What is Criminology Review (Chapter 1)

Question 1

What is Criminology

Answer 1

It is the body of knowledge regarding crime as a social phenomenon. It includes the process of:

• Making laws
• Breaking laws
• Reacting to the breaking of laws

Question 2

Why study crime in the first place?

Answer 2

• To know more about crime and better understand criminal behaviour and society’s response to it
• Crime tells us a lot about our society
• To reduce crime, we must first understand it
• Crime affects us all, directly or indirectly

Question 3

How does crime affect us?

Answer 3

• As victims
• As taxpayers (we all pay for the costs of the CJS)
• As employees (Many are employed in the CJS or security-related businesses)

Question 4

What is theory?

Answer 4

The theory is an explanation of a relationship between 2 or more events

A theory can be concrete or abstract

Concrete theories tend to be more simple for example throwing a ball out a window but abstract theories are more complex for example they tie to reality

Question 5

What is theory not?

Answer 5

Popular beliefs

Opinion

Question 6

Characteristics of simple theories

Answer 6

Relate two factors (cause & effect) to each other

Are based on:
- Use of systemic evidence and objective observation
- Rational Explanations

Question 7

More complex theoretical frameworks

Answer 7

Require many factors in the explanation

Specify conditions and processes necessary for relationships to take place

Most importantly, theories should reflect:

• Careful observation
• Systemic logic

Question 8

How to determine a good theory?

Answer 8

The criteria most often used today are:
- testability
- Best fit to research evidence

Other criteria of good theory:
- Sensitizing qualities

Question 9

What are sensitizing qualities?

Answer 9

• Labelling theory (power of a label that identifies who is a criminal and who isn’t)
• Critical race theory
• Feminists

Question 10

How are theories different?

Answer 10

What is being explained
- Social structure, classes of people, small groups (homeless, youth)

What is the Approach
- Social, psychological, or biological factors

What is the crime-based focus
- Crime, criminal behaviour, crime rates, victimization, fear of crime, location

What is covered, what is not
- time frame, population, circumstances

Question 11

What are the two general types of criminological theories?

Answer 11

Unit theory
- Focus on one phenomenon
- Testable (hard to do, but how effective is it)

Metatheory
- Focus on the perception of reality
- Rarely testable
“theories about theories”

Question 12

Other ways to classify theories

Answer 12

Classical vs Positivist

Structural vs Strain theory vs Processual

Consensus vs Conflict

Question 13

Classical vs Positivist

Answer 13

Classical - Reforming our justice system

Positivist - Treatment, Criminal behaviour

Question 14

Structural (Strain) Theory vs Processual

Answer 14

Structural - The way out society is organized and its effect on behaviour

Not all structual is strain theory, for example, focusing on the process of developing delinquency

Processual - Process of becomign a criminal

Question 15

Consensus vs Conflcit

Answer 15

Consensus - The majority agrees, they assume that members of a society hold common values

Conflict - Not everyone agrees, the law only benefits small groups,

Question 16

What is the Interactionist Approach

Answer 16

Laws are constantly changing
- Laws result from interaction among individuals and groups
- Moral entrepreneurs try to get their values enacted in law (MADD)

Criminal labels stigmatize the individual

Question 17

The context of a criminological theory

Answer 17

There are important influences behind every theory

This is called the context in which the theory was developed

If you know the context, you can better understand the theory

Never assume that you know what a theory says without placing it into its own context

Question 18

What is the social-intellectual context of a theory?

Answer 18

When a theory is constructed, many factors come into play other than the ideas of the theories

Social Context:
- Events and beliefs of the time

Intellectual Context:
- Books, mentors, and influences important to the theorist

Question 19

What are the links between theory, research and policy?

Answer 19

Theory is the start of the relationship

Theory provides the elements that allow us to develop a research plan

Research tests the theory and guides us to policy development

Research that is based on theory, guides the development of policy

Policy can be evaluated with research which may indicate theory needs to be revised

Question 20

Policy is the end result of theory and research

Answer 20

Research evidence feedback allows a theory to be:
- Refined
- Redirected
- Policy should depend on theory and research

Theory/research-informed policy allows:
- Cost/benefit evaluation
- The rationale for why a policy should work
- But, policymakers and politicians often rate policy for other reasons

Question 21

What are macro theories?

Answer 21

They explain social and its effects

They paint a picture of the way the world works, fit the structure of society into that picture, and suggest how crime is related to that structure

Focus on rates of crime

Question 22

What are the levels of Abstraction?

Answer 22

Macro theories

Microtheories

Bridging theories

Question 23

What are micro theories?

Answer 23

They are used to explain how people become criminals.

The focus may be on specific groups of people but they are typically small groups or on an individual

Examples: Social control and social learning theories

Question 24

What are bridging theories?

Answer 24

This is when they do not fit into the two categories so it’s in the “in-between”.

They tell us how social structure comes about and how people become criminal

Both epidemiological - explaining differing rates of crime

Etiological - explaining criminal behaviour itself

Question 25

Levels of Explanation

Answer 25

Most theories cannot be directly compared with each other because they do not focus directly on the same subject

Some theories explain how social events give rise to crime in society but do not attempt to explain how particular individuals become criminals

Question 26

What is Thomas Kuhn’s Concept?

Answer 26

His concept is based on paradigms is based on a combination of methodology and accepted procedue in determining proper evidence