Classics Week 6 Reading

What holds disciplines like politics, sociology, economics, or psychoanalysis together?

Disciplines like politics, sociology, economics, or psychoanalysis are held together by some common agreement on their subject matter.

What is the subject matter of politics?

In the case of politics, an understanding of different political processes;

What is the subject matter of sociology?

for sociology, the structure of society;

Why is criminology a different creature?

Criminology is inevitably a different creature since in some respects its focus is dependent upon how crime itself is brought into being in different social and legal contexts. So what might be understood as crime, and as criminal, in France may vary from how that is understood in the United States.

How is crime treated in popular culture?

The subject matter of crime is a very popular source of entertainment.

What is the subject matter of economics?

for economics, the nature of economies;

What is the subject matter of psychoanalysis?

or in the case of psychoanalysis, the individual psyche.

What does common agreement on subject matter give these disciplines?

This common agreement gives these disciplines their central focus regardless of the social or legal context in which they are practiced.

How might social or legal context affect these disciplines?

Of course, that social or legal context may add variety to the kinds of analyses those various disciplines offer but the conceptual and analytical frameworks within which the disciplines operate remain very similar.

What is the central challenge of a book like this?

Appreciating and understanding the importance of differences like these is the central challenge of a book of this kind for both the author and the reader.

What is another challenge in understanding criminology?

There is, however, another challenge.

What is this other challenge?

This lies within the potential influence of contemporary media images of crime.

How can media representations differ from criminology?

How the media represents crime, what constitutes crime and the criminal, and what the criminologist actually does can be, and frequently are, different.

What key issue arises from media images of crime?

A key issue arises then around understanding the extent to which such media images gel with what we think we 'know' about crime and what criminologists 'know' about crime.

Why are media images of crime especially powerful for many people?

Indeed for many people what they see on the television or what they read in the newspapers is their only source of information about crime since, despite variable crime rates over the last 30 years or so, most people most of the time have no experience of their own about crime or the criminal justice process.

What makes media images of crime potentially powerful?

This makes media images of crime potentially very powerful especially in equipping individuals with ideas about what it is that criminologists do.

What examples of media crime figures are listed?

However, the presence of Sherlock Holmes, Inspector Poirot, crime scene investigators ("CSI"), other 'detective' stories, and the forensic psychologists, ("The Mentalist" and so on) popularised in the media notwithstanding, what these people claim to do, how crime is dealt with in 'real' life, and what criminologists actually spend their time doing are quite distinct activities.

What is criminology not concerned with?

In particular, criminology is not concerned with ways of catching criminals.

Whose job is catching criminals?

That is the work on the one hand of a good police officer and on the other a good supply of information from the general public.

What is criminology much more concerned with?

Criminology is much more concerned with explaining the cause(s) of crime.

What determines how criminology explains crime?

However, how it does so will very much depend on what kind of criminologist you are and what kind of theory you choose to work with.

What will Chapter 4 discuss?

In Chapter 4 we shall discuss the role that theory plays in characterising different criminology.

How did Paul Rock describe criminology?

Paul Rock (1986), a British sociologist, once described criminology as a 'rendezvous' subject.

What does calling criminology a 'rendezvous' subject try to capture?

This is a way of trying to capture a sense of what, if anything, binds criminologists together.

What binds criminologists together in simple terms?

Put simply, it is the subject matter of crime.

Why make an issue of the fact that criminologists are interested in crime?

Why make an issue of what seems to be fairly obvious?

What makes criminology different from other areas of investigation?

However, exploring this obvious fact is what makes criminology as an area of investigation somewhat different than other areas of investigation.

What do psychologists explore?

Psychologists, for example, explore how the mind works,

What are sociologists interested in?

sociologists are interested in social structures,

What are economists interested in?

economists in economic systems,

What are historians interested in?

historians are interested in how what happened in the past can help us better understand the present,

What characterizes different disciplines like psychology, sociology, economics, and history?

Each of these different disciplines is characterised by the boundaries between them and how they go about their business in relation to what it is that they study: the past, society, the mind, the economy, etc.

How can all these disciplines relate to crime?

