What is Criminology Review (Chapter 1) Flashcards
What is Criminology
It is the body of knowledge regarding crime as a social phenomenon. It includes the process of:
- Making laws
- Breaking laws
- Reacting to the breaking of laws
Why study crime in the first place?
- To know more about crime and better understand criminal behaviour and society’s response to it
- Crime tells us a lot about our society
- To reduce crime, we must first understand it
- Crime affects us all, directly or indirectly
How does crime affect us?
- As victims
- As taxpayers (we all pay for the costs of the CJS)
- As employees (Many are employed in the CJS or security-related businesses)
What is theory?
The theory is an explanation of a relationship between 2 or more events
A theory can be concrete or abstract
Concrete theories tend to be more simple for example throwing a ball out a window but abstract theories are more complex for example they tie to reality
What is theory not?
Popular beliefs
Opinion
Characteristics of simple theories
Relate two factors (cause & effect) to each other
Are based on:
- Use of systemic evidence and objective observation
- Rational Explanations
More complex theoretical frameworks
Require many factors in the explanation
Specify conditions and processes necessary for relationships to take place
Most importantly, theories should reflect:
- Careful observation
- Systemic logic
How to determine a good theory?
The criteria most often used today are:
- testability
- Best fit to research evidence
Other criteria of good theory:
- Sensitizing qualities
What are sensitizing qualities?
- Labelling theory (power of a label that identifies who is a criminal and who isn’t)
- Critical race theory
- Feminists
How are theories different?
What is being explained
- Social structure, classes of people, small groups (homeless, youth)
What is the Approach
- Social, psychological, or biological factors
What is the crime-based focus
- Crime, criminal behaviour, crime rates, victimization, fear of crime, location
What is covered, what is not
- time frame, population, circumstances
What are the two general types of criminological theories?
Unit theory
- Focus on one phenomenon
- Testable (hard to do, but how effective is it)
Metatheory
- Focus on the perception of reality
- Rarely testable
“theories about theories”
Other ways to classify theories
Classical vs Positivist
Structural vs Strain theory vs Processual
Consensus vs Conflict
Classical vs Positivist
Classical - Reforming our justice system
Positivist - Treatment, Criminal behaviour
Structural (Strain) Theory vs Processual
Structural - The way out society is organized and its effect on behaviour
Not all structual is strain theory, for example, focusing on the process of developing delinquency
Processual - Process of becomign a criminal
Consensus vs Conflcit
Consensus - The majority agrees, they assume that members of a society hold common values
Conflict - Not everyone agrees, the law only benefits small groups,
What is the Interactionist Approach
Laws are constantly changing
- Laws result from interaction among individuals and groups
- Moral entrepreneurs try to get their values enacted in law (MADD)
Criminal labels stigmatize the individual
The context of a criminological theory
There are important influences behind every theory
This is called the context in which the theory was developed
If you know the context, you can better understand the theory
Never assume that you know what a theory says without placing it into its own context
What is the social-intellectual context of a theory?
When a theory is constructed, many factors come into play other than the ideas of the theories
Social Context:
- Events and beliefs of the time
Intellectual Context:
- Books, mentors, and influences important to the theorist
What are the links between theory, research and policy?
Theory is the start of the relationship
Theory provides the elements that allow us to develop a research plan
Research tests the theory and guides us to policy development
Research that is based on theory, guides the development of policy
Policy can be evaluated with research which may indicate theory needs to be revised
Policy is the end result of theory and research
Research evidence feedback allows a theory to be:
- Refined
- Redirected
- Policy should depend on theory and research
Theory/research-informed policy allows:
- Cost/benefit evaluation
- The rationale for why a policy should work
- But, policymakers and politicians often rate policy for other reasons
What are macro theories?
They explain social and its effects
They paint a picture of the way the world works, fit the structure of society into that picture, and suggest how crime is related to that structure
Focus on rates of crime
What are the levels of Abstraction?
Macro theories
Microtheories
Bridging theories
What are micro theories?
They are used to explain how people become criminals.
The focus may be on specific groups of people but they are typically small groups or on an individual
Examples: Social control and social learning theories
What are bridging theories?
This is when they do not fit into the two categories so it’s in the “in-between”.
They tell us how social structure comes about and how people become criminal
Both epidemiological - explaining differing rates of crime
Etiological - explaining criminal behaviour itself
