DEFINING CRIMINOLOGY
THE CRIMINAL LAW
DEVELOPMENT OF ACADEMIC CRIMINOLOGY
THEORIES OF CRIME
POLITICS/IDEOLOGY
INTRODUCTION TO
CRIMINOLOGY
DEFINING CRIMINOLOGY
• Edwin Sutherland’s definition
• The scientific study of lawmaking,
lawbreaking, and the response to
lawbreaking
• Lawmaking = how laws are
created/changed
• Lawbreaking = nature/extent of crime
• Reaction = police, courts, corrections
• Science vs. other ways of knowing stuff
CRIMINOLOGY VS. CRIMINAL JUSTICE
• Criminal Justice
• The study of agencies related to the control of crime
• Criminology
• The study of crime trends, nature of crime, theories of crime
• Reality? Two sides of the same coin
CRIMINOLOGY VS. DEVIANCE
• Criminology focuses on crimes
• Crime = violation of criminal law
• Deviance focuses on violations of societal norms
• These may or may not also be law violations
• Can you think of a norm violation that is not a law?
• How about a law violation that does not violate a
norm?
TYPES OF LAW
• Criminal Law
• Procedural vs. Substantive
• Statutory vs. Common
• Civil Law
• Tort law
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SUBSTANTIVE VS. PROCEDURAL LAW
• Substantive Law
• Written code that defines crimes and punishments
• Procedural Law
• Governs actors in the criminal justice system (e.g., when
can the police search your vehicle?)
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COMMON LAW V. STATUTORY LAW
Common Law is judge-made
law. The law is found in
previously decided cases.
Statutory Laws are derived from
legislative acts that decide the
definition of the behavior that is
codified into law.
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CRIMINAL AND TORT LAW
• A public offense
• Enforcement is state
business
• Punishment is often
loss of liberties or
sometimes death
• Fines go to the state
• State doesn’t ordinarily
appeal
• Proof beyond a
reasonable doubt
• A civil or private wrong
• Individuals bring action
• Sanction is normally
monetary damages
• Both parties can appeal
• Individuals receives the
compensation for harm
done
• “Preponderance of the
evidence” is required
for a decision.
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SERIOUSNESS OF CRIMES I
Mala in se
• Wrong or evil in
themselves
• Core of legal code
• Homicide
• Robbery
Mala prohibita
• Wrong because they
are prohibited
• Change over time and
across society
• Prostitution
• Gambling
SERIOUSNESS OF CRIMES II
FELONY
MISDEMEANOR
More serious offenses
Less serious offenses
Punishable by death
or imprisonment for
more than a year in a
state prison.
Punishable by incarceration for less than a
year in a local jail or
house of correction.
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A CRIMINAL LAW MUST INDICATE A
TYPE OF INTENT AND A SPECIFIC
BEHAVIOR
• Actus Reas
• Physical act must be voluntary
• If crime is“Failure to act,” there must be legal
obligation.
• Statutory Obligation, Relationship between parties,
Contract
• Mens Rea
• General or specific intent
• Transferred Intent
• Negligence
• Strict Liability Offenses
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SPECIFIC CRIMINAL DEFENSES
• Deny the Actus Reas (I didn’t do it)
• Deny the Mens Rea
• Ignorance / Mistake
• Intoxication?
• Insanity Defense
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WHO DOES THE LAW SERVE?
Consensus view
• Law results from societal agreement on what
behaviors are most harmful
• Laws apply to all citizens equally
Conflict view
• Law results from conflict over what behavior should be
criminalized
• Those with the most power define what is criminal and
often use the law to protect their interests
Which is correct?
