Criminology

Criminology, scientific study of the nonlegal aspects of crime and delinquency, 

including its causes, correction, and prevention, from the viewpoints of such diverse disciplines as anthropology, biology, psychology and psychiatry, economics, sociology, and statistics.

Viewed from a legal perspective, the term crime refers to individual criminal actions (e.g., a burglary) and the societal response to those actions (e.g., a sentence of three years in prison). By comparison, the field of criminology incorporates and examines broader knowledge about crime and criminals. For example, criminologists have attempted to understand why some people are more or less likely to engage in criminal or delinquent behaviour. Criminologists have also examined and attempted to explain differences in crime rates and the criminal code between societies and changes in rates and laws over time.

Many criminologists consider themselves to be neutral public policy experts, gathering facts for various governmental officials responsible for drawing policy conclusions. However, some criminologists—like their counterparts in such fields as the atomic and nuclear sciences—maintain that scientists must shoulder responsibility for the moral and political consequences of their research. Thus, some criminologists have actively campaigned against capital punishment and have advocated in favour of various legal reforms. Criminologists who oppose this activist role contend that the findings of criminological research must be weighed along with political, social, religious, and moral arguments, a task best left to political bodies. Not denying the right of criminologists to express their opinions as ordinary citizens and voters, this view nonetheless maintains that a government by popular will is less dangerous than a government by experts.

In the last decades of the 20th century, criminology grew to encompass a number of specialized study areas. One of these was criminalistics, or scientific crime detection, which involves such measures as photography, toxicology, fingerprint study, and DNA evidence (see also DNA fingerprinting). It had previously been excluded from criminology because of its focus on particular criminal actions rather than on the broader knowledge about crime and criminals. Criminology further expanded its reach by devoting significant attention to victimology, or the study of the victims of crime, the relationships between victims and criminals, and the role of victims in the criminal events themselves. Criminal justice has also emerged as a separate but closely related academic field, focusing on the structure and functioning of criminal justice agencies—including the police, courts, corrections, and juvenile agencies—rather than on explanations of crime. (See juvenile justice.)