Understanding Crime & Criminology

Question 1

What is Criminology?

Answer 1

Concerned with the study of crime, those who commit crime, the criminal justice system and penal systems

Question 2

What is Criminalisation?

Answer 2

Criminalisation is the process by which certain acts, people or groups are defined as criminal

Question 3

What does over-criminalisation mean?

Answer 3

Excessive punishment/sentences without adequate justification

Question 4

What does under-criminalisation mean?

Answer 4

Too soft a punishment for a certain act / the failure to routinely enforce prohibitions against certain behaviours

Question 5

What did Garland (2002) propose?

Answer 5

Modern criminology is made up of two streams
>The Governmental Project - administration of justice; the working of prisons and police and the measurement of crime
>The Lombrosian Project - examine the characteristics of criminals and non-criminals

Question 6

What did Edwin Sutherland (1937) propose?

Answer 6

Criminology is the study of:

• The making of the laws
• The breaking of the laws
• Society’s reaction to the breaking of laws

Question 7

What were Hillyard and Tombs (2004) 4 major criticisms against criminology?

Answer 7

1. Crime has no ‘ontological reality’ - no universal criteria for what is a crime
2. Criminology perpetuates the myth of crime - talk of crime as if the category was relatively unproblematic
3. Crime consists of many petty events
4. Crime excludes many serious harms

Question 8

What is Crime?

Answer 8

Conduct or an act of omission, which, when it results in certain consequences, may lead to prosecution and punishment in criminal court

Question 9

What are the 4 frameworks for defining crime?

Answer 9

1. Crime and the Criminal Law - Legalistic Approach
2. Social and political constuct
3. Human rights definition
4. Crime defined by Religion

Question 10

What 4 things are necessary in the legalistic approach?

Answer 10

1. Guilty act (actus reus)
2. Guilty mind (mens rea)
3. Absence of lawful defence
4. Having legal capacity

Question 11

What are some strengths to the legalistic approach?

Answer 11

1. Clarity & Precision - crime is defined on the basis of the criminal law thus there are clear consequences and official punishment

Question 12

What are some weaknesses of the legalistic approach?

Answer 12

1. Prone to ambiguity and moral judgment
2. Studying crime based solely on what the criminal law characterises as a crime is not enough - does not consider harm by governments etc
3. Some acts which are harmful to others are not considered a crime -> why are some behaviours criminalised and others are not? eg Spanner case, sports
4. If no criminal law then no crime (does not tell us why)