Criminology Lecture Notes

Flashcards covering key concepts and theories discussed in the criminology lecture notes.

Criminology

The criminal phenomenon is a whole whose heart is the crime.

Three Acts of the Criminal Phenomenon

Prevention, the act, and the criminal response.

Three Actors in the Criminal Phenomenon

The offender, the victim, and the authority of the social body.

Patrick Morvan's Definition of Criminology

The science that studies the factors and processes of criminal action and then determines, based on this knowledge, the means to fight against this social scourge.

Aims of Criminology

To seek the causes of criminality and to study its manifestations; to study the criminal, the criminal act, and the social reaction to this phenomenon; to better fight against crime.

Crimen (Latin)

Accusation, grievance.

Materialistic Definition of Crime

An aggression directed against values essential to social cohesion.

Durkheim's Definition of Crime

Any punished act.

Deviance

The transgression of a social norm; behaviours that violate the norms defended by a group.

Criminology in a Broad Sense

All the criminal sciences, including criminal law and criminal policy.

Criminology in a Narrow Sense

Focuses on the etiology (study of the causes) and the dynamics of crime, excluding the sociology of criminal law, criminal justice, the study of punishment, and criminal policy.

General Criminology

A theoretical science that consists in studying the mechanisms of delinquency.

Clinical Criminology

A practical and multidisciplinary science, aiming at favouring the treatment of the delinquent and preventing recidivism.

Cesare Lombroso

Author of The Criminal Man; developed the 'born criminal' theory.

Lombroso's Inspiration

Intellectual heritage that sought to detect anything abnormal or pathological in man (criminal or alienated) from a medical and naturalistic perspective.

Physiognomy Studies

Studies conducted since the sixteenth century, establishing links between the permanent characteristics of the individual and his anatomical features.

Phrenology

Conceived by Franz Joseph Gall; considered that the brain is divided into twenty-seven well-defined functional areas and developed 'cranioscopy'.

Prosper Lucas

Inspiration for the 'theory of degeneration', suggesting that the heredity of 'defects' is the cause of mental illness and predisposes to crime.

Darwin's Theory of Evolution

Postulates that the young of each species compete for survival, and the survivors pass on favorable characteristics through heredity.

Criminal as an Underevolved Man (Lombroso)

The criminal would carry an atavistic anomaly by virtue of which he would behave as man did at the origin of humanity, that is, as a wild animal giving in to his instincts.

Francis Galton's Hereditary Genius

The pre-eminence of the upper classes in British society (business leaders, doctors, lawyers and so on) by an inherited transmission.

Francis Galton's Eugenics

The 'science of good births' aimed at improving the breed by promoting hereditary gifted individuals and avoiding the degeneration of the social body caused by inferior races.

Lombroso's Criminal Type

Anatomical and biological stigmas, psychopathological traits (psychological insensitivity), and sociological traits (lifestyles, tattoos, slang).

Lombroso on Violent Crime

Violent crime was the result of a latent epilepsy, in which the compulsions of epilepsy were replaced by violent and irresistible impulses.

André-Michel Guerry & Adolphe Quételet

They elaborated the first crime laws, using the first crime statistics.

Quételet's Thermal Law of Crime

Crimes against persons predominate in the southern regions and during the hot seasons, while crimes against property prevail in the northern regions and during the cold seasons.

Alexandre Lacassagne

The social environment is the broth of crime culture; the microbe is the criminal, an element that only matters the day he finds the broth that ferments it. Societies get only the criminals they deserve.

Émile Durkheim's Sociological School

Links criminal behaviour to the structure and culture of society.

Durkheim's Social Fact

A sui generis entity, a totality that cannot be reduced to the sum of its parts.

Durkheim on Crime

Crime is a normal phenomenon in society because it is linked to the fundamental conditions of all social life.

Anomie (Durkheim)

A social situation caused by a disruption of the collective order, a decline in social coercion, leading to dissatisfaction and crisis.

Ecological Theory/Chicago School

Describes the city as a living organism; the economic, demographic, ethnic, and social characteristics of a defined geographical area are determinants of crime.

Robert Park and Ernest Burgess

The city is a living super-organism consisting of natural areas or ecosystems exposed to 'invasions' by 'species' from adjacent areas; the city has 5 concentric areas that appear as it expands.

Shaw and McKay

An ecological theory of delinquency linking crime to the physical structure of the city and identifying many variables leading to delinquency.

Oscar Newman's Theory of Defensible Space

Residential environment whose physical characteristics encourage residents to feel invested in the role of screening officers, responsible for ensuring the safety of the community.

Four Factors of a Defensible Space

Territoriality, natural surveillance, image, and environment.

Jane Jacobs

A space open to sociability, with benches and plots where people would come to sit, with wide sidewalks and swings, and a mix of shops and housing.

Edwin Sutherland's Differential Associations Theory

Explains why one individual becomes criminal and not another; the negative influence of peers’ groups.

Learning Criminal Behavior

Criminal behaviour is learned in interaction with other persons in a process of communication within small groups of personal relationships.

Criminality and Definitions

The individual becomes criminal when transgressive definitions prevail over conformist definitions; influenced by frequency, duration, priority, and intensity of exposure.

