Lecture Notes, Lecture 1 - Summary Of Chapter 1 - Book: Criminology In Canada PDF

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Summary of Chapter 1 - book: Criminology in Canada...

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1. WHAT IS CRIMINOLOGY?

- In their classic definition, criminologists Edwin Sutherland and Donald Cressey state: Criminology is the body of knowledge regarding crime as a social phenomenon. It includes within its scope the processes of making laws, of breaking laws, and of reacting toward the breaking of laws. . . . The objective of criminology is the development of a body of general and verified principles and of other types of knowledge regarding this process of law, crime, and treatment.7 - An essential part of criminology is its nature as an interdisciplinary science. Few universities in Canada grant graduate degrees in criminology, but criminologists are also drawn from such disciplines as sociology, criminal justice, political science, psychology, history, geography, economics, and the natural sciences. Today, criminology’s orientation is truly interdisciplinary —an integrated approach to the study of criminal behaviour. Criminology combines elements from many other fields to understand the connections among law, crime, and justice. - An essential part of criminology is its nature as an interdisciplinary science. Few universities in Canada grant graduate degrees in criminology, but criminologists are also drawn from such disciplines as sociology, criminal justice, political science, psychology, history, geography, economics, and the natural sciences. Today, criminology’s orientation is truly interdisciplinary —an integrated approach to the study of criminal behaviour. Criminology combines elements from many other fields to understand the connections among law, crime, and justice. 1.1 Criminology and deviance - Criminology is also sometimes confused with the study of deviant behaviour. However, deviance is more widely defined as behaviour that departs from social norms and is not always subject to formal sanction. Included within the broad spectrum of deviant acts is sunbathing in the nude, joining a nudist colony, or a woman going topless. Crime and deviance are often confused, yet not all crimes are deviant or unusual acts, and not all deviant acts are illegal or criminal. For example, using recreational drugs, such as marijuana, may be illegal, but is it deviant? Two issues that involve deviance are of particular interest to criminologists: (1) How do deviant behaviours become crimes? (2) When should acts considered crimes be legalized?

2. A BRIEF HISTORY OF CRIMINOLOGY 21. Classical Criminology Utilitarianism = A view that punishment should be balanced and fair because criminal behaviour must be seen as purposeful and reasonable. Rather than cruel public executions designed to frighten people into obedience or to punish those the law failed to deter, reformers called for a more moderate and just approach to penal sanctions. The most famous of these reformers was Cesare Beccaria (1738–1794), an Italian aristocrat whose writings described both a motive for committing crime and methods for its control. Beccaria believed that people want to achieve pleasure and avoid pain. If crime provides pleasure to the criminal, pain must be used to prevent crime. Beccaria said that “in order for

punishment not to be, in every instance, an act of violence of one or many against a private citizen, it must be essentially public, prompt, necessary, the least possible in the given circumstances, proportionate to the crimes, and dictated by the laws.”16 The ideas are referred to as classical criminology, which was characterized by several basic elements: 1. In every society, people have free will to choose criminal or lawful solutions to meet their needs or settle their problems. 2. Compared with lawful solutions, criminal solutions may be more attractive because they usually require less work for a greater payoff. 3. People’s choice of criminal solutions may be controlled by their fear of punishment. 4. The more severe, certain, and swift the punishment, the better able it is to control criminal behaviour. 2.2 19th – Positivism Positivism has two main elements. The first is the belief that human behaviour is a function of external forces that are beyond individual control. Some of these forces are social, such as the effect of wealth and class, while others are political and historical, such as war and famine. Other forces are more personal and psychological, such as an individual’s brain structure and his or her biological makeup or mental ability. All of these forces operate to influence human behaviour. The second aspect of positivism is its use of the scientific method to solve problems. Positivists would agree that an abstract concept, such as intelligence, exists because it can be measured by an IQ test. However, they would challenge such a concept as ghosts because it cannot be verified by the scientific method. The work of Charles Darwin (1809–1882) encouraged the view that all human activity could be verified by scientific principles. 2.2.1

Positivist Criminology

Physiognomists, such as J. K. Lavater (1741–1801) studied the facial features of criminals to determine whether the shape of ears, noses, and eyes and the distance between them were associated with antisocial behaviour. Phrenologists, such as Franz Joseph Gall (1758–1828) and Johann Kaspar Spurzheim (1776– 1832), studied the shape of the skull and bumps on the head to determine whether these physical attributes were linked to criminal behaviour. Phrenologists believed that external cranial characteristics dictate which areas of the brain control physical activity. Though their primitive techniques and quasi-scientific methods have been discredited, these efforts were an early attempt to apply a scientific approach to the study of crime (see Figure 1.3) In Italy, Cesare Lombroso studied the cadavers of executed criminals to scientifically determine whether law violators were physically different from people of conventional values and behaviour. Lombrosian theory can be outlined in a few simple statements. First, Lombroso believed that offenders are born criminals who engage in repeated assault- or theftrelated activities because they have inherited criminal traits that impel them into a life of crime. This view helped spur interest in a criminal anthropology.19 Second, Lombroso held that born criminals suffer from atavistic anomalies (or traits)—physically: that is, they are throwbacks to more primitive times, when people were savages. Thus, criminals supposedly have the enormous jaws and strong canine teeth common to carnivores and savages who devour raw flesh. In addition, Lombroso compared criminals’ behaviour with that of people with mental illnesses and those who had certain forms of epilepsy. He concluded that criminogenic traits could be acquired through indirect heredity: from a “degenerate family with frequent cases of insanity, deafness, syphilis, epilepsy, and alcoholism among its members.” For Lombroso, this

