Section One: Introduction

1.1. Definition of criminology

Criminology maybe defined as “the scientific study of the causation, correction, and
prevention of crime”. Criminology is the social science approach to the study of crime as an
individual and social phenomenon. Although contemporary definitions vary in the exact
words used, there is considerable consensus that criminology involves the application of the
“scientific method” to the study of variation in criminal law, the causes of crime, and
reactions to crime.
Criminological research areas include the incidence and forms of crime as well as its causes
and consequences. They also include social and governmental regulations and reactions to
crime. Criminology is an interdisciplinary field in the behavioral sciences, drawing
especially on the research of sociologists and psychologists, as well as on writings in law.
An important way to analyze data is to look at quantitative methods in criminology.
1.2 Nature and Scope of Criminology
Criminology is an inter-disciplinary field of study, involving scholars and practitioners
representing a wide range of behavioral and social sciences as well as numerous natural
sciences. Sociologists played a major role in defining and developing the field of study and
criminology emerged as an academic discipline housed in sociology programs. However,
with the establishment of schools of criminology and the proliferation of academic
departments and programs concentrating specifically on crime and justice in the last half of
the 20 century, the criminology emerged as a distinct professional field with a broad,
interdisciplinary focus and a shared commitment to generating knowledge through systematic
research.
One ultimate goal of criminology has been the development of theories expressed with
sufficient precision that they can be tested, using data collected in a manner that allows
verification and replication.
As a subdivision of the larger field of sociology, criminology draws on psychology,
economics, anthropology, psychiatry, biology, statistics, and other disciplines to explain the
causes and prevention of criminal behavior. Subdivisions of criminology include penology,
the study of prisons and prison systems; bio-criminology, the study of the biological basis of
criminal behavior; feminist criminology, the study of women and crime; and criminalistics,
the study of crime detection, which is related to the field of Forensic Science. Much research
related to criminology has focused on the biological basis of criminal behavior. In fact, bio-

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criminology, attempts to explore the biological basis of criminal behavior. Research in this
area has focused on chromosomal abnormalities, hormonal and brain chemical imbalances,
diet, neurological conditions, drugs, and alcohol as variables that contribute to criminal
behavior.
Criminology has historically played a reforming role in relation to Criminal Law and the
criminal justice system. As an applied discipline, it has produced findings that have
influenced legislators, judges, prosecutors, lawyers, Probation officers, and prison officials,
prompting them to better understand crime and criminals and to develop better and more
human sentences and treatments for criminal behavior.
Criminologists also study a host of other issues related to crime and the law. These include
studies of the Victims of Crime, focusing upon their relations to the criminal, and their role as
potential causal agents in crime; juvenile delinquency and its correction; and the media and
their relation to crime, including the influence of Pornography.
1.3 Definitions of Important Terms
Deviance: Deviance is a violation of social norms defining appropriate or proper behavior
under particular set of circumstances. Deviance often includes criminal acts. Deviance is also
referred to as deviant behavior. It is behavior that is sharply different from a customary,
traditional, or generally accepted standard.
Delinquency: Delinquent means one who fails to do that which is required by law or by duty
when such failure is minor in nature. A delinquent is often used to refer to a juvenile who
commits a minor criminal act—juvenile delinquents.
Juvenile Delinquency: It refers to criminal acts performed by juveniles. Most legal systems
prescribe specific procedures for dealing with juveniles, such as juvenile detention centers.
Juvenile delinquency may refer to either violent or non-violent crime committed by persons
who are (usually) under the age of eighteen and are still considered to be a minor. There is
much debate about whether or not such a child should be held criminally responsible for his
or her own actions.
Crime: Crime is an ‘act’ or ‘omission’ which is prohibited by criminal law. Each State sets out a
limited series of acts (crimes) which are prohibited and punishes the commission of these acts by fine,
imprisonment or some other form of punishment. In exceptional cases, an omission to act can
constitute a crime, such as failing to give assistance to a person in peril (serious danger) or failing to
report a case of child abuse.

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1.4 Historical Development of Criminology
The history of primitive societies and early medieval period reveals that human thinking in
those days was predominated by religious mysticism and all human relations were regulated
through myths, superstitious and religious tenets prevailing in a particular society. This in
other words, meant that little attention was devoted to the motive, environment and
psychology of the offender in the causation of crime. Moreover, in absence of any definite
principle for the guidance of those who were concerned with the criminal justice
administration, punishments were often haphazard (disorganized), arbitrary (decision not
seeming to be based on reason) and irrational. This situation prevailed until the end of
seventeenth century. Thereafter, with the change in human thinking and evolution of modern
society, certain social reformers took up the cause of criminals and devoted their attention to
analysis of crime causation. This finally led to the emergence of criminology as a branch of
knowledge through development of different schools of criminology.
The theoretical dimension of criminology has a long history and ideas about the causes of
crime can be found in philosophical thought over two thousand years ago. For example, in
Politics, Plato’s student, Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), stated that “poverty engenders (to make a
feeling) rebellion and crime (Quinney 1970).” Religious scholars focused on causes as
diverse as natural human need, deadly sins, and the corrupting influence of Satan and other
demons (an evil spirit). The validity of such theories was founded in religious authority and
they were not viewed as theories, subject to verification through any form of systematic
observation, measurement and analysis.
Rational, naturalistic philosophies about people and society grew in prominence (well-
known) during the 18 century. Enlightenment philosophers such as Montesquieu, Voltaire,
Cesare Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham criticized political and legal institutions and advocated
social reforms based on the assumption that people were rational, deliberative beings. Such
ideas constituted the first major school of organized, “naturalistic” thought about criminal
law, criminality, and appropriate responses to crime--the Classical School. Such perspectives
were called “naturalistic” because they constructed theories locating the causes of crime in
natural characteristics of human beings as opposed to “supernatural” theories emphasizing
demonic (an evil spirit) causes. Classical theorists assumed that most people were capable of
rational calculation of gains and costs and that criminality was a choice. Laws were to be
designed and enforced based on that principle. Contemporary “deterrence theory,” “rational

