Introduction to Criminology & Criminal Justice
Introduction
 Purpose of this part of the lecture:
 Briefly outline the module and the handbook
 Introduce the assignments
 Discuss seminar arrangements and expectations
 Then – lecture one: What are crime and deviance?
Module content
 Part 1: Crime, deviance and the law
 The nature of crime and how we define it
 The criminal legal system, offences and defences
 Part 2: Responding to crime and criminal behaviour
 The CJS: Police, CPS and the Courts
 Part 3: Explaining (and controlling) crime and criminal
behaviour
 What is criminology?
 Why do people commit crime? (Key approaches)
 What do we do about crime? (Punishment and prevention)
Module in context
 Crime is relative to law – varies across time and place (more
later)
 ‘Crime’ not always best controlled by police and courts
 Crime is diverse behaviour
 Crime may be explained from many different perspectives
 The things we do to reduce crime may actually make it
‘worse’
Some terms
 Criminal justice system
 Broadest term referring to ‘organised’ attempts to deal
with crime through detection, apprehension and
punishment
 Includes police (but they also do crime prevention)
 Can be divided into two key functions:


Prosecution (police, CPS, courts)
Punishment (courts, prison, probation service, etc.)
Some terms
 Penal system
 Part of the CJS that punishes
 I.e. Deals (usually) with those who have been convicted
of a criminal offence
 + remand/unfit to plead
 Any questions so far?
Introduction
 In this first session we will consider the nature of
crime
 How do we know what ‘crime’ is?
 Two competing explanations/approaches
 Black letter law
 Social constructionism
Black letter law approach
 Simply: Crime is a violation of the criminal law
 E.g. OED: “an act punishable by law, as being
forbidden by statute or injurious to the public welfare.
An evil or injurious act, an offence.”
 Meaning?
BLL approach
 More precisely:
Only those are criminals who have been adjudicated as
such by the courts. Crime is an intentional act in
violation of the criminal law...committed without
defence or excuse and penalised by the state as a felony
or misdemeanour (Tappan, 1947: 100)
 Meaning?
 What role has the State?
BLL approach and the State
 Who has the power to define crime under BLL?
 Crime is defined by law
 Law is made by the State (i.e. political authority)
 So crime is made by the State.
Political authority to make law
 Arrangements are legitimate
 Based on democratic warrant, i.e.:
 We allow it
 It is done on our behalf
 Law and systems associated with it (inc. CJS) stand
above social, political, economic processes
 I.e. Everyone is subject to and no-one is above the law
 Law is significant part of social contract that makes
society possible
Social contract
 How states/societies are formed
 Notion that we agree to give up some rights/freedoms to a
government or other authority in return for protection and
the maintenance of social order (through law)
 Note: AGREEMENT
 More on this after Christmas in the Rational Actor Model
lecture
Key assumptions
 Law (and CJ) is applied uniformly to all – is it?
Rodney King:
race & ethnicity
Social elite
Middle class
‘feminine’
women
Political elite
Key assumptions
 Crime is something we all abhor
 I.e. There is some consensus about what is/ is not
proscribed (illegal)
Key assumptions
 What is a crime (thus illegal) has some kind of
universalistic quality (we just know it should be and
always will be)
Key assumptions
 People who commit crime do so of own free will
(debate this more later in term 2)
 State has duty to punish offenders
 Broke social contract – deserved
 Protect social life – prevent
BLL Definition: Advantages
 Rests on recognition of importance of human action
 Acknowledges need for appropriate procedures in
adjudicatory processes (judgement)
 Attempts to bring consistency
 Introduces some degree of certainty and robustness
 Provides for a degree of flexibility
BLL Definition: Disadvantages
 Argument tautological (circular) (e.g. Muncie &
McLaughlin, 2001: 9)
 Approach does not consider why some behaviours illegal
and others not
 And why some acts now seen as ‘disorderly’ and subject to
control and others not
 And whether there is truly agreement
 Suggests there is continuity in what counts as crime
 But this varies greatly between different societies and over
time
BLL Definition: Disadvantages
 Takes no view of variation in formal implementation of law
 Exaggerates extent of support for law
 Underestimates extent of crime
 Many ‘crimes’ committed are never prosecuted – are these
then not crimes?
 Many injurious acts are committed but not defined as crime
 Many theorists will argue crime is not freely
chosen/intentional
Social constructionism
 Simply: Crime is constructed by those in society
with the power to do so
 To understand criminal behaviour need to
comprehend:
 Actor’s motivations in committing offence
 Complex social processes surrounding law making (and
repeal) and implementation

I.e. Criminalisation process
Social constructionism: An example
killing badgers (cull)
 To consider this, have number of tasks:
 (1) Comprehend motivation of ‘killers’ (why do they do it?)


