Term criminology goes back to the 1850s
- Criminology as a discipline originated in England, italy, France & US
- Roots of criminology as a social science
- Italy/France - criminal anthropology – Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909)
- Italy – philosophy/penology - cesare beccaria (1738-1794)
- UK – philosophy/penology - Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)
- France – social psychology – Gabriel Tarde (1834-1904)
- France – sociology – Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
- USA - (urban) sociology – W.E.B. Du Bous (1896_1917) + Chicago school (1920/30s) (Robert
Park)
- Multi-disciplinary science – disciplinary hybridity
- Sociology, psychology, legal studies, anthropology, public management, economics
- Also uses insights from exact sciences
- Defining, understanding & controlling crime
- Sub-disciplines
- Sociological/critical approach
o How society influences crime
o Power dimension: political-economy
o Global-local
- Definitions:
o The study of crime, criminals and criminal justice
o Making laws, breaking laws and of reacting towards the breaking of laws
- Sociological:
o Focus on human society, rather than individuals
o Social divisions – class, race/etnicity, gender, age
- Sociological imagination (Mills):
o Questioning common sense
o Personal problems – public and political issues
o Connect history, biography & society
- Criminological imagination (Young)
o Biography- history – society
o Crime is a sociological concept
o Crime is a social construct
o Crime control and punishment shaped by history and society
o Critical: power dimensions and inequalities
o Cultural: meaning
o The twilight zone between the legal and the illegal
- What is crime according to criminologists? Ongoing debate
,- Traditionally: violation of criminal law (legalistic)
- Paul tappan (1947):
- Only when prosecuted and found guilty
- State defines what crime is
- Edwin sutherland (1940):
- What about white-collar crime?
- Social injury + posible legal sanctions – criminal AND civil
- Howard S. Becker (1963)
- Crime is an act that is labelled as crime
- Deviance (violation of social norms)
- Social context matters
- Crime is a social construct
- Moving away from state-defined acts
- Herman schwendinger & Julia Schwendinger (1970):
- Violations of human rights of individuals
- Including imperialistic war, racism, sexism, poverty
- Any state can make laws to suit proposes of the ruling political party
- Criminologists are not defenders of order, but guardians of human rights
- William (Bill) Chambluss (1988)
- Violation of a state’s own laws
- State-organized crime
- David Friedrichts (2007):
- Criminologists must distinuish between
o Those governmental or political actions prohibited by international law, and
o Those actions regarderd as criminal on some other criteria or harmfulness not
necessarily recognized by either the state’s laws or international law
- Social harms perspective
o Not the law but harm as a criterium
- what's different?
o Challenges power (who makes the laws?)
o Includes mass harms
o Allocates responsibility
o Focuses policy responses on reducing harms
- Take away 1: Broadening perspectives on crime
- Crime as contested concept to use as basis for a scientific discipline
- Legalistic approach: formal legal definition; defined by the state; proscribed by criminal law,
state sanction
- Legalistic but beyond criminal law: also civil and administratie penalties
- Social constructionist approach: labelling: crime exists only when a particular act is labelled
as crime by the state and/or by society; should not necessarily attract penalty
- Social constructionist: social harm conception: some type of harm; harm should attract some
sort of penalty
- Universalist approach: crime is what violates human rights – also by states
- Public perceptions of the seriousness of crime plays an important role in modern criminal
justice systems: sentencing, allocation of police resources, prioritizing the prosecution of
offenders
, - Takeaway: the public's perception of the (moral) wrongfulness of a given act often does not
reflect the perceived or objective harm that it causes
- Take-aways 2: defining crime
- Society's perception of the seriousness or (moral) wrongfulness of a given act does not
reflect the perceived or objective harm that it causes
- The legality and illegality of behaviour varies widely according to (national, cultural,
historical) context;
- BUT often reflects the interests of those with the most political-economic power and
influence
- Cultural and historical variation, but similar implicit assumption: the power to determine
what is or is not a crime resides in the nation state;
- Can a global community define what crime is?
Part 2; criminalization & victimization
Worldbank building of dam in Thailand
- Criminalised due to:
o Health, harm, psychological, environment (biodiversity) perspectives
- Legalistic notion of crime: when the crime is in the law to be punisehd etc.
- Something is too insignificant to be a crime when
- Crime can be defined in terms of:
- Criminal offences – determined by law to be a crime
- Social construction – determined by society/individuals to be a crime
- Often no agreement on criminalization
- Changes with person, time, place, cultures etc.
