First I would like to start by giving a brief definition of what or better said – how, criminology differs from victimology. Criminology is more concerned with the origin of crime along the extent and nature of crime. Criminology places an emphasis on studying the offender, the crimes, and the motives behind the crime. It is also the study of how the public and criminal justice system responds to the offender. Victimology plays a very important role in criminology and is used to determine what the victim’s behavior has to do with their risk of being victimized.
Tiffany Allen CJ 210: Criminal Investigation Professor Cindy Johnson March 3, 2013 In Today’s society there are many specific ethical considerations that need to be addressed when investigating a specific crime. In this report I will talk about Rape and Homicide. Rape is when the victim is forced to have sexual intercourse. A Homicide is a person who kills another human being. Other questions that I will also talk about are how to reduce ethical problems in an investigation, what prosecution problems could arise and what ethical issues are related to the prosecution.
Assess the usefulness of subcultural theories in explaining ‘subcultural crime and deviance’ in society today. The term subcultural crime and deviance is another way of describing the violation of laws or social norms by various groups within society. These groups have been explored in depth by many sociologists and they have attempted to explain subcultural crime and deviance through the existence of deviant subcultures. Originally, the work of Merton surrounding strain theory claimed that when there was a strain between the goals of society and the means of obtaining the goals then people would turn to crime. However subcultural theorists developed this idea claiming that people experiencing strain seek different forms of success.
DISCUSS THE PROBLEMS IN MEASURING AND DEFINING CRIME AND DEVIANCE. INTRODUCTION This paper will discuss the problems faced whilst trying to define and measure crime and deviance whilst also explaining the differences and relationship between crime and deviance. Criminologists have created means of measuring crime which this paper will explore and identify problems which will occur during the recording of crime and will explore influences on crime and crime statistics. DEFINING CRIME AND DEVIANCE Defining crime or deviance is diverse amongst the many different cultures, history and from one social context to another (new texts pg 138) which causes a big problem whilst defining and measuring crime or deviance as what is believed to be criminal or deviant behaviour in one society may be seen as legal or normal behaviour by another society. There are many theories relating to deviance and crime with each theory illustrating a different aspect of the procedure by which people break rules and are classed as deviants or criminals.
Role of Victimology Victimology in its most simple form is the study of the victim or victims of a particular offender. It is defined as "the thorough study and analysis of victim characteristics" (Turvey, 1999) and may also be called "victim profiling" (Holmes, 1996). In essence criminal profilers are studying the harm the victim endured during the crime, plus its physical and emotional aspects. Victimologists are people who are in essence investigators, researchers, and observers of the victimized persons and their connection to the crime (Karmen, 2007). Holmes & Holmes (2009, p290) stated “To appraise a crime without some knowledge of the victim is certainly remiss.” The victim constitutes half of the crime therefore victimology should be heavily looked at in order to connect them to the offender (Douglas, Burgess, Burgess, & Ressler, 1992).Victimology is important to an investigation process in that, it is not just learning about the victim’s personal history and personality, but it also why the victim was chosen (Petherick, 2010).
My objective for this paper is to make use of criminologist theories to explain why these three individuals made the decisions to pursue a criminal career and what factors influenced them in following this path. Social Disorganization Theory Criminologists, look at many things when trying to negate what causes people to deviate from social and group norms with regards to their criminal behavior. It follows that sociologists have
Crime is know as any behavior which breaks known laws. This behavior can be learned and usually stems from aggression or anti social behavior. There are various theories for crime and the cause of it but they all fit into 3 main catorgries psychological, social, and biological. One theory of crime is eysnecks personality theory. He has composed a test to measure different aspects of a persons character.
Edwin H. Sutherland’s differential association theory is believed that an individual’s criminal behaviors were learned from their social and differential group organizations. Sutherland adopted the view that prevailing conception of crime as having multiple causes, including mental deficiency, broken homes, minority status, age, class, inadequate socialization, alcoholic parents and the like (Matsueda, 2000, p. 125). Sutherland stated that the differential theory has a set of nine propositions. These propositions introduce three concepts; the normative conflict, differential association, and differential group organization. These concept explain crime at levels of the society, the individual, and the group.
Agnew’s (1992) revision of the GST provided a broader inclusion of various forms of stressors in the concept of strain. Agnew’s (1992) further analysis predicted that individuals respond to strain in multiple ways. Robust applications of GST has concentrated on criminal conducts specifically harmful conducts towards another individual in the form of theft or violence, or damaging conducts on organizational property. (Hay et al., 2010). In addition, the theory explains that negative emotions exert pressures that result in criminal and deviant behavior (Agnew, 1992).
A victim of rape (primary victimisation), for example, may be subjected to victim blaming and ostracism as the result of the attack; those who become disabled (primary victimisation) may be subjected to non-accommodation, medicalization, and segregation; and those who develop mental disorder (primary victimisation) may be subject to institutionalisation, that in each case may be far more victimising to these individuals and limiting of their life opportunity than the primary victimising stigmatic condition itself, and are thus called secondary victimisation. The disregards of victims’ needs following a crime against them can sometimes be so traumatic that it is called the “second rape” (in the case of rape) or “second assault”. Victims will feel let down and isolated by the criminal justice body, the medical body and any other institution that is meant to help them, but instead causes the victim in certain cases to start believing that it was in fact their fault or that they had a hand in causing the crime. During the court process, secondary victimisation takes place at various levels. Examples of this are where the victim is not afforded private waiting or report-taking facilities.