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choice theory,” and “social learning theory” in criminology incorporate these same
assumptions.
The origins of a more systematic criminology, however, are located in the late-eighteenth-
century writings of those who sought to reform criminal justice and penal systems that they
perceived as cruel, inhuman, and arbitrary. These old systems applied the law unequally,
were subject to great corruption, and often used torture and the death penalty
indiscriminately.
The leading theorist of the classical school of criminology, the Italian CESARE BONESANO
BECCARIA (1738–94), argued that the law must apply equally to all, and that punishments
for specific crimes should be standardized by legislatures, thus avoiding judicial abuses of
power. Both Beccaria and another classical theorist, the Englishman Jeremy Bentham (1748–
1832), argued that people are rational beings who exercise free will in making choices.
Beccaria and Bentham understood the dominant motive in making choices to be the seeking
of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. Thus, they argued that a punishment should fit the
crime in such a way that the pain involved in potential punishment would be greater than any
pleasure derived from committing the crime. The writings of these theorists led to greater
codification and standardization of European and U.S. laws.
Criminologists of the early nineteenth century argued that legal punishments that had been
created under the guidance of the classical school did not sufficiently consider the widely
varying circumstances of those who found themselves in the gears of the criminal justice
system. Accordingly, they proposed that those who could not distinguish right from wrong,
particularly children and mentally ill persons, should be exempted from the punishments that
were normally meted out to mentally capable adults who had committed the same crimes.
Along with the contributions of a later generation of criminologists, known as the positivists,
such writers argued that the punishment should fit the criminal, not the crime.
Later in the nineteenth century, the positivist school of criminology brought a scientific
approach to criminology, including findings from biology and medicine. The leading figure
of this school was the Italian Cesare Lombroso (1836–1909). Influenced by Charles R.
Darwin's theory of evolution, Lombroso measured the physical features (morphology) of
prison inmates and concluded that criminal behavior correlated with specific bodily
characteristics, particularly cranial, skeletal, and neurological malformations. According to
Lombroso, biology created a criminal class among the human population. Subsequent
generations of criminologists have disagreed harshly with Lombroso's conclusions on this
matter. However, Lombroso had a more lasting effect on criminology with other findings that
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emphasized the multiple causes of crime, including environmental causes that were not
biologically determined. He was also a pioneer of the case-study approach to criminology.
Other late-nineteenth-century developments in criminology included the work of statisticians
of the cartographic school, who analyzed data on population and crime. These included
Lambert Adolphe Quetelet, (1796– 1874) of France and André Michel Guerry, of Belgium.
Both of these researchers compiled detailed, statistical information relating to crime and also
attempted to identify the circumstances that predisposed people to commit crimes.
The writings of French sociologist Emile Durkheim (1858–1917) also exerted a great
influence on criminology. Durkheim advanced the hypothesis that criminal behavior is a
normal part of all societies. No society, he argued, can ever have complete uniformity of
moral consciousness. All societies must permit some deviancy, including criminal deviancy,
or they will stagnate. He saw the criminal as an acceptable human being and one of the prices
that a society pays for freedom.
Durkheim also theorized about the ways in which modern, industrial societies differ from
nonindustrial ones. Industrial societies are not as effective at producing what Durkheim
called a collective conscience that effectively controls the behavior of individuals. Individuals
in industrial societies are more likely to exhibit what Durkheim called anomie—a Greek
word meaning "without norms." Consequently, modern societies have had to develop
specialized laws and criminal justice systems that were not necessary in early societies to
control behavior.
According to Durkheim and other functionalists, crime can have the following functions for
society:
 Strengthens group cohesion
 Can lead to social change
Early efforts to organize criminologists in the United States attracted law enforcement
officials and others who were interested in the criminal justice system. In 1941, a group of
individuals in California organized for the purpose of improving police training and the
standardization of police-training curricula. In 1946, this movement developed into the
establishment of the Society for the Advancement of Criminology, which changed its name to
the American Society of Criminology in 1957. Initial efforts of this organization focused
upon scientific crime detection, investigation, and identification; crime prevention, public
safety, and security; law enforcement administration; administration of criminal justice;
traffic administration; and probation.

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