What is Criminology in sociology?
The Latin word “Crimen” means crime or accusation and the Greek word “logia” means study. Thus sociology of crime is better known as criminology. It all consists of the study of the making, breaking, and enforcing of criminal laws. The cause of crime and the crime problems, the prevention of the crime and the effects of punishment on criminals and society, and the treatment of the criminals.
Ineffective treatment of juveniles and adults is also a reason for criminal behaviour. The punishment and the reformative patterns have effects on the criminals and society both. Criminology, therefore, helps to develop and test theories explaining criminal behaviour, the formation and enforcement of laws, and the operation of the criminal justice system.
How Sociology and Criminology are Mutually Relevant?
Criminology is an interdisciplinary field of study, involving scholars and practitioners representing a wide range of behavioural sciences drawing especially on the research of sociologists and psychologists as well as the writings of law.
Sociology is the mother of all social sciences. Hence it has a close relationship with all social sciences so also with Criminology. The relationship of sociology with criminology is very close, intimate, and personal. Sociology is the study of social behaviour, systems, and social structure. On the other hand, criminology refers to the study of the criminal behaviour of a man.
The terms criminology and criminologist are most commonly used in the study of criminality as a form of social behaviour. Those sociologists who got specialization in this topic are called criminologists. They are therefore found to involve in the study of law violation as a form of social behavior and have made a lot of sociological propositions as well as collected research evidence about criminality.
Historically in the USA, a relatively small group of sociologists inquired into criminology. But today, there is a good deal of interest in criminological topics, as witnessed in the works of students of deviance, large-scale organization, and sociology of law.
Criminology has its roots in the disciplines of sociology, psychology, psychiatry, and law. It is also indebted to economics, political science, and other sciences.
Criminologists have drawn upon the varied contributions of these established sciences to pose economic, political, legal, sociological, physiological, and other kinds of questions about crime and responses to it.
A criminologist is a sociologist. He looks at criminal behavior mainly from the social point of view. He makes use of sociological concepts and techniques in his inquiry. Criminological studies have influenced the sociological view towards crime, criminal and rehabilitation of criminals.
Thus Criminology plays a significant role in criminal law and the criminal justice system. It helps to produce findings that influence legislators, judges, prosecutors, lawyers, probation officers, prison officials, etc. to understand better crime and criminals.
A comparative study of criminal law in various countries as related to social, economic, and political system with appropriate attention to transitions in developing countries and the system of traditional sanctions in tribal society.
The formulation, testing, and revision of hypothesis or theories with which attempt to explain crimes and delinquency in general or any particular pattern of offense or criminal activity in particular, all these relate criminology.
Criminology in Sociology involves the study and control of problems and deviancy which have a close connection with the crime, such as abnormal sex offenders, prostitution, suicides, narcotic drug addiction, chronic gambling, and begging.
It also includes the study of various law enforcement and operation of special laws such as habitual offender laws and abnormal sex offender law.
Criminology plays a pivotal role in finding the effectiveness of measures of treatment and rehabilitation of offenders, by penal and correctional institutions, prohibition, and aftercare service, including the study of the impact of detention while awaiting trial disposition.
Criminology is different from other sciences because crimes of the same kind and nature are not caused due to the same reason in all the cases. Thus the causes of murder may be different in different cases. No universal principle can be set as a cause of murder due to the diversity of behavior amongst human beings. A man being highly sensitive may murder a petty issue while the other may not bring any change in his behavior on that issue. The murderers may be committed for a variety of reasons, retribution, the greed of inheriting the property, eliminating the rival in trade, competition, power, etc.
Different theories of crime describe different reasons for crime but no theory can satisfactorily answer these questions. So criminology is concerned with various causes motivating the crime and needs to stay away from the things which make man criminal.
Some Sociological Theories on Crime are going to mainly the Functionalist perspective.
To define The Functionalist analysis of crime then it starts with society as a whole. It tries to explain crime by observing the nature of society, rather than at individuals. Two main thinkers are attached with the Functionalist Perspective on Crime: Emile Durkheim and Robert Merton.
Emile Durkheim being a sociologist gave the three basic ideas related to crime.
It is crime in a limited amount is always necessary, Individuals are not 100% constrained by society. Defiance allows a social change to take place.
There are three positive functions of crime: Social regulation, social integration, social change, all these three contributes to the well-being of society.
On the other hand, it also bad to allow too much crime to happen as it can bring about the collapse of society in various ways. Hence institutions of social control are necessary always to check the amount of crime.
Durkheim’s theory of crime and deviance were found in his creation “The Rules of Sociological Method”, which was first published in 1895.
Takeaways
There will always remain a personal yet unique relation between sociology and Criminology. Hence it is quite obvious that we will always find a link when studying the crime of our human society.
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