Criminal Sociology INTRO TO CRIM - BOARD EXAM REVIEWER
Criminal Sociology INTRO TO CRIM - BOARD EXAM REVIEWER
Criminal Sociology INTRO TO CRIM - BOARD EXAM REVIEWER
Criminal sociology - investigates the social causes of criminal behavior in an effort to ultimately end
them.Criminal sociologist identify the sources outside of a person in society that influence and even as some
theorists believe,compel criminal action.
Criminology Theories
Introduction to Criminology
Criminology - the scientific study of crime and criminal behavior and law enforcement.
1. Classical school
2. Positivist school
3. Chicago school
Classical school - based on utilitarian philosophy developed in the 18th century. This school of thoughts argues:
1. That people have free will to choose how to act.
2. Deterrence is based upon the notion of the human being as a hedonist who seeks pleasure and avoid pain
and a rational calculator weighing up the cost and benefits of the consequences of each action.
3. Punishment of sufficient severity can deter people from crime as the cost (penalties) outweigh benefits and
that the severity of punishment should be proportionate to the crime.
4. The more swift and certain the punishment, the more effective it is in deterring criminal behavior.
Positivist school - presumes that criminal behavior is caused by internal and external factors outside of the
individuals control.
Italian School
Cesare Lombroso - an Italian doctor and sometimes regarded as the father of criminology. Considered also
as the founder of criminal anthropology. He suggested that physiological traits such as the measurement of
the check bones or hairline or a cleft palate, considered to be throwbacks to neanderthal man, were
indicative of "atavistic criminal tendencies". This approach has been superseded by the beliefs of Enrico
Ferri.
Enrico Ferri - a student of Lombroso, believe that social as well as biological factors played a role and
held the view that criminals should not be held responsible when factors causing their criminality were
beyond their control.
Sociological positivism - suggest that societal factors such as poverty, membership of subcultures or low
levels of education can predispose people to crime.
1. Adolphe Quetelet - made use of data and statistical analysis to gain insight into relationship between crime
and sociological factors. He found that age, gender, poverty, education and alcohol consumption were
important factors related to crime.
2. Rawson W. Rawson - utilized crime statistics to suggest a link between population density and crime rates
with crowded cities creating an environment conducive for crime.
3. Joseph Fletcher and John Glyde - also presented papers to the statistical society of London on their
studies of crime and its distribution.
4. Henry Mayhew - used empirical methods and an ethnographic approach to address social questions and
poverty.
5. Emile Durkheim - viewed crime as an inevitable aspect of society with uneven distribution of wealth and
other differences among people.
Chicago school - arose in the early 20th century, through the work of Robert Park, Ernest Burgess and other urban
sociologist at the university of Chicago. Park and Burgess identified five concentric zones that often exist as cities
grow, including the zone in transition which was identified as most volatile and subject to disorder.
Edwin Sutherland - suggested that people learn criminal behavior from older, more experienced criminals
that they may associate with. (differential association).
De minimis - is an addition to a general harm principle.The general harm principle fails to consider the possibility
of other sanctions to prevent harm, and the effectiveness of criminalization as a chosen option.
Tagging - like labeling, the process whereby an individual is negatively defined by agencies of justice.
Criminology Consists of 3 Principal Divisions
1. Sociology of Law - which is an attempt at scientific
analysis of the conditions under which criminal law
influences society.
2. Criminal Etiology - which is an attempt at scientific
analysis of the study of causes or reasons for
crime.
3. Penology - concerned with control crime by
repressing criminal activities through the fear of
punishment.
Misdemeanor - is a crime for which the punishment is usually a fine and/or up to one year in jail.
*Crimes are defined and punished by statutes and by
the common law.
Atavism - the view that crime is due to a genetic throwback to a more primitive and aggressive form of human
being.
Spree killer - is someone who embarks on a murderous assault on 2 or more victims in a short time in multiple
locations.
Spree killing - killings at two or more locations with almost no time break between murders.
Spree murder - two or more murders committed by an offender/offenders without a cooling off period.
