Criminology is the scientific study of crime, criminal behavior, and the criminal justice system. It examines the making and breaking of laws, the causes of crime, the consequences of crime on individuals and society, and efforts to prevent criminal behavior and rehabilitate offenders. The goals of criminology are to understand the nature of crime and criminals, analyze the social and psychological factors influencing criminal behavior, and evaluate approaches to controlling crime. Criminology draws on multiple disciplines including sociology, psychology, biology and genetics, economics, and public policy to further understand criminal activity from different perspectives.

1. CRIMINOLOGY
Mahi Mozumder 2/15/23
Criminology, Criminal Justice
and Correctional Services

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It always maintains Subjectivity
It is not static but Dynamic
It studies violation of criminal codes.
It understands and prevents crime together
with the punishment and treatment of
delinquents and criminals.
 Criminology is the scientific study of the nature, extent, management, causes, control, consequences,
and prevention of criminal behavior, both on individual and social levels.
Edwin H. Sutherland
Criminology is the body of knowledge regarding crime as a social phenomenon. It
includes within its scope, the process of making laws, of breaking laws and of reacting toward
the breaking of laws.
Criminology is the study of
o all aspects of crime and law enforcement,
o criminal psychology,
o the social setting of crime,
o prohibition and prevention,
o investigation and detection,
o capture and punishment.
 Legislators, social workers, probation officers, judges, etc.—could possibly be
considered criminologists.
Criminology: characteristics
It is Scientific study of crime and criminal.
It analyses the process of criminalization.
It considers crime as social phenomenon
It is interdisciplinary science.
It is youngest discipline.
Subject Matters of Criminology
It 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
The interests of criminologists include

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 the study of nature of crime and criminals,
 origins of criminal law,
 etiology of crime,
 social reactions to crime, and
 the functioning of law-enforcement agencies and penal institutions.
It can be said that broadly criminology directs its enquiries along three lines:
 First, it investigates the nature of criminal law and its administration and conditions under which
it develops;
 Second, it analyses the causation of crime and the personality of criminals; and
 Third, it studies the control of crime and the rehabilitation of offenders.
Nature of Criminology
 It is a social science-- is as much as crime as a social creation and that’s its exists in a
society being a social phenomenon. its study must be considered a part of social science.
 It is dynamic -----criminology changes as social condition changes.
 It is nationalistic--- the study of crimes must be in relation with the existing criminal law with
territory or country.
 It is an applied science in the study of the causes of crime, study of man---- anthology
(series of acts or fact of offences) ,psychology, sociology and other natural sciences may be
applied.
 It is related to crime: detection, chemistry, medicine, physics, mathematics,
ballistics(suddenly excited, upset, or angry as effect of unguided war, bullet, bombs),
polygraph(Detect fault), legal medicine, questioned document examination may be utilized.
this is called instrumentation.
Scope of Criminology
Criminology includes its scope
 the activities of legislative bodies,
 law-enforcement agencies (police),
 judicial institutions (courts),
 correctional institutions (prisons and reformatories) and
 educational, private and public social agencies.
Walter Reckless (The Crime Problem, 1955: 6-7) suggests the following boundaries to be
covered by criminology:
(1) It should study how crime is reported to official sources and acted upon officially.
(2) It should study the development of and changes in criminal laws as they relate to social,
economic, and political systems and to the social values in various societies.
(3) It should study the characteristics of criminals, like sex, class, marital condition, occupation,
employment, psychological characteristics, physique, pathological conditions of mind and body

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etc.; and compare these with those of non-criminals. The effort here is to discover what kinds
of people do and do not get involved in crime.
(4) It should study the area and regional variation in the amount of crime as well as variation in
specific patterns of crime.
(5) It should attempt to shed light on the causative factors of crime and should formulate
causal theories.
(6) It should study the special manifestations of crime that are quite different from ordinary
crime, like organized crime, white-collar crime, etc.
(7) It should study the relation of closely affiliated problems to crime, especially alcoholism,
drug abuse, prostitution, gambling and vagrancy. In many societies, most or some of these
problems may or may not be defined as crimes but these problems have a very close
connection with crime.
(8) It should study the effectiveness of law enforcement and of special laws in the control of
crime.
(9) It should study the effectiveness of the measures to treat offenders, like imprisonment,
probation, parole, institutional treatment and aftercare.
(10) It should study various efforts and experiments to prevent crime and delinquency.
In studying the field of criminology, it should, however, be remembered that this discipline is
composed of knowledge drawn from such fields as sociology, law, medicine, public
administration, social work, religion, and education.
The interest of sociologists has primarily been in the science of criminal behavior, while
scholars of law are more concerned with criminal law. Attempts have been made recently by
scholars interested in criminal behavior and criminal law to conduct interdisciplinary research
or integrate the findings of various disciplines on criminality.
Scope of Criminology
1. Crime prevention
2. Criminal statistics
3. Criminal behavior
4. Criminal careers and desistance (Termination)
5. Domestic violence
6. Deviant behavior
7. Evaluation of criminal justice agencies
Criminology: objectives
1. Discuss crime with related issues and its causes.
2. Development of a body and general and verified principles.
3. The other types of knowledge regarding this process of law, crime.
4. Treatment or prevention.
8. Fear of crime
9. The International Crime
10. Victims Survey
11. Juvenile delinquency
12. Penology
13. Sociology
14. Victimology

