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Criminology

University

Introduction to the Bachelor's Degree in Criminology. Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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Foundations, History, and Schools of Criminology

  • Objects of study: crime, criminal, victim, and social control
  • Definition of crime: antisocial behavior (not a legal offense)
  • Key difference: Criminology (social science) vs. Criminalistics (investigation)
  • Milestones: Paul Topinard (first use), Raffaele Garófalo (formal coining in 1885)
  • Father of criminology: Cesare Lombroso (criminal anthropology)
  • Classical School: Based on free will and the delictual act
  • Principle of Legality: Clear laws known by all
  • Principle of Jurisdiction: Trial by a third party (judge)
  • Principle of Proportionality: Punishment proportional to the harm caused
  • Principle of Promptness: Brief process close to the event
  • Principle of Necessity: Inexorable and infallible punishment
  • Biological-Positivist School: Based on biological determinism
  • Center of analysis: The criminal (not the crime)
  • Lombroso: Born and atavistic criminal (biological regression)
  • Ferri: The offender as an abnormal man due to physical, psychic, or hereditary causes
  • Garófalo: Natural crime (offense to piety and probity)
  • Sanction criterion: Based on the dangerousness of the subject
  • Biological-positivist sanction: Security measures or sentences without a time limit

Evolution and theories of criminology: from biological determinism to the Chicago School

  • Biological-positive school: seeks biological-anthropological causes of deviant behavior
  • 20th-century criminology: synthesis of discoveries and expansion to criminalistics, penology, and social reaction
  • Definition (García-Pablos de Molina): empirical and interdisciplinary science regarding crime, the offender, the victim, and social control
  • Criminological objectives: study of genesis, dynamics, variables, prevention, positive intervention, and response systems
  • Chicago School: social ecology and social disorganization due to poverty
  • Concentric zones: the "zone in transition" is the most volatile and a focus of juvenile delinquency (1940s)
  • Differential association: crime is learned through association with experienced offenders
  • Techniques of neutralization: mechanisms for acting in a reprehensible manner while maintaining common moral principles
  • Control theories: emerged in the 1970s as an alternative to subcultural and learning theories

Rational Choice Theories, Critical Criminology, and Feminist Criminology

  • Rational choice: punishment must be accurate, swift, and proportionate to be deterrent.
  • Beccaria: advocated for a rational criminal science and rejected torture and the death penalty.
  • Rational choice theory: offenders perform an economic cost-benefit analysis.
  • Rational choice prevention: based on counter-motivation and increasing the probability of capture.
  • Critical criminology: a macrosociological approach that links deviance to social structure.
  • Left realism: prioritizes rehabilitation and preventive deterrence over incarceration.
  • Minimalism: seeks a humanitarian criminal law and the progressive reduction of criminal law.
  • Abolitionism: proposes the total replacement of the penal system, considering it repressive or superfluous.
  • Natural laws: protect fundamental values and form the basis of common law.
  • Statutes: legislative laws that reflect current cultural customs.
  • Critical Criminology: criminal law responds to the interests of the ruling class.
  • Current trend: replacing the concept of "crime" with the universal term "harm".

Phenomenon of deviance, study of crime, and criminological methodologies

  • Deviant behavior: behavior outside of social standards that causes harm or damage.
  • Perspectives on deviance: causal (biopsychosocial) or cultural (historical/political).
  • Offender: conceived as a biopsychosocial being.
  • Clinic of vulnerability: socio-psycho-biological approach to individual vulnerability in the face of the penal system.
  • Victim: co-protagonist of the criminal event; their typology, co-responsibility, and role as a control agent are studied.
  • Criminology: an empirical and interdisciplinary science that uses the scientific method.
  • Survey: a sociological method that requires representative samples to be reliable.
  • Differential approach: comparison between an experimental group and a control group.
  • Sociometry: Moreno's technique for measuring feelings in small groups.
  • Biological studies: include anthropometry, endocrinology, biotypology, embryology, and genetics.
  • Psychological studies: include behaviorism, psychoanalysis, personology, gestalt psychology, developmental psychology, and neuro-reflexology.

Psychology of Testimony, Criminology in Ibero-America, and Criminological Report

  • Analytical psychology: studies the unconscious and its everyday consequences.
  • Testimony psychology: analyzes factors of recall, reconstruction, and communication in the legal sphere.
  • Testimony: quality depends on cognitive capacity and memory.
  • Memory: is active, malleable, and affected by time, biases, and stereotypes.
  • Evaluation: analyzes behaviors, non-verbal attitudes, and physiological changes (watch out for simulation).
  • Interview: must be conducted by an expert to avoid distortions.
  • Criminology Spain: first schools in Barcelona (1955) and Madrid (1964).
  • Criminology Mexico: first bachelor's degree in 1978 (UANL).
  • Criminology Venezuela: first school in South America in 1992 (U. de Los Andes).
  • Criminology Mexico: first master's degree in 1996 (INACIPE).
  • Criminology Argentina: first school of Social Criminology in 1998 (Patagonia).
  • Criminological report: a technical document for decision-making in judicial, administrative, or private spheres.
  • Criminological report: requires replicable methodologies, justified theoretical bases, and ethical principles.
  • Criminological report: includes documentary review, interviews, validated instruments, and vulnerability/protection analysis.

Flashcard preview (6 of 25)

  1. 01

    In criminology, what are the four objects of study?

    Crime, the criminal, the victim, and social control of criminality.

  2. 02

    In the etymology of criminology, what concept defines the term 'crime'?

    Antisocial behavior (not a crime).

  3. 03

    Who is considered the 'father of criminology' for his studies on criminal anthropology?

    Cesare Lombroso.

  4. 04

    In the Classical School, what is the focus of reflection?

    The criminal act.

  5. 05

    In the biological-positivist school, what is the focus of analysis?

    The criminal.

  6. 06

    In the biological-positive school, what is the focus of analysis?

    The actor of the crime and their behavior.

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