21st Century Criminology: A Reference Handbook

J. Mitchell Miller

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9781412960199
• eBook ISBN: 9781506320588
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

Criminology has experienced tremendous growth over the last few decades, evident, in part, by the widespread popularity and increased enrollment in criminology and criminal justice departments at the undergraduate and graduate levels across the U.S. and internationally. Evolutionary paradigmatic shift has accompanied this surge in definitional, disciplinary and pragmatic terms. Though long identified as a leading sociological specialty area, criminology has emerged as a stand-alone discipline in its own right, one that continues to grow and is clearly here to stay. Criminology, today, remains inherently theoretical but is also far more applied in focus and thus more connected to the academic and practitioner concerns of criminal justice and related professional service fields. Contemporary criminology is also increasingly interdisciplinary and thus features a broad variety of ideological orientations to and perspectives on the causes, effects and responses to crime. 21st Century Criminology: A Reference Handbook provides straightforward and definitive overviews of 100 key topics comprising traditional criminology and its modern outgrowths. The individual chapters have been designed to serve as a "first-look" reference source for most criminological inquires. Both connected to the sociological origins of criminology (i.e., theory and research methods) and the justice systems? response to crime and related social problems, as well as coverage of major crime types, this two-volume set offers a comprehensive overview of the current state of criminology. From student term papers and masters theses to researchers commencing literature reviews, 21st Century Criminology is a ready source from which to quickly access authoritative knowledge on a range of key issues and topics central to contemporary criminology.

• This two-volume set in the SAGE 21st Century Reference Series is intended to provide undergraduate majors with an authoritative reference source that will serve their research needs with more detailed information than encyclopedia entries but not so much jargon, detail, or density as a journal article or research handbook chapter.
• 100 entries or "mini-chapters" highlight the most important topics, issues, questions, and debates any student obtaining a degree in this field ought to have mastered for effectiveness in the 21st century.
• Curricular-driven, chapters provide students with initial footholds on topics of interest in researching term papers, in preparing for GREs, in consulting to determine directions to take in pursuing a senior thesis, graduate degree, career, etc.
• Comprehensive in coverage, major sections include The Discipline of Criminology, Correlates of Crime, Theories of Crime & Justice, Measurement & Research, Types of Crime, and Crime & the Justice System.
• The contributor group is comprised of well-known figures and emerging young scholars who provide authoritative overviews coupled with insightful discussion that will quickly familiarize researchers, students, and general readers alike with fundamental and detailed information for each topic.
• Uniform chapter structure makes it easy for students to locate key information, with most chapters following a format of Introduction, Theory, Methods, Applications, Comparison, Future Directions, Summary, Bibliography & Suggestions for Further Reading, and Cross References.
• Availability in print and electronic formats provides students with convenient, easy access wherever they may be.

PART I

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THE DISCIPLINE OF CRIMINOLOGY

1

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CRIMINOLOGY AS SOCIAL SCIENCE

Paradigmatic Resiliency and Shift in the 21st Century

J. MITCHELL MILLER

University of Texas at San Antonio

Criminology is the study of crime, as indicated by the formative Latin terms crimin (accusation or guilt) and -ology (study of). As an intellectual domain, criminology comprises contributions from multiple academic disciplines, including psychology, biology, anthropology, law, and, especially, sociology. Although the defining statements of criminology are rooted across these diverse areas, contemporary criminology is becoming ever more intertwined with still additional sciences and professional fields such as geography, social work, and public health.

This plurality of influences, often referred to as multi-disciplinarity, is altogether logical given the complex subject matter and diverse nature of crime. Scholarly attention to crime from various perspectives allows for an extensive range of research questions to be addressed, making possible a fuller understanding of the criminal mind, the nature of crime, and social control processes. Legal scholarship, for example, ranges from philosophical attention to social justice issues to technocratic factors determinant of case outcome. Alternatively, psychology approaches the topic of crime with a focus on individual-level maladjustment and behavioral abnormality. Sociological criminology differs still by concentrating on the multiple causes and nature of crime, as well as society’s reaction to it.