Serial murder - two or more murders committed by an offender/offenders with a cooling off period.
Mass murderer - are defined by one incident with no distinctive time period between the murders.
Thrill killing - a premeditated murder committed by a person who is not necessarily suffering from mental
instability and does not derive sexual satisfaction from killing victims or have anything against them and
sometimes do not know them but instead motivated by the sheer excitement of the act.
Psychology - the scientific study of the human mind and its functions.
Psychiatry - the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders.
Demography - the branch of sociology that studies the characteristics of human populations.
Epidemiology - the branch of medical science dealing with the transmission and control of disease.
Anthropology - the social science that studies the origins and social relationships of humans.
2. Macho means
A. assertive
B. angry
C. heroic
D. stubborn
3. Bilious means
A. wealthy
B. puffed out
C. bad tempered
D. irritable
4. Hypothetical means
A. Temporary
B. Exaggerated
C. Provable
D. Assumed
7. The strict code of conduct that governs the behavior of the Mafia
members is called ___.
A. Omerta
B. Triad
C. Silencer
D. Mafioso
13. The Italian leader of the positivist school of criminology, who was
criticized for his methodology and his attention to the biological
characteristics of offenders, was:
A. C Lombroso
B. C Beccaria
C. C Darwin
D. C Goring
1. B
2. C
3. D
4. D
5. A
6. D
7. A
8. A
9. A
10. A
11. A
12. A
13. A
14. B
15. A
16. D
17. A
18. D
19. A
20. C
Introduction To Criminology - Definition Of Terms
Alienist – This term is applied to a specialist in the study of mental disorders.
Anthropology – Science devoted to the study of mankind and its development in relation to its physical, mental,
and cultural history.
Behavior Systems In Crime – Progress in the explanation of disease is being made personally by the studies of
specific diseases. Similarly it is desirable to concentrate research work in criminology on specific crimes and on
specific sociological units within the broad area of crime and within the legal definition of specific types of crime
such as kidnapping and robbery.
Biometry – A measuring or calculating of the probable duration of human life; The attempt to correlate the
frequency of crime between parents and children of brothers or sisters.
Bio-social Behavior – A persons biological heritage plus his environment and social heritage influence his social
activity. It is through the reciprocal actions of his biological and social heritages that a persons personality is
developed.
1. School
2. The Church
3. The Police
4. The Government
5. The Prosecution
6. The Court
7. Correctional Institutions
Broken Home – The modification of home conditions by death, divorce or desertion has generally been believed to
be an important reason for delinquency of the children.
Cesare Beccaria – In his book “An Essay Of Crimes And Punishment” London 1767, advocated and applied the
doctrine of penology that is to make punishment less arbitrary and severe than it had been; That all persons who
violated a specific law should receive identical punishment regardless of age, sanity, wealth, position or
circumstances.
Cesare Lombroso – A medical doctor who made extensive research in physical characteristics of criminals,
political crimes and revolutions and relationships between the criminal and anthropology.
Charles Goring – An English statistician who studies the case histories of 2000 convicts. He found that heredity is
more influential as a determiner of criminal behavior than environment.
Colajani – A criminologist, describes the direct and indirect deficiency of the means to satisfy the numerous
necessities of man is sufficient stimulus for him to adopt honest or criminal methods in the struggle that ensues.
“To this man delinquency is strongly influenced by socio economic”.
Competitive Development Of Techniques Of Crime And Of The Protection Against Crime – Both sides may
appropriate the inventions of modern science so far as they are useful to them. When the police develop an
invention for the detection or identification of criminals, the criminals utilize a device to protect themselves.
Cretinism – A disease associated with pre-natal thyroid deficiency and subsequent thyroid inactivity, marked by
physical deformities, arrested development, goiter and various forms of mental retardation including imbecility.
Crime Index – Any record of crimes such as crimes known to the police, arrest, conviction or commitments to
prisons.
Crime Statistics – A reported instance of a crime recorded in a systematic classification.
Criminality In The Home – One of the most obvious elements in the delinquency of some children is the
criminalistic behavior of other members of the child's family.