indirect heredity is the primary cause of crime. Direct heredity—being related to a family of criminals—is the second primary cause of crime. *criminal anthropology = Early efforts to discover a biological basis of crime through measurement of physical and mental processes; associated with Cesare Lombroso and the biological positivists. *atavistic anomalies (or traits) = According to Lombroso, the physical characteristics of born criminals that indicate they are throwbacks to animals or primitive people.

2.2.2

The development of Sociological Criminology

At the same time that biological views were dominating criminology, another group of positivists were developing the field of sociology to scientifically study the major social changes taking place in 19th-century society (industrial revolution and population explosion). The foundations of sociological criminology can be traced to the works of L. A. J. (Adolphe) Quetelet (1796–1874) and Emile Durkheim (1858–1917). Quetelet was a Belgian mathematician who began what is known as the cartographic school of criminology. Quetelet made use of social statistics developed in France in the early 19th century and was one of the first social scientists to use objective mathematical techniques to investigate the influence of social factors, such as season, climate, sex, and age, on the propensity to commit crime. Quetelet’s most important finding was that social forces were significantly correlated with crime rates. He showed that the same law-like mechanical regularity that could be observed in the heavens and in the world of nature also existed in the world of social facts. Quetelet was a pioneer of sociological criminology. He identified many of the relationships between crime and social phenomena that still serve as a basis for criminology today. Emile Durkheim (1858–1917) was one of the founders of sociology and a significant contributor to criminology. His definition of crime as a normal and necessary social event has been more influential on modern criminology than has almost any other. According to Durkheim’s vision of social positivism, crime is normal because it has existed in every age, in both poverty and prosperity. Crime is an integral part of all societies because it is virtually impossible to imagine a society in which criminal behaviour is totally absent. Such a society would almost demand that all people be and act exactly alike. The inevitability of crime is linked to the human differences within society. Because people are so different from one another and use such a variety of methods and forms of behaviour to meet their needs, some will resort to criminality. Even if crimes were eliminated, human weaknesses and petty vices would then be elevated to the status of crimes. As long as human differences exist, crime is inevitable, serving as a symbolic reminder of moral boundaries. Durkheim argued that crime could be useful, and even healthy, for a society to experience. The existence of crime implies that a way is open for social change and that the social structure is not rigid or inflexible. Put another way, if crime did not exist, it would mean that everyone would behave the same way and would agree totally on what is right and wrong. Such universal conformity would stifle creativity and independent thinking. Durkheim offered the example of the Greek philosopher Socrates, who, simply because he questioned the social order, was considered a criminal and sentenced to death for corrupting the morals of youth. When given the chance to flee to save his life, Socrates refused, saying that doing so would negate his ideal of standing up for what he believed. In addition,

Durkheim argued that crime is beneficial because it calls attention to social ills. A rising crime rate can signal the need for social change and promote a variety of programs designed to relieve the human suffering that may have caused crime in the first place. In The Division of Labor in Society, Durkheim described the consequences of the shift from a small, rural society, which he labelled mechanical, to the more modern organic society, characterized by a large urban population, division of labour, and personal isolation. From this shift flowed anomie, or norm and role confusion, a powerful sociological concept that helps describe the chaos and disarray accompanying the loss of traditional values in modern society. Durkheim’s research on suicide indicated that anomic societies maintain high suicide rates; by implication, anomie might cause other forms of deviance to develop. *Anomie = A condition produced by normlessness. Because of rapidly shifting moral values, the individual has few guides to what is socially acceptable. According to Merton, anomie is a condition that occurs when personal goals cannot be achieved by available means.

2.2.3

The Chicago School and the McGill School

The primacy of sociological positivism was secured by research begun in the early 20th century by Robert Ezra Park, Ernest W. Burgess, Louis Wirth, Frederic Thrasher, and their colleagues in the sociology department at the University of Chicago. Known as the Chicago School, these sociologists pioneered research on the social ecology of the city. The Chicago School sociologists and their contemporaries focused on the functions of social institutions and how their breakdown influences behaviour. They pioneered the ecological study of crime, which involves looking at crime in the context of where a person lives. During the 1930s, social psychologists argued that the individual’s relationship to education, family life, and peer relations is the key to understanding human behaviour. In any social milieu, children who grow up in a home wracked by conflict, attend an inadequate school, and associate with deviant peers become exposed to pro-crime forces. One position was that people learn criminal attitudes from older, more experienced law violators; another view was that crime occurs when families fail to control adolescent misbehaviour. Each of these views linked criminality to the failure of socialization. By the mid-20th century, most criminologists had embraced either the ecological or the socialization view of crime.