The individuals who study crime, criminologists, engage research on virtually every imaginable aspect of illegality and society’s reactions to it, ranging from the development of theories of crime causation, the roles and uses of social control (e.g., police, courts, and corrections), crime prevention, and victimization. Of course, criminologists have also developed substantial knowledge bases on specific offenses, which are often categorized as (a) crimes against property (e.g., burglary, theft, robbery, and shoplifting); (b) crimes against a person (e.g., homicide, assault, and rape); (c) morality/social order crimes (e.g., gambling, prostitution, substance offenses, vandalism); and now (d) technology crime/cybercrime, which overlaps with and often facilitates crime in each of the other categories. The collective basic knowledge that criminologists have generated through the scientific process has great potential for informing social policy and criminal justice practice through enhancement of the effectiveness and efficiency of prevention, intervention, enforcement, and rehabilitative strategies and practices in the 21st century.

This introductory chapter quickly surveys the emergence and evolution of criminology, from seminal contributions to its contemporary state in academe. While tracing criminology’s history and acknowledging its intellectual diversity (these matters are more fully addressed in Chapter 2), it is contended that criminology is correctly understood and best practiced as a social science. Furthermore, as a field of scientific inquiry criminology is no longer a specialty area of other established disciplines, such as deviance within sociology or abnormal psychology, but instead is a new and steadily growing independent academic discipline in its own right. Last, the rise of academic criminal justice is acknowledged as a shaping force on criminology that is steadily moving the discipline toward greater interdisciplinary status and public policy utility (the focus of Chapter 3).

Defining Criminology

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The terms criminology and criminologist are used rather broadly and interchangeably by the news media and in everyday popular culture expression. Criminologists are, in fact, social scientists, but frequently and erroneously they are confused with other crime-related scientific and investigative roles (e.g., forensics scientist/medical examiner, psychological criminal profiler, and ballistics specialists). Much of the confusion and definitional misunderstanding of what criminology is stems from the different functions the individuals in these roles serve. Although each role is important in the fight against crime, some are not scientific at all and certainly not social science in practice or purpose. Although a surging social science today, criminology matured through an evolutionary process of shifts in primary focus, from philosophy to crime prevention/legal reform and then, ultimately, science.

The term criminology is attributed to the Frenchman Paul Topinard (1830–1911), who first used it during an 1889 anthropological study of criminality as a function of body types, a line of inquiry later made famous by William Sheldon’s (1940) famous and controversial somatotype theory. Sheldon’s politically incorrect biological thesis, that criminal propensity is predictable according to body shape and size classifications (endomorphs, mesomorphs, ectomorphs), is still debated in popular culture outlets such as the New York Times (Nagourney, 2008) and the social science arena (Maddan, Walker, & Miller, 2008). Although criminology may have originated around physiological foci, most early philosophers of crime were concerned with the functioning of the justice systems of the 18th and 19th centuries and much-needed legal reform.

Over time, criminology has increasingly come to be understood as the study of the causes, dispersion, and nature of crime, with theoretical criminology (i.e., the relating of crime to a plethora of individual, familial, community, and environmental factors known as correlates of crime) dominating the field (Vold, Bernard, & Snipes, 2002). The rise of theoretical criminology between the 1940s and today has proven both scientifically rewarding and limiting. On the reward side is a wide range of empirically valid theories that, however, are often criticized for lack of real-world utility. Nonetheless, theoretical criminology is the cornerstone of academic criminology, both historically and today, and is the core of a young discipline that is evolving toward greater pragmatism in terms of applied criminology. An applied criminology suggests that strategies and initiatives intended to prevent and lessen crime are informed by scientifically established theoretical insights that are predictably capable of enhancing best practices within and around the criminal justice system.