Criminal Psycho-dynamics – The study of mental processes of criminals in action, the study of the genesis,
development and motivation of human behavior that conflicts with accepted norms and standards of society; This
study concentrates on the study of individuals as opposed to general studies of mass populations with respect to
their general criminal behavior.
Criminogenic Process – The process which explain human behavior, the experiences which help determine the
nature or a persons as a reacting mechanism, the factors or experiences in connection thereto impinge differentially
upon different personalities producing conflict which is the aspect of crime.
Criminology – Scientific study and investigation of crime and criminals as well as the identification of criminals
and detection of crime.
Cultural Conflict – A clash between societies because of contrary beliefs or substantial variance in their respective
customs, language, institutions, habits, learning traditions, etc.
Decriminalization – To remove or reduce in status the criminal classification through legislation of certain criminal
laws.
Delusion – In medical jurisprudence, a false belief about the self caused by morbidity, present in paranoia and
dementia praecox.
Dementia praecox – A collective term for mental disorders that begin at or shortly after puberty and usually lead to
general failure of the mental faculties with the corresponding physiological impairment.
Dr. Cesare Lombroso – Advocated the positivist theory that crime is essentially a social phenomenon and it can not
be treated and checked by the imposition of punishment.
Economic Approach – The unjust utilization of economic resources sometimes create resentment among individual
which often lead them to frustration and develop a feeling of hatred and provocative criminal conduct will result.
Edwin H. Sutherland – An American authority in criminology who in his book Principles of Criminology considers
criminology at present as not a science but it has hope of becoming a science.
England During The Last Half Of 19th Century – Place and period where and when the classical school of
criminology and of criminal law developed based on hedonistic psychology.
Episodic Criminal – A non criminal person who commits a crime when under extreme emotional distress; A person
who breaks down and commits a crime as a single incident during regular course of natural and normal events.
Erotomania – A morbid propensity to love or make love. Uncontrollable sexual desire or excessive sexual cravings
by member of either sex.
Euthanasia – It signifies the release from life given a sufferer from an incurable and painful disease.
Extrovert – As opposed to introvert (a person highly adapted to living in and deriving satisfaction from external
world) he is interested in people and things than ideas, values, and theories. He likes people being around them and
being liked by them.
Family – It is the first agency to affect the direction which a particular child will take and that no child is so
constituted at birth that it must inevitably become a delinquent or that it must inevitably be law abiding.
Fashions In Crime – Certain types of crimes have disappeared almost entirely thus the general situation may
change and cause the disappearance of crime.
Ferri – A sociologists who theorized that it is the impulse of opportunities more than innate tendency that
determine the crime.
Gang – Means of disseminating techniques of delinquencies of training in delinquency, of protecting its members
engage in delinquency and of maintaining continuity in delinquency.
George L. Wilker – A criminologist who in his book “The Scientific Adequacy Of Criminological Concept”
argued that criminology can not possibly become a science. Accordingly, general proposition of universal validity
are the essence of science, such proposition can be made only regarding stable and homogeneous unit but varies
from one time to another, therefore, universal proposition can not be made regarding crime and scientific studies of
criminal behavior are impossible.
Government – It is an organized authority that can influence social control through its branches, particularly in the
making of laws.
Hallucination – An apparent perception without any corresponding external object, especially in psychiatry, any of
the numerous sensations, auditory, visual or tactile experienced without external stimulus and cause by mental
derangement , intoxication or fever hence, maybe a sign of approaching insanity.
Heredity – It may be a transmission of physical characteristics, mental traits, tendency to disease etc. from parents
to offspring. In genetics, the tendency manifested by an organism to develop in the likeness of a progenitor due to
the transmission of genes in the reproductive process.
Heredity and Environment – Have been believe to share about equally in determining disposition that is whether a
person is cheerful or gloomy, his temperament and his nervous stability.
H. H. Godard – Advocated the theory that feeble-mindedness inherited as Mendelian unit cause crime for the
reason that feeble minded person is unable to appreciate the consequences of his behavior or appreciate the
meaning of the law.
