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

violation?
• 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 • A civil or private wrong

• Enforcement is state • Individuals bring action
business • Sanction is normally
• Punishment is often monetary damages
loss of liberties or • Both parties can appeal
sometimes death • Individuals receives the
• Fines go to the state compensation for harm
• State doesn’t ordinarily done
appeal • “Preponderance of the
• Proof beyond a evidence” is required
reasonable doubt for a decision.
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 SERIOUSNESS OF CRIMES I

Mala in se Mala prohibita

• Wrong or evil in • Wrong because they
themselves are prohibited
• Core of legal code • Change over time and
• Homicide across society
• Robbery • Prostitution
• Gambling
SERIOUSNESS OF CRIMES II

FELONY MISDEMEANOR

More serious offenses Less serious offenses

Punishable by death Punishable by incar-

or imprisonment for ceration for less than a
more than a year in a year in a local jail or
state prison. 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
Evaluate the
Falsifiable? Yes Following:
Logical? •Scope
•Parsimony
•Policy Implications
YES Empirical
Evidence?

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
LIBERALS
• Value order/stability, • Value equal opportunities
respect for authority and individual rights

• People get what they • Success depends on

deserve outside forces & where you
start
• Crime caused by poor • Crime is caused by outside
choice (Free will) 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…