The foremost pioneer of contemporary, and particularly American, criminology, Edwin Sutherland, offered what has proven to be a lasting definition, which is most often used to describe the field, in his seminal book Principles of Criminology (1939). According to Sutherland, criminology can be defined as follows:

[Criminology is] the body of knowledge regarding crime as a social phenomenon. It includes within its scope the processes of making laws, of breaking laws, and of reacting toward the breaking of laws. These processes are three aspects of a somewhat unified sequence of interactions. (p. 1)

It is interesting to note that whereas criminology is typically considered the study of the causes and nature of crime, and is often contrasted with criminal justice, which is concerned with the response to the problem of crime, Sutherland’s famous definition clearly emphasized the significance of both. Consequently, criminology today is viewed somewhat dichotomously, with theoretical or sociological criminology denoting a focus on crime causation or the etiology of crime and applied criminology denoting work that is prevention, enforcement, or treatment oriented.

The Origins and Scientific Maturation of Criminology

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Historical concern with crime is traceable to ancient Babylonia and the Code of Hammurabi, as well as biblical times, as evidenced by Old Testament dictates on restitution and the proportionality of punishment. Whereas such early edicts on infraction and punishment informed understanding of social control and justice, the origins of contemporary criminology stem from the Enlightenment period of the late 18th century, particularly the social and intellectual reforms then underway in western Europe. Philosophers from this period, such as Voltaire, Rousseau, and Locke, observed the superiority of reasoning based on direct experience and observation over subscription to faith and superstition that characterized collective opinion throughout the feudal era. Prior to this shift toward logic, crime was addressed informally within and between families whose recognition of justice was largely equated with realization of revenge (Larson, 1984).

The family-revenge model of justice, as observed in multigenerational feuds between Scottish clans, presented social-order maintenance and governing problems for feudal lords whose solutions were trial by battle and then trial by ordeal. Under trial by battle, either the victim or a member of the victim’s family would fight the offender or a member of his or her family; under trial by ordeal, the accused was subjected to some “test” that would indicate guilt or innocence, such as running through a gauntlet or being repeatedly dunked in water while bound by rope. Both approaches were vested in the spiritual notion of divine intervention. In battle, God would grant victory to the innocent side and likewise protect the falsely accused during trial by ordeal, as in the biblical report of protection afforded the prophet Daniel in the lions’ den (J. M. Miller, Schreck, & Tewksbury, 2008).

Obviously, these methods failed to effect justice relative to a person’s true guilt or innocence, instead yielding outcomes specific to a person’s fighting ability, the capability to withstand various kinds of torture, or simply luck. The idea of being controlled by an evil spirit or that one’s criminal behavior is attributable to the influence of the devil or some other “dark” force has long been a basis by which people have attempted to account for the unexplainable. Examples from early U.S. history include the Salem witch trials, wherein crime and deviance problems that could not be solved through actual facts and inquiry were attributed to witchcraft and demonic possession. The origins, for example, of “correctional” institutions in Philadelphia by Quakers who believed that isolation, labor, and Bible reading would result in repentance, reflect an early spiritually based form of rehabilitation. The term penitentiary, in fact, refers to institutions where society’s crime problems were addressed through religious conversion and illustrates belief in spirituality as a source of and solution to crime. Although the Enlightenment period introduced a novel logic alternative to spiritual explanations, spirituality continued to affect interpretations of both crime causation and systems of justice for several centuries and is still relevant to current crime policy, as indicated by faith-based prevention and rehabilitation programming (Allen, 2003).

Although the Enlightenment period did not completely end the belief that spirituality affects crime, the momentum of experience-based reasoning led to a general view of social life and human behavior that served as a forerunner to criminology. One of the primary concepts from this era that was important for the development of criminology is the idea of the social contract. First introduced by Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), the social contract involves the sacrifice of some personal freedom through internalization of law and endorsement of formal social control in exchange for protection and the benefit of all. For example, it is likely that either alone or with the aid of a friend you could forcibly take personal property, such as a wallet, purse, or textbook, from someone on an almost daily basis. Similarly, there is likely an individual or group that could forcibly take your property. Despite these obvious realities, everyone generally enjoys freedom of movement with peace and safety. By sacrificing your ability to take what you might from others, you are protected from similar victimization. This trade-off of loss of potential gain through limiting free will in exchange for law and order is an oversimplified example of the social contract (J. M. Miller et al., 2008).