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Principal organs of criminology
o Sociology of law
o Criminal etiology
o Penology
Criminology: Importance
Criminology is of great importance as it is a discipline. it deals with all aspects of crime. Some
discipline has theoretical significance or some has both theoretical and practical implications.
As criminology is a science, so it has both implications. Viz it has two values-
1. Practical value
2. Theoretical Value
Theoretical Value
In theoretical value: A criminologist may gather knowledge regarding-
• Knowledge of crime data
• Penal Legislation.
• Information about white collar crime
In practical value: A criminologist may gather practical tactics regarding –
• Elimination of crimes
• Understanding the criminals
• Reforms of criminal.
• Removal of evil forces.
1. Knowledge of crime data: it provides us
• To know the nature of crimes.
• To know the types of crime.
• To know the reasons of crimes.
• To know modus essendi as well as modus operandi of crimes.
• To know the statistics of crime.
2. Penal legislation:
criminology has a great importance in penal legislation. It helps
• To formulate the law regarding crime and punishment.
• To make decision what is good for society.
• It is easy to conclude when this good doesn’t contravene to the rights of others.
• It goes a long way in rationalizing and humanizing the penal legislation.

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3. Information about white collar crime:
criminologists are much indebted to criminology served data about white collar criminal.
Because
It provides information about the crimes of upper strata.
It helps to analyze the information about white collar crime.
Practical value:
Besides, criminology has also practical importance. According to sutherland, criminology is
concerned with the immediate application of knowledge to the program of social control of
crime.
1. Elimination of crime: It is one of the specific aims of criminology.
• It helps society in controlling and eliminating the crime.
• It help to diagnose the crime perfectly.
• It helps undertaking measures to prevent crime by the knowledge of causes of crime
2. Understanding the criminals: it helps us
• To know the causes and factors behind criminal behavior and crime tendency.
• To know their psychology and philosophy of criminality.
3. Reforms of criminal: the proverb says that ‘Hate the sin but not the sinner’. it provides
suggestion for the reformation and rehabilitation of the criminal
4. Removal of evil forces:
• It helps to understand the evil force.
• It helps to devise the effective means to remove this problem.
In fine, the study of criminology is providing more mechanism and alternative to control crime.
It also suggests us to inculcate feelings of brotherhood and sense of equality among the
masses of society.
Importance of Criminology
 Law Enforcement, policing, corrections
 Community safety
 Victim, Witness, Youth and Family
 Advocacy
 Consulting firms
 Criminal, forensic and private
investigations
 Public administration, risk management
 International development agencies and
organizations
 Education and academia

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Relations of Criminology with Penology and Social Work
Social workers help individuals and communities and in terms of criminology there's a need for
active role of social workers.
Their role would and could include:
1. Working with governmental and community agencies on crime prevention
2. They work with corrections system on rehabilitation of convicts
3. They provide services for the family members of convicts
4. They work with justice system, forensic social work is a growing specialization
5. They work along with other mental health professionals serving the mental health needs of
prisoners
6. They involve in research to bring policy changes
7. Crime, poverty, lack of opportunity is a cycle and when individual, groups or communities get
stuck into this, they are in need of a social worker who advocates for them, or advocates for
effective changes in system.
8. Social work is learning about human services and criminology is study of crime, laws, and
policies.
9. Social workers do work for juvenile court systems like being a assistant on computers,
criminology you can be a coordinator of juvenile courts by manage schedules, write reports,
checking the facility, gathered meetings and advocate a plan.
10.Criminology is about behavior, control, delinquency, punishment. Social work is a generalist
profession, both in theory and in practice, and is mostly about support, rights, making things
work, and justice or protection for underdogs and disadvantaged people.
THE END