Module 1: Introduction to Criminology

What is criminology?
A scientific, multi-disciplinary field that includes:
- Sociology
- Psychology
- Law
- Geography
- Political Science
- And many other fields
All these disciplinary’s study, crime its causation and its prevention

Criminology is a field of study that draws upon knowledge from a range of academic
disciplines to address questions about crime, offenders, offences, victims, crime prevention
and the criminal justice system.

Criminology Includes the study of:

- “the characteristics of the criminal law;
- the extent of crime;
- the effects of crime on victims and on society;
- methods of crime prevention;
- the attributes of criminals; and
- the characteristics and workings of the criminal justice system” (Williams, 2012)

What is Crime?
Varies ways to define crime:
- Legal definitions
- Social harm definitions
- Human right definitions
Can define crimes as acts or omissions that:
- Cause public harm
- Are forbidden by law
- Are punishable by law
◦ As a concept – complex & incorporates large range of behaviours
- e.g. Petty shop theft, violent assault, large-scale corporate crimes, murder
◦ Crime is a social construction – behaviours defined as criminal vary
across time & place
Common Myths
True or False: The Majority of crime involves violence
- It is mostly non-violent
True or False: You are most likely to murdered in public places like streets and
around nightclubs etc
- Murder is 45% likely to be at the victim’s home
True or False: Most murder victims are female
- 64% are male and 36% are Female
True or False: Gold Coast is the crime capital of Australia
- It is a bit of both
Fact and Fallacies about Crime
Formal and informal sources of knowledge about crime.
- Formal sources:
o Official departments of social control – police, legal
o Official statistics – Australian Bureau of Statistics; Australian Institute of
Criminology etc
o Research studies
- Informal sources:
o Personal experience
o Experiences of relatives and friends
o The media
§ Newspapers
§ TV & Radio
§ Internet
§ Crime Fiction

The Criminal Justice System

Key function – bring offenders before courts for adjudication & then, upon a finding of guilt,
to sentence the offender
Different aims in sentencing:
- Retribution
o An approximate form of proportional harm as ‘payback’
- Restitution
o Compensation to victim or society
- Deterrence
o Specific deterrence & general deterrence
- Incapacitation
o Restricts potential offenders’ access to victims
- Rehabilitation
o Behavioural change through therapeutic programs

Criminal Justice System – 3 main components:

- Policing
- Courts
- Corrections

Questions to consider:
• Is it really a system?
• Is there a connection between the parts?
• Do they balance each other?
• What holds the components together?
• What informs the responses and the behaviour of the justice systems?

Legitimation
- CJS attempts to control behaviours defined as unlawful – giving substantial powers
over citizens
- Common rationale is that this power is ‘legitimated’ because majority of citizens
approve of it and are prepared to accept some lawful restrictions on their freedom
in return for social stability & regulation
- Problem for State & CJS - maintain balance between protecting civil liberties &
enforcing a degree of social control
- CJS the formal mechanism of social control utilised only in cases where informal
agencies (families, school, employment) have not adequately socialised people
- If informal controls worked adequately then (it is said) that there would be little
need for formal mechanisms of coercion