However, within these boundaries they can all be interested in crime.

What binds criminologists together according to Rock?

So what binds criminologists together is that they share an interest in the same subject matter, crime, but importantly they do not necessarily share the same way of thinking about how to study that subject matter.

What does this mean about criminology?

So criminology, as Rock said, is a meeting place for people with different ways of thinking about crime.

What is criminology as a result?

It is multidisciplinary.

What kinds of people may call themselves criminologists?

So it is possible to find psychiatrists, historians, sociologists, psychologists, lawyers, and economists who all claim the label 'criminologist' but might be looking at the question of crime though very different lenses.

What is criminology characterized by?

Criminology, as a consequence, is characterised by debate.

What do criminologists agree on?

There are very few things that criminologists agree upon.

What is one thing criminologists may all share concern about?

One thing, however, that they may all share concerns about is what it is that we understand by crime.

What question follows from this concern?

How is crime to be defined?

What is the next section heading?

WHAT IS CRIME?

What obvious answer might be given to what crime is?

Again, this seems an obvious question to ask.

What do 'we all know' about crime?

We 'all know' that crime is behaviour that breaks the law.

What challenge is raised to that definition?

However, is it so straightforward?

What does the Sage Dictionary of Criminology say about crime?

Even the Sage Dictionary of Criminology (2006) makes it clear that what we mean by 'crime' is highly contested.

What question follows from the idea that crime is contested?

So what might that contest look like?

What starting point can be taken for understanding crime?

If we take law breaking behaviour as the starting point for our understanding of what we mean by crime, and thereby what it is that criminologists study, then this raises at least three issues.

What is the first issue raised by defining crime as law breaking behavior?

First, if it is the law that defines what it is that is criminal this clearly separates what we mean by the criminal from the rather more emotional use of the term.

Why can this be a useful starting point?

This in some respects is a useful starting point though it is not without its problems.

How can the term criminal prejudge things?

The term criminal can, on the one hand, prejudge the guilt or innocence of the offender,

How can the term criminal also tap into emotion?

and on the other it can also tap into notions of 'wickedness' or 'evil' doing.

What term may be more helpful for criminologists to use?

In these respects, it may be more helpful to say that criminologists are interested in law breaking behaviour.

Why is even this definition problematic?

However, this definition is in itself problematic because it gives a status to the law as though this were above social processes that lie behind the formation of the law, for example, levels of tolerance and acceptability of different behaviours.

What is clearly not the case about the law?

This is clearly not the case.

What is the second issue with taking law as central?

So, second, making what is and is not legal the defining characteristic of what it is that criminologists study places the law at the centre of the criminological stage.

What does the law define?

The law defines what is and is not a crime.

What must be remembered about laws?

However, it must be remembered that over time laws change.

How can laws change over time?

Some behaviours are newly defined as criminal (law breaking) others are decriminalised (defined as non-law breaking).

What example is given of changing legal status?

(Think, for example, about the changing legal status of 'being gay' over time and in different places).

What key question follows from changing laws?

This being the case, the key question that follows is what processes produce such changes?

What further questions are asked about legal change?

Moreover, who influences such changes and how are they implemented?

What alternative question might criminologists ask?

Is it an understanding of these processes that produces an understanding of crime?

How is this different from a psychologist's question?

This is quite a different question than a psychologist interested in crime might ask.

What might a psychologist be more interested in?

They might be much more interested in what kinds of personality types predispose some individuals to engage in criminal behaviour.

Can such behavior occur regardless of the law?

Such behaviour might occur, of course, regardless of the actual content of the law but may nevertheless be problematic (this is what sociologists call 'deviant' behaviour).

What is the third difficulty in taking the law as defining crime?

However, there is a third difficulty in taking the law as defining what is crime.

What question is raised about focusing only on the guilty?

If this is taken as the defining characteristic of the criminal, does that mean that criminologists then can only legitimately study those who have been found guilty of transgressing the law?

Why would many criminologists find this problematic?

For many criminologists, this kind of position would prove to be highly problematic given its inherently narrow focus on those individuals who have been caught and successfully prosecuted.

What is the fourth problem mentioned after this?