CRIMINOLOGY AS A DISCIPLINE
 Until the 1970s, there was no “criminology” or
“criminal justice” degree
 Sociology became the dominant disciple
 Still contributions from biology, psychology, political science
 1980-Present
 Criminology emerging as separate entity
 PhD in Criminology/Criminal Justice now the norm
 Still debate about whether Criminology is a distinct
discipline
 Organized around a class of behaviors rather than a distinct
way of looking at the world
 Sociologists still see criminology as a “sub-discipline” of sociology
SOCIOLOGICAL CRIMINOLOGY—GOOD
& BAD
• Good: Focus on social structure and inequality;
healthy skepticism (debunking)
• Bad: Ignore/ridicule “outside” disciplines and their
focus on individual differences
• The Irony? Psychologists and biologists believe that social
forces are as (or more) important than individual differences
• This class will explore crime from a multidisciplinary
lens
A CRUDE HISTORY OF CRIMINOLOGY
• Demonic Perspective pre-1750s
• Crime as god’s will, result of demonic
possession
• Classical School (1750s-1900; 1970s to now)
• Utilitarian philosophy (Becarria, Bentham)
•
•
•
•
A response to an unjust/arbitrary legal system
Free will, humans use a “hedonistic calculus”
Rational legal code  less crime
Basis of deterrence theory
CRUDE HISTORY—PART II
• Positive School (1900-present)
• Crime is “caused” by outside forces (determinism)
• Solution is to fix these causes (medical model, rehab)
• Scientific research on offenders, crime (not law)
• Different types of positivism
•
•
•
•
Bio/psych determinism (1900-1920s)
Sociological theory (1920s-Present)
Critical theories (1960s-early 1970s)
Developmental Theory (1990s-present)
CRIME THEORY
• Backbone of criminology
• Scientific Theory
• Must be able to test theory
• A GOOD theory survives empirical testing
• Empirical = real world observations
• Some theories are sexier than others
• Parsimony
• Scope
• Usefulness of policy implications
FLOW CHART FOR EVALUATION
NO = Useless,
stop here
Falsifiable?
Logical?
YES
Yes
Empirical
Evidence?
Evaluate the
Following:
•Scope
•Parsimony
•Policy Implications
NO: Modify/Discard
EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE IS THE KEY
• Theories attempt to demonstrate cause-effect
• Criteria for causation in social science using a
poverty  crime example
• Time ordering: poverty happens before crime
• Correlation: X is related to Y
• Relationship is not spurious (e.g., low self-control causes
both poverty and crime)
METHODS FOR GENERATING EVIDENCE
• Experiment
• Key is randomly assigned groups
• Only factor that effects outcome is group difference at start
of experiment
• Limit = artificial nature
EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN
METHODS FOR GENERATING EVIDENCE
II
• Non-experimental
• Survey research
• Cross sectional  Stimulant Study
• Longitudinal
• Limit = how to rule out spuriousness
• Upside = ask whatever you want
IDEOLOGY IN CRIMINOLOGY
• Walter Miller
• Ideology is the “permanent hidden agenda of
Criminal Justice”
• What is “Ideology?”
• American Political Ideology
• Liberal/Progressive Ideology
• Conservative Ideology
• Radical Ideology
DOMINANT IDEOLOGIES IN U.S.
CONSERVATIES
• Value
order/stability,
respect for authority
• People get what
they deserve
• Crime caused by
poor choice (Free
will)
LIBERALS
• Value equal
opportunities and
individual rights
• Success/failure
depends on outside
forces and where you
start
• Crime is caused by
outside influences
IMPLICATIONS OF IDEOLOGY FOR
CRIME AND JUSTICE
• Conservatives tend to fit with “Classical School”
• “Neo-Classical” = deterrence, incapacitation
• James Q. Wilson’s “policy analysis”
• Liberal/Progressive fit with positive school
• Favor decriminalizing some acts
• “Root causes” of crime only fixed by social change
• Rehabilitation may be possible
• Elliott Currie = ample evidence that government can address
social ills and prevent crime
• Radical = Marxist/conflict theory
IDEOLOGY AS “HIDDEN AGENDA”
• Many policies and programs are driven more by
ideology than empirical evidence
• Intensive supervision probation (conservatives)
• Restorative justice (liberals)
THE “MARTINSON REPORT” (MR)
• The “Martinson Report” was review of studies on
rehabilitation published in the early 1970s
• Concluded that not much is working
• Used by politicians as the reason for abandoning
rehab
• Social Context of the 1960s
• Hippies, Watergate, Attica, Viet Nam, Kent State…
• Conservatives? SKY IS FALLING
• Liberals? Cannot trust the government
• Reality = liberals and conservatives were both “ready” to
pull the plug on rehabilitation
THE LIMITS OF EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE
• Criminologists tend to be cautions with conclusions
• All studies are flawed in some way
• Politicians and public tend to “over generalize”
from a single study
• This can lead to bad policy
• RAND Felony Probation study
• Domestic Violence Experiments
GOOD THEORY MAKES GOOD POLICY…
• In a perfect world, programs and policies would
flow from empirically supported theories of crime
• Unfortunately, people often “shoot from hip”
• Policy without Theory
• The “panacea” problem: scared straight, intensive
probation, boot camps, warm and fuzzy circle…
• Some hope in “evidence-based” movement
• Multisystemic Therapy (MST)
• Targets for change = parental supervision, delinquent friends,
reducing rewards for deviance…