- Criminologists defining crime
o Garofalo (1885): natural crime .. religious idea of sin
o Durkheim (1895): link to culture... crime as normal and functional/ part of society
o Bonger (1932): social harm/ moral idea (subcategory of immorality
o Sutherland (US, 1945): shouldn't look at criminal law, powerfull ones have
criminalised it
o Paul Tappan: democracy decides
o Becker (1963): labelling, crime as a social construct / crime as a reaction / start of
criminology – influence of the powerful
o Hulsman (1986): abolitionism (restorative jsutice) / no ontological reality /
problematic events
o Hagan (2001): crime because someone criminalized it/ criminal jstice system &
government
o Late modern conceptions of crime
- Becker – moral entrepreneurs
o Moral crusaders
Moral panics
Ends > means
Rely on experts to make laws
o Rule enforces
Institutionalized crusade
Justify own position
Win respect
, - Smoking ban
- Grounds for criminalization (making something a crime):
o Harms
o Wrongs (might not harm anyone but is not accepted in the society)
o Instrumental – to maintain public order (Covid lockdowns)
o Symbolic
o Grounds often overlap
- Victimization
- Emergence of victims in criminology and criminal justice
o Victim historically forgottten in criminology and in criminal justice systems
o Focuses on the public vs the offender
o Interests of victims in criminal justice system (Margery Fry – victim movement)
o Influence of feminist movement
o Mass media influence
o Since 1960s focus on vulnerable groups
- Victim surveys so more knowledge
o 1989, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2005
o International crime and victim survey:
o 300,000 people in 78 countries
o Very valuable since many countries do not have trustworthy police statistics
o Internationally comparable
o Types of crime, fear of crime, attitude towards police, safety measures taken
o Questionable because not everyone responds and not everyone is honest
- Some important findings:
- 25% of citizens living in urban areas have suffered at least one form of victimization over the
past 12 months
- Significantly higher levels of victimization in developing countries (33-34%)
- Victims in western europe, north america (US and Canada) and Australia and New Zealand
are much more likely to report their victimization to police
- Because of trust in the police, cultural components, social consequences, higher rates of
corruption
- The extent of victimization:
o Considerable geographical and social patterning to crime: many offenders commit
offences within short distance of their own homes
o In nearly 50% of cases, offender is known to victim
o Social variation in crime victimization:
o Socio-economic class: socially marginalized living in poor areas are most vulnerable
to crime
o Age: 16-24 most likely to be victims
o Gender: men , more likely victims of physical violence; women: more likely
victimized in the home
o Ethnicity: ethnic minorities face substancially greater risk of victimization
o Intersectionaility: a victim is a victim because of all different reasons
- Victim surveys; pros and cons
o Pros:
Measures both reported and unreported crime
Independent of changes in reporting
part 1: Understanding crime and criminology
- Crime: legal/law
- Deviance: social point of view
- What is criminology?
- -Logy = systematic (scientific, methodolical) study of something
- Crimen (latin) = act of breaking a law, or the judicial process, and/or the process of
criminalization
- Term criminology goes back to the 1850s
- Criminology as a discipline originated in England, italy, France & US
- Roots of criminology as a social science
- Italy/France - criminal anthropology – Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909)
- Italy – philosophy/penology - cesare beccaria (1738-1794)
- UK – philosophy/penology - Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)
- France – social psychology – Gabriel Tarde (1834-1904)
- France – sociology – Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
- USA - (urban) sociology – W.E.B. Du Bous (1896_1917) + Chicago school (1920/30s) (Robert
Park)
- Multi-disciplinary science – disciplinary hybridity
- Sociology, psychology, legal studies, anthropology, public management, economics
- Also uses insights from exact sciences
- Defining, understanding & controlling crime
- Sub-disciplines
- Sociological/critical approach
o How society influences crime
o Power dimension: political-economy
o Global-local
- Definitions:
o The study of crime, criminals and criminal justice
o Making laws, breaking laws and of reacting towards the breaking of laws
- Sociological:
o Focus on human society, rather than individuals
o Social divisions – class, race/etnicity, gender, age
- Sociological imagination (Mills):
o Questioning common sense
o Personal problems – public and political issues
o Connect history, biography & society
- Criminological imagination (Young)
o Biography- history – society
o Crime is a sociological concept
o Crime is a social construct
o Crime control and punishment shaped by history and society
o Critical: power dimensions and inequalities
o Cultural: meaning
o The twilight zone between the legal and the illegal
- What is crime according to criminologists? Ongoing debate
,- Traditionally: violation of criminal law (legalistic)
- Paul tappan (1947):
- Only when prosecuted and found guilty
- State defines what crime is
- Edwin sutherland (1940):
- What about white-collar crime?