Following on from this, a fourth problem might be the extent to which crime has a reality above and beyond the processes that bring crime into being: the law and the criminal justice process.

What have some criminologists argued because of this variability?

This has led some criminologists to argue that because this is so variable in different social contexts crime has no real meaning outside of those contexts.

What do zemiologists think matters more than crime?

For them, sometimes referred to as zemiologists, harm matters more than crime and we shall return to this later in this book.

What overall conclusion is drawn from this discussion?

So from this discussion it can be seen that what counts as crime and thereby what criminologists study is neither consistent nor uniform.

What else follows if criminology focuses on law-breaking?

Moreover, if the focus of criminology is law-breaking, then this will vary from country to country and over time.

How many different understandings of crime are identified?

Putting all of this together with the different ways in which people think about what counts as crime, we can identify at least six different understandings of what crime is.

What is the legal understanding of crime?

Legal: Crime that is behaviour prohibited by the criminal code.

What is the moral understanding of crime?

Moral: Crime that is behaviour that offends the 'collective consciousness' and provokes punishment (usually, though not always, enshrined in the criminal law).

What is the social understanding of crime?

Social: Crime that is behaviour that violates social norms (including violation of the criminal law).

What is the humanistic understanding of crime?

Humanistic: Crime that is behaviour of individuals, institutions or states that denies basic human rights (some of which is enshrined in human rights legislation and not necessarily criminal).

What is the social constructionist understanding of crime?

Social constructionist: Crime that is behaviour so defined as criminal by the agents and activities of the powerful (reflected in what is and what is not defined as criminal and what is and what is not acted upon within the legal code more generally).

What is the harm-based understanding of crime?

Harm: The harm done to people. This is more inclusive because it can incorporate wrong-doings by states and large business corporations much more readily than the concept of crime on its own.

What does Figure 1.1 illustrate?

Figure 1.1: Different understandings of what crime is.

What does Figure 1.1 show about definitions of crime?

Figure 1.1 illustrates some of the different ways in which crime can be, and has been, defined by criminologists.

What common starting point do these definitions take?

As can be seen, they each in their different way take the law as a starting point for their understanding of crime but only the legal understanding takes the criminal code as the definitive start.

What else does Figure 1.1 illustrate?

Figure 1.1 also illustrates the way in which these different definitions harness different understandings of what Henry (2006: 78), a North American criminologist, has called the determining elements of crime.

How many determining elements of crime does Henry suggest?

He suggests that there are three:

What is Henry's first determining element of crime?

1. Harm (nature, severity, extent of the act committed, and/or the kind of victim the act has been committed against).

What is Henry's second determining element of crime?

2. Social agreement or consensus (the extent to which there is social agreement that the victim has been harmed).

What is Henry's third determining element of crime?

3. Official societal response (whether or not there is a law that specifies the act committed as a crime or not and how those laws are enforced).

What conclusion is drawn about defining crime?

So far from being straightforward, defining what crime is can be quite complex.

Why does this complexity arise?

This complexity arises as a result of a number of questions being muddled up; what crime is, who the criminal is, and what it is that criminologists study.

What extra dimension does Henry's definition introduce?

(Moreover, Henry's definition above introduces another dimension to what it is that criminologists study: the victim of crime, see also below.)

How has criminology historically added to this complexity?

Some of this complexity relates to the fact that this is a multidisciplinary area of concern and some of it reflects the historical focus that criminology has had in trying to formulate a general theory of crime.

What follows from this historical focus?

As a consequence, it is possible to define the subject matter of criminology in different ways.

How do Coleman and Norris identify the subject matter of criminology?

Coleman and Norris (2000: 13-14) identify the subject matter of criminology in the following way:

What is the first item in Coleman and Norris's list?

• An attempt to measure the extent of crime and offenders

What is the second item in Coleman and Norris's list?

• An analysis of the causes of crime

What is the third item in Coleman and Norris's list?

• Understanding how laws are formed

What is the fourth item in Coleman and Norris's list?

• Understanding how laws are applied

What is the fifth item in Coleman and Norris's list?

• Understanding issues around punishment