Chapter 1 Flashcards
What is criminology?
The body of knowledge regarding crime as a social phenomenon
What 3 things make up criminology?
- Making of laws
- Breaking of laws
- Reaction to breaking of laws
How is criminology scientific?
The goal is to develop an body of general and verified principles and knowledge regarding, law, crime and treatment
3 Reasons to Study Crime
- to understand crime, to understand society
- to reduce crime
- because it affects all of us (victims, taxpayers and employees of CJs)
3 consequences of the media’s misrepresentation of crime
- influences public perception
- contributes to more crime
- does not examine social and structural reasoning
Six major areas of crimiology
- definitions of crime and criminals
- origins and role of law
- social distribution of crime
- causation of crime
- patterns of criminal behaviour
- societal reactions to crime
What is a crime?
an act that violates criminal law and is punishable
Why is white collar crime not considered the same as street level crime?
It is not dealt with by criminal courts
Sutherland’s p.o.v. on white collar crime
focusing only on violations of the criminal law presents a misleading picture of crime
Schwendinger’s broader definition of crime
Based on human rights, if an act violates someone’s right to the necessities of life, it should be considered a crime.
This includes imperialism, sexism, racism, and homophobia
Hagen’s 4 major categories of crime and deviance
- consensus crimes
- conflict crimes
- social deviations
- social diversions
Social definition of terrorism
the deliberate use or threat to use violence against civilians in order to attain political, ideological and religious goals
**socially constructed term
How has terrorism changed law
- tough new laws
- widespread surveillance
- ethnic and religious profiling
- suspects given limited rights
Surveillance definition
any systematic focus on personal information in order to influence, manage, entitle, or control those whose information is collected