- Social injury + posible legal sanctions – criminal AND civil
- Howard S. Becker (1963)
- Crime is an act that is labelled as crime
- Deviance (violation of social norms)
- Social context matters
- Crime is a social construct
- Moving away from state-defined acts
- Herman schwendinger & Julia Schwendinger (1970):
- Violations of human rights of individuals
- Including imperialistic war, racism, sexism, poverty
- Any state can make laws to suit proposes of the ruling political party
- Criminologists are not defenders of order, but guardians of human rights
- William (Bill) Chambluss (1988)
- Violation of a state’s own laws
- State-organized crime
- David Friedrichts (2007):
- Criminologists must distinuish between
o Those governmental or political actions prohibited by international law, and
o Those actions regarderd as criminal on some other criteria or harmfulness not
necessarily recognized by either the state’s laws or international law
- Social harms perspective
o Not the law but harm as a criterium
- what's different?
o Challenges power (who makes the laws?)
o Includes mass harms
o Allocates responsibility
o Focuses policy responses on reducing harms
- Take away 1: Broadening perspectives on crime
- Crime as contested concept to use as basis for a scientific discipline
- Legalistic approach: formal legal definition; defined by the state; proscribed by criminal law,
state sanction
- Legalistic but beyond criminal law: also civil and administratie penalties
- Social constructionist approach: labelling: crime exists only when a particular act is labelled
as crime by the state and/or by society; should not necessarily attract penalty
- Social constructionist: social harm conception: some type of harm; harm should attract some
sort of penalty
- Universalist approach: crime is what violates human rights – also by states
- Public perceptions of the seriousness of crime plays an important role in modern criminal
justice systems: sentencing, allocation of police resources, prioritizing the prosecution of
offenders
, - Takeaway: the public's perception of the (moral) wrongfulness of a given act often does not
reflect the perceived or objective harm that it causes
- Take-aways 2: defining crime
- Society's perception of the seriousness or (moral) wrongfulness of a given act does not
reflect the perceived or objective harm that it causes
- The legality and illegality of behaviour varies widely according to (national, cultural,
historical) context;
- BUT often reflects the interests of those with the most political-economic power and
influence
- Cultural and historical variation, but similar implicit assumption: the power to determine
what is or is not a crime resides in the nation state;
- Can a global community define what crime is?
Part 2; criminalization & victimization
Worldbank building of dam in Thailand
- Criminalised due to:
o Health, harm, psychological, environment (biodiversity) perspectives
- Legalistic notion of crime: when the crime is in the law to be punisehd etc.
- Something is too insignificant to be a crime when
- Crime can be defined in terms of:
- Criminal offences – determined by law to be a crime
- Social construction – determined by society/individuals to be a crime
- Often no agreement on criminalization
- Changes with person, time, place, cultures etc.
- Criminologists defining crime
o Garofalo (1885): natural crime .. religious idea of sin
o Durkheim (1895): link to culture... crime as normal and functional/ part of society
o Bonger (1932): social harm/ moral idea (subcategory of immorality
o Sutherland (US, 1945): shouldn't look at criminal law, powerfull ones have
criminalised it
o Paul Tappan: democracy decides
o Becker (1963): labelling, crime as a social construct / crime as a reaction / start of
criminology – influence of the powerful
o Hulsman (1986): abolitionism (restorative jsutice) / no ontological reality /
problematic events
o Hagan (2001): crime because someone criminalized it/ criminal jstice system &
government
o Late modern conceptions of crime
- Becker – moral entrepreneurs
o Moral crusaders
Moral panics
Ends > means
Rely on experts to make laws
o Rule enforces
Institutionalized crusade
Justify own position
Win respect
, - Smoking ban
- Grounds for criminalization (making something a crime):
o Harms
o Wrongs (might not harm anyone but is not accepted in the society)
o Instrumental – to maintain public order (Covid lockdowns)
o Symbolic
o Grounds often overlap
- Victimization
- Emergence of victims in criminology and criminal justice
o Victim historically forgottten in criminology and in criminal justice systems
o Focuses on the public vs the offender
o Interests of victims in criminal justice system (Margery Fry – victim movement)
o Influence of feminist movement
o Mass media influence
o Since 1960s focus on vulnerable groups
- Victim surveys so more knowledge
o 1989, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2005
o International crime and victim survey:
o 300,000 people in 78 countries
o Very valuable since many countries do not have trustworthy police statistics
o Internationally comparable
o Types of crime, fear of crime, attitude towards police, safety measures taken
o Questionable because not everyone responds and not everyone is honest
- Some important findings:
- 25% of citizens living in urban areas have suffered at least one form of victimization over the
past 12 months
- Significantly higher levels of victimization in developing countries (33-34%)
- Victims in western europe, north america (US and Canada) and Australia and New Zealand
are much more likely to report their victimization to police
- Because of trust in the police, cultural components, social consequences, higher rates of
corruption
- The extent of victimization:
o Considerable geographical and social patterning to crime: many offenders commit
offences within short distance of their own homes
o In nearly 50% of cases, offender is known to victim
o Social variation in crime victimization:
o Socio-economic class: socially marginalized living in poor areas are most vulnerable
to crime
o Age: 16-24 most likely to be victims
o Gender: men , more likely victims of physical violence; women: more likely
victimized in the home
o Ethnicity: ethnic minorities face substancially greater risk of victimization
o Intersectionaility: a victim is a victim because of all different reasons
- Victim surveys; pros and cons
o Pros:
Measures both reported and unreported crime
Independent of changes in reporting