Robert King Merton's Strain Theory

A strain affecting the individual in society where there is a discrepancy between cultural goals and institutional means.

Five Individual Adaptation Behaviours to Blocked Opportunities

Conformism, innovation, ritualism, retreatism, and rebellion.

Conformism (Merton)

The acceptance of the lawful purposes and means set to achieve them.

Innovation (Merton)

The acceptance of goals but rejection of lawful means.

Ritualism (Merton)

Refusal of goals but submission to lawful means.

Retreatism (Merton)

The rejection of cultural goals and legal institutional means to take refuge in a resigned, asocial and marginal attitude.

Rebellion (Merton)

Refusal of lawful goals and means but with the desire to overthrow the social ideology to substitute new goals or values.

Albert K. Cohen

Anomie' and 'social disorganization' especially affect the lower working classes, the proletarian circles of the big cities.

Gresham Sykes and David Matza's 5 Neutralisation Techniques

Denial of responsibility, denial of injury, denial of the victim, the condemnation of the condemners, an alleged appeal to higher loyalties.

Marvin Wolfgang and Franco Ferracuti

A 'subculture of violence' that would permeate certain social groups and improve the value of violence.

Subculture of Violence (Terrorism)

Propaganda that uses the most modern technologies and uses rhetoric similar, in part, to that of sects; targets young people with narcissistic personalities and social fragility.

Gabriel Tarde on Criminal Mob

The tendency of behaviour towards uniformity and unanimity through a phenomenon of emotional imitation.

Social Bond Theory

Men are forced by social ties to respect criminal law.

Attachment (Hirschi)

The degree of attachment of the adolescent to family, friends, school teachers, religious officers and other members of the community.

Commitment (Hirschi)

Commitment to the conventional goals and standards of society (education, employment, family formation…) and fear of losing the benefits of this investment.

Involvement (Hirschi)

Participation in social activities (sports, leisure, humanitarian, associative…).

John Braithwaite

Crime control can be achieved through the use of the offender's 'reintegrative shaming' to encourage them to acknowledge their fault.

Procedural Justice

The sense of fairness provided by a dispute resolution process, leading to obedience to the law.

Iter criminis (Étienne de Greef)

Sequential stages of the criminal action, including criminal thinking, criminal resolution, preparatory acts, commencement of execution, and execution.

Gary Stanley Becker's Economic Analysis of Crime

Hypothesized that criminals acted rationally and acted upon them as soon as the gains or profits from the illegal activity outweighed the costs.

Cohen and Felson: Crime is an Ordinary Activity

Most of the offences are minor thefts that have never been reported to the police.

Lawrence E. Cohen and Marcus Felson's Routine Activities Theory

Focuses on the targets aimed at by the offenders and daily lifestyle of their victims, involving a triple spatial-temporal convergence.

Rational Choice Theory - Objects Popular with Thieves

The ability to be hidden and moved, the availability or accessibility, the value, the pleasant nature of the thing and the ease of its resale.

James Q. Wilson and Georges L. Kelling's Broken Window Strategy

Urban disorders (incivilities) appear as triggering factors. These factors reinforce the belief among potential offenders that social controls have been erased and that they will not be disturbed.

William Isaac Thomas' Theorem

Individuals' behaviors are determined by their subjective perception of reality and not by reality itself.

Gender and Crime

Only a small proportion of police respondents are women; they represent a small percentage of judicial convictions and detainees, but criminal “specialities” exist

Gender (Simone de Beauvoir)

A social identity associated with each sex: 'one is not born a woman, one becomes one' in a social context.

Chivalry Thesis (Otto Polak)

Theory that male agents of the criminal justice system are more lenient towards women criminals.

Crime Rates by Age

They gradually rise from 5-7 years of age to the age of majority, peaks at 18-25 years of age, remains high at 25-30-35 years of age, and then begins to decline massively after age 40.

Juvenile Delinquency

rooted in child violence and influenced by biological predispositions and deficient parenting within amplifying sociological contexts.

School Shooting

Killing committed in a school or university by one or more young people.

Cultural Theory of Crime

The behavior of individuals is guided by socio-moral values, and crime reflects a failure in this system.

Pinatel Breakdown of value

The 'breakdown of ethical values' leads to weakening school control, encouraging the emergence of subcultures.

Pinatel Wester Crime

Western crime is ‘a crime linked to the civilisation of well- being and leisure is dominant

Images and Violence influence on Teens

They will Idealize power relations based on brutality and violence, and will not associate them with sanctions.

Adult and porn influence on Teens

violent intrusion into children's emotional intimacy. Violent pornographic films can have very harmful effects on a child's development, particularly in that they induce erroneous beliefs about the consent of partners

Video Games Influence on Teens

The impact of violent video games is multiplied. Video games are more addictive than television.

Biosocial criminology

Biosocial criminology is mainly based on the contributions of genetics, biology, neuroscience and evolutionary psychology.

Develop Mental Abnormalities in children

During pregnancy and childhood abuse hinder the child's intellectual development and increase the risk of aggressive behaviour.

Serotonin role

Serotonin is involved in the control of eating and sexual behaviour, sleep cycle, pain and anxiety

Cortex

the prefrontal cortex plays an emotional inhibitory role.

NeuoLAW

Medical imaging examination (scanner or MRI