Lesson 1 - Studying Crime PDF

Preview

Summary

Broll...

Description

Studying Crime 

There are two approaches to defining crime: o Objectivist-legalistic approach o Social reaction approach

Objectivist-Legalistic Approach  

 

Crime is something against the law Criminologists should focus on “rule breakers” o What are the causes of criminal behaviour? o Why do people break the law and why do people not break the law? o Is it biological or psychological; does it have something to do with their upbringing? If actions cause harm or are socially deviant, but are not against the law, it is not within the realm of their study Has informed several prominent criminological theories

Types of Law in Canada 





Administrative Law o Form of public law o Governs relationships between individuals and the state o E.g. labour laws, environmental laws, licenses (liquor, drivers, etc.) Civil law o Form of private law o Governs relationships between individuals o E.g. contracts, wills, tort o Usually resolved with settlements but sometimes it will come down to a judicial decision Criminal law o Form of public law (governs relationships between the individual and the state) o Governs threats to social order o Includes:  Crimes against the person (sexual assault, murder)  Property crime (breaking and entering, vandalism)  Offences that are wrong, with no obvious victim (prostitution, drug use)

Canadian Criminal Law  



The Canadian criminal justice system is strongly informed by the objectivist-legalistic perspective, which makes sense considering it can only deal with actions against the law Key concepts of a crime: o Actus reus (guilty act) o Mens rea (guilty mind) Example: If you stole a laptop from Best Buy, the Crown would have to prove that you took the laptop without paying for it (actus reus) and that you intended to do so (mens rea)



If you’re under the age of 12 or are found to be mentally incompetent, you cannot possess the necessary mens rea and therefore cannot be found guilty of a criminal offence

Crime and Social Reaction 



 

 

 

A limitation to the objectivist-legalistic approach is that criminal justice is widespread, and different acts are crimes in different places o Certain acts are illegal one day and legal the next o How do we decide what is deviant and what is not? (e.g. murdering someone because you’re angry at them vs. murdering someone in self defence) o How do we draw the line between legal deviance and illegal deviance? Labelling theorists argued that deviance is constructed o Nobody is deviant until they are labelled as such; sometimes this label actually leads them to commit crimes o Someone like Martha Stewart is typically not labelled as a deviant, whereas someone like Paul Bernardo is – why is this? The social-reaction perspective is grounded in social constructionism Social deviance exists on a continuum from the least serious to the most serious acts of deviance o Possessing a small amount of marijuana = less serious o Rape = more serious Criminal behaviour is usually deviant, but deviant behaviour is not necessarily criminal If deviance is socially constructed and exists on a continuum, then society’s definition of deviance surely can change over time o Sexual assault law in the 1980s o Physician-assisted suicide o Prohibition A social-reaction criminologist would argue that there are few natural laws The objectivist-legalistic and the social-reaction perspectives are clearly very different approaches to the definition of crime, and therefore study very different things

Critical Criminology     

A branch of social-reaction criminology Comes from a Marxist perspective Focuses on the entire law-making process Considers issues of social class, race, and gender o Studies the power imbalances that exist between different groups in society Critical criminologists believe that society is always in a state of conflict; always a power struggle o Some people are able to use the law to their advantage in this power struggle o Example: why is culpable homicide considered very serious, but a case of corporate crime where poor business decisions lead to thousands of deaths is considered less serious?...