CRIM10001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Eurocentrism, Nuclear Weapons Testing, Gay Liberation
29 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Week 1, Lecture 2
Defining Criminology
Criminology has been described as a social science, and is defined by Mannheim as “the scientific
study of crime and offenders”. However, this does not necessarily suffice nowadays, as it makes
assumptions:
• What constitutes a ‘scientific study’?
• What is ‘crime’?
• Who/what is an ‘offender’?
The history of criminology is a history of diverse and developing ways of thinking about what
constitutes ‘crime’, and what an ‘offender’ is.
Criminology as Science
Criminology has been called a ‘science’ for a number of reasons, primarily because criminological
research at its best has all the hallmarks of the scientific method. It involves the rational,
systematic and objective study of the causes of crime and the patterns of criminality. However,
despite its claim to be a ‘science’, some criminology has not included these aspects of the scientific
method. This is particularly prominent in early criminological work. Further, the matter of
criminology being a science is contestable, because of the idea that the objective study of human
behaviour is not possible.
Criminology and Crime
For much of its history, the central focus of criminology was the behaviours prospered by criminal
law. Which this may seem like common sense, is it possible to conclusively say that all social
harms are crimes? Defining crime only by criminal law dismisses a range of critical questions. For
example:
Why are certain acts designated as criminal, and not others?
What is the political nature of criminal law?
Who has the power to define criminal deviance?
Criminology and the Offender
Criminology has produced a staggering range of different theories regarding what constitutes an
offender, and what should be done with such people. Offenders have been viewed by
criminologists as a multitude of things, including mad, bad, extroverted, introverted, physiologically
and biologically distant from ‘normal’ people, rational, irrational, innately dangerous, socially
misunderstood, and culturally/familiarly/economically disadvantaged. However, these simply
cannot all be accurate.
Biological, psychological and social dimensions of ‘the criminal’ have divided theorists throughout
criminology’s history.
Elaborating Upon the Definition of Criminology
“Criminology includes the scientific study of making laws, breaking laws, and reacting toward the
breaking of laws” -Edwin Sutherland (1960)
On one hand, this is a dated statement, but it is also thoughtful and solid. Essentially, Sutherland
states that one cannot take the law for granted, as criminal law doesn’t organically/scientifically
define crime; that we also need to study the process through which laws are made. Law-making is
a political exercise, and in Sutherland’s view, a good criminologist studies how laws are made in
the first place, and the breaking of these laws. Sutherland also offers the thought that we need to
study the way in which society reacts to this law-breaking, which is what we now refer to as social
control. Social control is the various ways and the processes through which we try to deal with
crime; responding to individual offenders, responding to offenders on mass, and the way we try to
prevent crime on the whole. The study of social control has its own sub-disciplinary field of
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Criminology has been described as a social science, and is defined by mannheim as the scientific study of crime and offenders . The history of criminology is a history of diverse and developing ways of thinking about what constitutes crime", and what an offender" is. Criminology has been called a science" for a number of reasons, primarily because criminological research at its best has all the hallmarks of the scientific method. It involves the rational, systematic and objective study of the causes of crime and the patterns of criminality. However, despite its claim to be a science", some criminology has not included these aspects of the scientific method. This is particularly prominent in early criminological work. Further, the matter of criminology being a science is contestable, because of the idea that the objective study of human behaviour is not possible. For much of its history, the central focus of criminology was the behaviours prospered by criminal law.
