What Is Criminology?: Timothy Roufa

What Is Criminology?
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BY TIMOTHY ROUFA
Updated July 28, 2018
Criminology is the study of the law enforcement and criminal justice system. A person
looking for a career in criminal justice will very likely first seek to earn a criminology
degree. While criminal justice and criminology are certainly related fields, they are not
identical. What is criminology?
Etymology of Criminology
"Criminology" is derived from the Latin crimen, which means accusation, and the
transliterated Greek logia, which has come to denote "the study of," therefore the study
of crime.
What Is Criminology?
Criminology is a branch of sociology and has, in effect, been studied in one way or
another for thousands of years. Despite its long history, it has only been relatively
recently that criminology has been recognized as a scientific discipline in its own right.
Criminologists
Criminologists look at a broad range of topics related to crime. They are dedicated to
studying not only the causes of crime but the social impact as well.
In essence, criminologists look at every conceivable aspect of deviant behavior. This
includes the impacts of crime on individual victims and their families, society at large,
and even criminals themselves. Some of the specific areas that criminology focuses on
include:
 Frequency of crimes
 Location of crimes
 Causes of crimes
 Types of crimes
 Social and individual consequences of crimes
 Social reactions to crime
 Individual reactions to crime
 Governmental reactions to crime
Schools of Thought Within Criminology
The end goal of criminology, of course, is to determine the root causes of criminal
behavior and to develop effective and humane means for preventing it. It has lead to
several schools of thought within the discipline, each of which looks at different factors
involved in deviant behavior and each coming to different conclusions about how best to
approach the issues.
The three primary schools of thought within criminology are the Classical School, the
Positivist School, and the Chicago School.
Classical School
The Classical School of criminology, championed by Italian attorney Cesare Beccaria,

embraces concepts and theories of crime based on these four basic ideas:
 Individuals have free will to make choices and to act on their own accord
 People will generally seek pleasure and avoid pain, and they will rationally
calculate the cost versus the benefit when choosing to commit an act
 Punishment can be used to deter crime, and the severity of the punishment must
be proportional to the crime itself
 The swiftness and the certainty of the punishment is the most important factor in
deterring crime
Positivist School
The Positivist School suggests that there are other factors at work in deviant behavior
besides simple pleasure seeking and pain avoidance. Positivism supposes external and
internal factors that may be beyond the control of the individual. It includes biological,
psychological, social, and environmental causes.
The positivist school was the first to apply the scientific method to the study of human
behavior. It served to advance the field of criminology as an accepted and respected
scientific discipline.
One of the earliest and best-known proponents of positivist thought, Cesare Lombroso,
looked at physiological features of criminals such as the shape of their skulls and the
height of their cheekbones to suggest that biology may precondition certain people to
tend toward criminal behavior. It, of course, has long been discredited, but the positivist
school's belief that a study of crime must include the environment in which the crime
occurs remains relevant.
Chicago School
Also known as the Ecological School, the Chicago School was first developed during
the 1920's in the sociology department at the University of Chicago. This school of
thought advanced the idea that human behavior was, at least partially, determined by
social structure. It takes into account psychological and environmental factors in
seeking to determine the causes of deviant behavior.
The Chicago School notes that human beings adapt to their environments. A destructive
social environment, such as growing up in poverty, for instance, leads to a breakdown in
the social structure. This environment both hampers the ability of a society to deal
effectively with the crime that results and fosters a criminal mentality in the community
that drives crime within it.
Criminology Improves Society
The field of criminology has led to improvements across our criminal justice system,
including our response to crime and our treatment of both victims and criminals. It
continues to help us better understand the real costs of crime for all involved and for
society as a whole.
Criminology has led to even more specialized areas of study, including environmental
criminology. It has also brought advancements in police tactics and practices, some of
them incompatible with others, such as "broken windows" policing, community-oriented
policing, and predictive policing.
Careers in Criminology
Careers in criminology are plentiful and varied. Earning a degree in the field can open
doors to academic pursuits or advanced studies in areas such as forensic psychology,
or provide a solid foundation for a criminal justice career. Either way, criminology can be
a fascinating and rewarding field.

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What Is Criminology?: Timothy Roufa

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What Is Criminology?

Updated July 28, 2018

 Social and individual consequences of crimes

 Social reactions to crime

 Individual reactions to crime

 Governmental reactions to crime

Schools of Thought Within Criminology

The Classical School of criminology, championed by Italian attorney Cesare Beccaria,

Criminology Improves Society

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