2/2/2016

Meaning Elements Science

 Classic definition
◦ Edwin Sutherland & Donald Cressey:
 (law)making, (law)breaking, social reactions
◦ Differs from criminalistics (forensic science)
 Esp. crime-scene investigation (CSI etc.)
 Origins of Criminology
And what is “crime”? ◦ Latin crimen – “offense”
◦ Coined by Paul Topinard (anthro.), 1889
 But data older, research broader
 Quetelet (1796-1874)
 Rates stable
 Esp youth, men, and poor

Crime & Criminal Justice w/ Ellis

Godard @ CSUN 4
SOC355 @ CSUN w/ Ellis Godard 1

Meaning Elements Science

Meaning of Crime
 Developed as a subdiscipline
 Now often a separate program

 Origins & Elements of Criminology  Intensively quantitative
◦ Empirical Interests  Quetelet (1796-1874)
◦ Criminology & Sociology ◦ Rates stable
◦ Theoretical Perspectives (w/i Crim.) ◦ Esp youth, men, and poor
◦ Limitations of Criminology  Durkheim (1895)
Context for Studying Criminology ◦ Deviance is normal (& nec. for change)
◦ Structure, vs. individualism

◦ Aims
◦ Ways of Knowing (esp. Science)  Wells (1892) & DeBois (1899)
◦ Conceptual Levels  Sutherland (1940s) - criminogenics

Crime & Criminal Justice w/ Ellis

2 Godard @ CSUN 5

Meaning Elements Science Meaning Elements Science

No common definition  Sociology: scientific study of social life

Sociology emphasizes social beings

◦ Socially harmful behavior?

rather than individuals
 How harmful?
 Harmful but not banned?
◦ Unlawful behavior? ◦ DVs: Behavior, attitudes, life chances
 Banned but not harmful? (talking in monastery) ◦ Ivs: Social structure & inequality
 Who decides? ◦ Durkheimian (?) – social forces, suicide
◦ Behavior formally processed as criminal? ◦ Public issues, not private troubles
 Seems only demonstrably bounded idea  Mutual relevance
 Crime = relative – to time, space, & case ◦ Concepts – anomie, reprivation, conflict
 Defined by reactions to behavior, not behavior itself
◦ Methods – data, analysis,
 Meaning & Measures Vary Widely
◦ National, state, local, temporal variations
◦ Whether measured, how, & by whom

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Meaning Elements Science Meaning Elements Science

 Patterns of deviance that violate criminal laws.  “Sociological Criminology”

◦ Criminology of Criminal Law or Sociology of Law
◦ Sometimes called theories of criminalization, ◦ Mostly redundant
not theories of crime. ◦ Emphases: poverty, race, ethnicity, class, gender
◦ Which acts come to the attention of authorities, ◦ “structural” criminology (Hagen, 1994)
Modern Criminology
and which are formally penalized
 Breaking laws 
◦ Criminogenesis, etiology (the study of causes), or crime
causation.
◦ Return to individualistic explanations
◦ Studying “the criminal mind”  Bio, psych, choices, etc.
◦ Most interdisciplinary ◦ Avoids important questions:
 Historical & cultural variation
 anthropology, economics, political science, psychology, or
sociology
◦ NOT concerned w/ fighting crime or catching criminals
more effectively
 Social-structural variation
 clinical, applied, and praxis (theory in action) criminology, as  Variation in crime rates and responses to crime
well as the field of criminal justice, advocating better
management, investigation, social change, and systems,
respectively.

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Meaning Elements Science Meaning Elements Science

 Reacting to lawbreaking (Most sociological)  Functionalist

◦ Societal reaction theorists: media glamorization of crime, ◦ Focus: systematic relationships
moral boundaries by which communities tolerate or do not
tolerate crime ◦ Emphasis: purpose/need/goal fulfilled
◦ Social response theorists: justifications and consequences
of different styles of reacting to crime
◦ Envisions: consensus, balance, harmony
◦ Normative theorists: determinants of norms (expectations  Conflict
for behavior)
◦ Relativity of crime specialists: whether there is consensus ◦ Focus: diversity, inequality, inconsistency
of public opinion about seriousness of various criminal acts ◦ Emphasis: inherent tensions & stratification
◦ Criminologists of criminal justice: often indistinguishable
from criminal justice specialists ◦ Envisions: competition, domination, subjugation
 Study e.g. society's carrying capacity (rates of imprisonment and
how many prisoners prisons can hold) or police strength (as an
indicator of repressive social control). The three

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Meaning Elements Science Meaning Elements Science

 Crime and state responses as…  Interactionist

◦ Focus: individual, day-to-day behavior
◦ historically variable ◦ Emphasis: nuances and routines to exchanges
◦ rooted in a social context ◦ Envisions: ongoing reproduction of meaning
 Unlike ethical accounts Geometric
◦ Empirical, not normative

◦ Focus: empirical patterns, at any level
 Unlike psychological accounts  Not micro or macro (or meso) – but applies to all
◦ Emphasis: how patterns of behavior are explained
◦ Emphasize interactions, groups, histories by social variations
 Unlike legal accounts  Location
◦ Consider disparities & inequalities  Direction
◦ Sociological vs. Jurisprudential  Distance
 More
◦ Envisions: multi-dimensional model w/ testable
explanations
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Meaning Elements Science Meaning Elements Science

 Challenge assumptions w/ data  Five characteristics

◦ Verifiable knowledge –
e.g. jobs & delinquency (parents & school)
 Policy recommendations
◦ Edwin Sutherland, 1939: white-collar crimes
 Assess effectiveness of CJS programs
◦ James Finckenauer & Scared Straight
◦ Simple, general, valid, testable, original
 Each is a variable
◦ Can be more or less of each (not absolute/binary)
◦ More an idea is any of these, more scientific it is
 Can even predict when ideas are these
◦ Scienticity varies curvilinearly w/ an observer’s
familiarity w/ a topic or subject matter
 The more of each of these, the “better”
◦ I prefer scientific approaches
◦ Criminology does well (vs. Sociology generally)

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Meaning Elements Science Meaning Elements Science

 Personal Ways of Knowing  Law varies curvilinearly w/ relational

◦ Common Sense distance.
◦ Personal Experience Scienticity varies curvilinearly w/ the
Popular Opinion

◦
◦ Intuition observer’s distance from the subject.
 Classical Ways of Knowing  Counting God
◦ Tradition – Galileo Dancing Social Structures
Authority – realms of expertise

◦
◦ Mysticism – faith
 Science
◦ Describing and explaining observed patterns
◦ Generalized from observations to other, like
instances

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Meaning Elements Science

 Personal Ways of Knowing

◦ Powerful but frequently incorrect
 Classical Ways of Knowing
◦ Resist/reclassify contrary evidence
 Science
◦ Seeks valid and reliable data
◦ Invites contradictory evidence, for support

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