2.2.4

Conflict Criminology

Although Marx did not develop a theory of crime and justice, his writings were applied to legal studies by other social thinkers, including Ralf Dahrendorf, George Vold, and Willem Bonger. Though these writings laid the foundation for a Marxist criminology, decades passed before Marxist theory had an important impact on the discipline. The Vietnam War, the development of an antiestablishment counterculture movement in the 1960s, the civil rights movement, and the women’s movement were all important events challenging the model of social consensus underlying the functionalism of the Chicago School. Young sociologists who became interested in applying Marxist principles to the study of crime began to analyze the social conditions that were felt to promote class conflict and crime. What emerged from this intellectual ferment was the conflict-oriented radical criminology of the 1970s that indicted the economic system for

producing the conditions that support a high crime rate. The radical tradition has played a significant role in criminology ever since.

2.2.5

Criminology today

- Classical theory has evolved into rational choice and deterrence theories. Choice theorists today argue that criminals are rational and use available information to decide whether crime is a worthwhile undertaking; deterrence theory holds that this choice is structured by the fear of punishment. - Criminal anthropology has also evolved considerably and some defends now that biological and mental traits interact with environmental factors to influence all human behaviour, including criminality. Biological and psychological theorists study the association between criminal behaviour and such traits as diet, hormonal makeup, personality, and intelligence. - Sociological theories, tracing back to Quetelet and Durkheim, maintain that individuals’ lifestyles and living conditions directly control their criminal behaviour. Those at the bottom of the social structure cannot achieve success and, as a result, experience failure and frustration. This theory today is called the structural perspective. / Some sociologists who have added a social psychological dimension to their views of crime causation find that individuals’ learning experiences and socialization directly control their behaviour. In some cases, children learn to commit crime by interacting with and modelling their behaviour after others they admire, while other criminal offenders are people whose life experiences have shattered their social bonds to society. This view, the social process perspective. - The writings of Marx and his followers continue to be influential. Today, conflict criminologists still see social and political conflict as the root cause of crime. In their view, the inherently unfair economic structure of advanced capitalist countries is the engine that drives the high crime rate. This effect occurs in two ways: First, the lack of resources causes the poor to commit crimes, such as prostitution; and second, the powerful are able to define the actions of the poor as crime.

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3. WHAT CRIMINOLOGISTS DO: The Criminological Enterprise As Wolfgang and Ferracuti put it: A criminologist is one whose professional training, occupational role, and pecuniary reward are primarily concentrated on a scientific approach to, and study and analysis of, the phenomenon of crime and criminal behaviour. These subareas constitute the field or discipline of criminology: -Criminal statistics: gathering valid crime data, devising new research methods, measuring crime patterns and trends - Sociology of Law: determining the origin of law, measuring the forces that can change laws and society (is concerned with the role that social forces play in shaping criminal law and, conversely, the role of criminal law in shaping society);

- Theory Construction: predicting individual behaviour (why do people commit crimes?), Understanding the cause of crime rates and trends; - Criminal Behaviour systems: determining the nature and cause of specific crime patterns studying violence; theft; and organized, white-collar, and publicorder crimes; - Penology: studying the correction and control of criminal behaviour; -Victimology studying the nature and cause of victimization.

4. HOW DO CRIMINOLOGISTS VIEW CRIME? 4.1 The Consensus View of Crime This view holds that crimes are repugnant to all elements of society. Criminal law, with its definition of crimes and their punishments, is thought to reflect the values, beliefs, and opinions of society. The term consensus is used because it implies that general agreement exists among a majority of people on what behaviours should be outlawed by the criminal law and viewed as crimes. An example of a consensus crime is homicide. Criminologists Edwin Sutherland and Donald Cressey have linked crime with criminal law: Criminal behavior is behavior in violation of the criminal law. . . . [It] is not a crime unless it is prohibited by the criminal law [which] is defined conventionally as a body of specific rules regarding human conduct which have been promulgated by political authority, which apply uniformly to all members of the classes to which the rules refer, and which are enforced by punishment administered by the state.

4.2 The Conflict View of Crime In contrast to the consensus perspective, the conflict view depicts society as a collection of diverse groups— owners, workers, professionals, students—who are in constant and continuing conflict. Groups able to assert their political power use the law and the criminal justice system to advance their economic and social position. Criminal laws are created to protect the haves from the have-nots. In the conflict view, the definition of crime is controlled by wealth, power, and position and not by moral consensus or the fear of social disruption.

4.3 The Interactionist View of Crime The interactionist view, which is based in the symbolic interaction school of sociology, associated with George Herbert Mead, Charles Horton Cooley, and W. I. Thomas. This position holds that (1) people act according to their own interpretations of reality, according to the meaning things have for them; (2) they learn the meaning of a thing from the way others react to it, either positively or negatively; and (3) they reevaluate and interpret their own behaviour according to the meaning and symbols they have learned from others. In this perspective, the definition of crime reflects the preferences and opinions of people who impose their definition of right and wrong on the rest of the population. As sociologist Howard Becker argued: “The deviant is one to whom that label has successfully been applied; deviant behavior is behavior people so label.”

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