As a result of the Enlightenment period, then, superstition-and spirituality-based orientations to crime were uprooted by innovative ways of thinking that emphasized relationships between criminal behavior and punishment. This newer approach, exemplified in the writings of the Italian Cesare Beccaria (1738–1794) and the Englishman Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), is known as the classical school of criminology, a perspective around which criminology would solidify and develop (Bierne, 1993). Notionally grounded in the concepts of deterrence and the dimensions of punishment (certainty, severity, and celerity), the classical school is significant for the development of criminological thought in at least two respects. First, crime was no longer believed to be a function of religion, superstition, or myth—views that largely placed the problem of crime beyond human control. Second, crime was seen as the result of free will. Viewing crime as a function of free will—in essence, as decision making—meant that it could now be explained as an outcome of rational choice. The ideation of rational thought (a calculation of gains vs. risks) suggests that crime is logically related to the elements impacting the decision to offend, such as the amount and relative value of criminal proceeds and the likelihood of detection, arrest, and conviction. The principles of the classical school, revised by legal reformers (neoclassicists) and now referred to as rational choice theory, continue to influence both the study of criminal behavior and the nature of formal social control as the criminal justice system continues in the attempt to achieve deterrence as one of its primary objectives (Paternoster & Brame, 1997).

Paradigm (i.e., model or school of thought) shifts are common to the history of all academic disciplines, and criminology is no exception. A new philosophy began emerging in Europe during the 19th century that first emphasized the application of the scientific method. This perspective, known as positivism, stressed the identification of patterns and consistencies in observable facts (Bryant, 1985). It was believed that, by examining known patterns, causes of behavior could be determined that would enable predictions about outcomes when certain conditions exist. For example, one can ascertain a pattern of comparatively high criminality in the lower socioeconomic class. Given the absence of other intervening factors, one can predict a rise in lower class criminality if a sharp increase in unemployment affects unskilled laborers. Regardless of whether this relationship is true, this line of thinking differs from the classical school’s attention to free-will decision making, positing crime instead as a manifestation of factors external to and often beyond the control of individuals. Criminology did not move straight from a free-will orientation to endorsement of external influences; in between these perspectives was an era dominated by determinism.

Determinism takes the position that human behavior is caused by factors specific to the individual, such as biological and psychological traits. Perhaps the most famous figure associated with determinism in the context of criminality is Cesare Lombroso (1835–1909), whose “criminal type” illustrated in his influential work Criminal Man (1863) suggests that some people, such as convicted murderer and notorious contract killer, who has been featured in several HBO documentaries, Richard “The Iceman” Kuklinski (1935–2006), are simply born criminals. Lombroso’s work, furthered by his student Raffaele Garofalo (1851–1934), was essential to viewing crime in a newer, more scientific light. As criminology continued to develop, determinism became more broadly viewed, with the inclusion of environmental and community criminogenic influences. In the evolution of American criminology, positivism began replacing the classical approach to crime during the 1920s, largely due to the rise of the Chicago School, a movement resulting from a series of seminal studies conducted by staff of the University of Chicago sociology department. From the 1920s through the 1940s, the Chicago School demonstrated that crime is largely a function of ecology, in particular the social disorganization that chara...

Table of contents

• Cover page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• About The Editor
• About The Contributors
• Part I. The Discipline of Criminology
• Part II. Correlates of Crime and Victimization
• Part III. Theories of Crime and Justice
• Part IV. Measurement and Research in Criminology
• Part V. Types of Crime
• Part VI. Criminology and the Justice System
• Index