Take into account meanings and intentions people prescribe to own
behaviour
And the ways these meanings have been shaped by social structures
they have experienced
 Remember, killing badgers, disturbing setts, cruelty etc.
illegal under the 1992 Protection of Badgers Act, with licensed
exceptions…..
Vs
Social constructionism: An example
killing badgers (cull)
 (2) Comprehend the law creation
business
 How have laws been shaped by particular
groups? (Leading to odd patterns of what
is/isn’t illegal)
Social constructionism: An example
 (3) Understand enforcement processes and
implementation of laws by different groups
 E.g. Border Agency, police, CPS, courts
 Also accounting for influence of subsequent processes
of interactions between ‘actors’ (basically – who gets
‘done’ and why them?)
Assumptions
 Social order rests on an uneasy truce between diverse
groups
 There is no consensus acting as bedrock of law
 Modern societies can be seen as:


Pluralist (consist of many different groups) or as
Dominated by particular groups with necessary economic,
political, military, cultural and/or social weight (‘the
powerful’)
 Existence of legal rational authority actually quite recent
and may not be permanent (cf. Totalitarianism)
Assumptions
 Law and crime caught up in the way those who
dominate try to control subordinate groups
 So need to understand how/why specific laws are
implemented against specific groups
Social groups create deviance by making the rules whose
infraction constitutes deviance, and by applying those
rules to particular people and labelling them as
outsiders... (Becker, 1963: 9)
 So deviance is not about the act, it is a consequence of
the label applied to it
Labelling & construction: deviance
 “Social groups create deviance by making the rules
whose infraction constitutes deviance, and by applying
those rules to particular people and labelling them as
outsiders . . .”
(Becker, 1963: 9)
• So, deviance is not about the act, it is a consequence of
the label applied to it
• Deviance: socially unacceptable behaviour (not
necessarily illegal)
What’s in a name?
 A deviant is a person to whom the label has been
successfully applied
 A criminal is also a person to whom the label has been
successfully applied
 More we label, more we will ‘discover’ crime & deviance
 Not by looking at behaviour as nothing is inherently criminal
 More we label, more chance of ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’
 No point asking why people commit crime/deviance
 No specific motivation as crime/deviance is subjective,
changeable and related to power structures
Social constructionism says:
 Crime is ordinary, natural and widespread
 Requires no more explanation than required for any
other behaviour
 What requires explaining is how certain groups and
people:
 Become identified as criminal
 Have the power to identify others as criminal
 This is the criminalisation process
Mods and Rockers
“Moral Panics”
(Stan Cohen, 1960s)
Hoodies,
1990s -2000s
Social const.: Advantages
 Encourages us to look beyond criminal law to
understand nature of crime
 Asks us to consider why certain behaviours are
criminalised
 Sees criminalisation of certain groups and individuals
as problematic
Social const.: Disadvantages
 Some argue does not go far enough (e.g. power and
oppression)
 But also, crime and law do more than just result in
domination
 Can provide freedom and protection
 Seems to suggest crime nothing more than socio-political
label, so if take away label crime no longer exists
 What about impact of behaviour(s) on ‘victims’?
 To ignore ‘reality’ of crime argued to victimise them further
Conclusion
 Considered two approaches that attempt to
understand/define crime
 BLL suggests crime is any behaviour proscribed by
criminal law
 Social constructionism suggests crime is result of legal
definition and processes controlled by powerful
groups
 Is there a place between the two?
References
Becker, H. (1963) Outsiders, New York: Free Press.
Muncie, J. & McLaughlin, E. (2001) The Problem of
Crime, London: Sage.
Tappan, P. (1947) ‘Who is criminal?’, American
Sociological Review, 12: 96-102.
Further reading can be found in the module handbook
(see workshop programme – week 2)