Criminology: The Word and Its Subject Matter
Chapter Seven
Syllabus topic 1, "Concept of Crime. Criminal Law, Criminology as a Science,"
Pages 25 to 27 of 528
In one line
Criminology is the scientific study of crime, of the criminal, and of the way society reacts to both.
In the wording a student can write in an exam: the word criminology was coined in the late nineteenth century from the Latin crimen, meaning accusation or offence, and the Greek logia, meaning study, and it names the body of knowledge regarding crime as a social phenomenon.
Where the word came from
The Italian jurist Raffaele Garofalo, one of the three figures of the Positive School, published a work titled Criminologia in 1885, and that is the first use of the word in its modern sense. The French anthropologist Paul Topinard is credited with using the equivalent French term at about the same time, and the two are usually named together.
The date matters. It tells you that criminology as a named discipline is barely more than a century and a half old, although speculation about why people offend is as old as writing. What was new in the 1880s was the claim that the question could be studied by the methods of science rather than settled by philosophy or theology, and that claim is the subject of the chapter asking whether criminology is a science.
The three things criminology studies
Sutherland's formulation is the one every Indian textbook uses and it is worth memorising in his own structure. Criminology includes within its scope three processes:
- The making of laws. Why is this conduct criminal and that conduct not? Who decides, and in whose interest? This is the sociology of law, and it is what makes the third module of this paper possible.
- The breaking of laws. Why do people offend? This is criminal etiology, the study of causation, and it is the largest and oldest part of the subject.
- The reaction towards the breaking of laws. What does society do about it, through police, courts, prisons and everything else? This is penology in the wide sense, and it is what the fourth module of this paper covers.
Say those three in that order in any answer that asks what criminology is. They are the discipline's own map of itself.
Criminology and the words around it
Students meet five words in the first week and use them interchangeably. They are not interchangeable.
Criminology is the study of crime, criminals and society's reaction. It is the genus.
Criminal etiology is the study of the causes of crime. It is one branch.
Penology is the study of punishment and of the treatment of offenders, including prisons, probation and parole.
Victimology is the study of the victim, of the victim's relationship to the offender, and of the victim's place in the system. It is the newest branch, and MU examines it directly.
Criminology: The Word and Its Subject Matter
Criminalistics, sometimes called forensic science, is the application of the physical sciences to the detection of crime: fingerprints, ballistics, toxicology, biological traces. It is not the same as criminology and it is a separate paper on this group.
Who does criminology
The discipline has no single parent, which is both its strength and the basis of the complaint that it is not a science.
Lawyers brought the definitions and the concern with responsibility. Sociologists brought the study of groups, neighbourhoods and social structure, and they have dominated the field since the 1920s. Psychologists and psychiatrists brought the study of personality and disorder. Statisticians brought the measurement of rates, and the Cartographic School is their contribution. Economists brought the analysis of crime as a choice under incentives. Anthropologists and biologists brought the physical study of the offender, which is where Lombroso came from.
An Indian student should add one more. Administrators and commissions of inquiry have produced a great deal of what is known about crime in India, because academic criminology here is thin and the official report is often the only systematic study of a subject that exists.
A worked example
Suppose you are asked to study the rise in cheating cases involving digital payments in Mumbai. Where do the three parts of the definition take you?
The making of laws. Which provisions apply, when were they enacted, and what was the occasion? The offences of cheating and of dishonest inducement are old; the provisions on computer resources and identity theft are recent. Asking why the newer ones were added, and who pressed for them, is studying law-making.
The breaking of laws. Who commits these frauds, from where, with what organisation, and what makes a person a suitable target? This is etiology, and modern criminology would reach for routine activity theory, which is dealt with in its own chapter.
The reaction. How many complaints are registered, how many investigated, how many charge-sheeted, how many tried, how many convicted, and how long does each stage take? This is the study of the reaction, and it is usually where an Indian study finds its most striking numbers.
Notice what a purely legal study would have covered. Only the first, and only its output. The other two are what this subject adds.
What beginners get wrong
Criminology is not the study of criminal law. Criminal law is one of its objects of study, not its content.
Criminology is not detection. The identification of an offender is criminalistics or investigation. Criminology asks why there was an offender to identify.
Criminology is not penology, and penology is not prison administration. Penology is the study of the response; running a prison is a job.
Criminology: The Word and Its Subject Matter
Quick revision
- The word criminology comes from the Latin crimen and the Greek logia; Garofalo used it as the title of a book in 1885 and Topinard used the French equivalent at about the same time.
- Sutherland's three processes: the making of laws, the breaking of laws, and the reaction towards the breaking of laws.
- Branches: criminal etiology, the study of causes; penology, the study of punishment and treatment; victimology, the study of the victim.
- Criminalistics or forensic science is the application of the physical sciences to detection and is a different subject.
- Criminology is interdisciplinary: law, sociology, psychology, statistics, economics, biology, and in India the official commission of inquiry.
Test yourself
1. Who coined the term and when? Raffaele Garofalo, an Italian jurist of the Positive School, used Criminologia as the title of a work published in 1885; the French anthropologist Paul Topinard is credited with the equivalent French term at about the same date.
2. State Sutherland's three processes and say which module of this paper each corresponds to. The making of laws, which is Module III's concern with whose conduct gets criminalised; the breaking of laws, which is Module II on causes; and the reaction towards the breaking of laws, which is Module IV on the response of the Indian legal order.
3. Distinguish criminology from criminalistics. Criminology studies crime as a social phenomenon: why laws are made, why they are broken, and how society reacts. Criminalistics, or forensic science, applies the physical and biological sciences to the detection of a particular crime and the identification of a particular offender. One asks why offending happens; the other asks who did this.
The rest of this subject
These notes are cut from the University's printed syllabus. Open the syllabus itself, or the past papers, for the same subject.