Home – Considered as the cradle of human personality for in it the child forms the fundamental attitudes and habits
that endure through out his life.
Home Discipline – it is considered as 4 times as important as poverty in the home in relation to delinquency; that it
fails most frequently because of indifference and neglect.
Inspector to Superintendent – Appointed by the chief of the PNP as recommended by their immediate superiors
and attested by the civil service commission.
Introvert – An individual with strongly self centered patterns of emotion, fantasy and thought.
John Gaspar Lobater – A Swiss theologian, regarded the lack of beard in man, the swirly eye or angry eye and
weak chin serve as clues to unfavorable personality or characteristic traits of an individual.
- phrenology or any of the protuberances of the skull as interpreted with reference to ones
mental faculties (pseudonym science) as popularized by Hanz Joseph Gall.
Jonathan Edwards family – One family tree that contradicted the theory that criminality is inherited. A famous
preacher in the colonial period, none of his descendants were found to be criminals.
Jukes Family – Family trees have been used extensively by certain scholars in the effort to prove that criminality is
inherited.
Legomacy – A statemetn that we would have no crime if we had no criminal laws and that we could eliminate all
crime merely by abolishing all criminal law.
Mania Fanatica – A morbid of insanity characterized by a deep and morbid sense of religious feeling.
Masochism – A condition of sexual perversion in which a person derives pleasure from being dominated or cruelly
treated.
Maturation – A process which appears in the life history of persisting criminals. This process describes the
development of criminality with reference first to the general attitudes toward criminality and second to the
techniques used in criminal behavior.
Mc Naghten Rule – Insanity is used to describe legally harmful behavior perpetrated under circumstances in which
the actor did not know the nature or quality of his act or did not know right from wrong. This explanation was
formulated in England in 1843.
Megalomania – A mental disorder in which the subject thinks himself great or exalted.
Melancholia – A mental disorder characterized by excessive brooding and depression of spirits; Typical of manic
depressive psychosis accompanied with delusions and hallucinations.
Mobility – The most significant social condition accompanying the industrial and democratic revolutions because
of this a condition of anonymity was created and the agencies by which control had been secured in almost all
earlier societies were greatly weakened.
1. Biological
2. personality
3. Primary Social Group
4. Broader Social Group
Biological
1. Heredity
2. Endocrine Glands
3. Anatomical Structure/Physical Disease/Disorder
Neurosis – Is any kind of the mental functional disorders characterized by anxiety, compulsion, phobia, depression,
dissociation, etc.
Organization Of criminals – This may be developed thru the interaction of criminal, this may be a formal
association with recognized leadership understanding, agreements and division of labor or it may be a formal
similarity and reciprocity of interest and attitudes.
Personality -
1. psychopatic Personality
2. Psychosomatic Personality
3. Alcoholism
4. Other Personality Deviation
Physiognomy – Art of discovering character by observation and measurement of outward appearances especially
the face.
1. Home
2. Bad Neighborhood
3. Broken Home
and who therefore can not avoid or stop from doing it.
c. Psychiatrist Delinquent – refer to a child who becomes delinquent due to mental
illness coupled with serious emotional disturbance in the family.
Professionalization – When applied to a criminal refers to the following things the pursuit of crime as a regular day
by day occupation, the development of skilled technique and careful planning in that occupation and status among
criminals.
Progressive Conflict – This process begins with arrest which is intgerpreted as defining a person as an enemy of
society and which calls forth hostile relations from representative of society prior to and regardless of proof of
guilt, that each side tends to drive the other side to greater violence unless it becomes stabilized on a recognized
level.
Prussian Law of 1784 – prohibit mothers and nurses from taking children under 2 years old of age into their beds.
Psychosis – Is a major mental disorder in which personality is very seriously disorganized and contact with reality
is usually impaired.
Rafael Garofalo – A criminologist who pro-founded that society sets only 2 elements in crime, the opportunity and
victim. He classified criminals into murderers, thieves, sexual offenders (cynics) And violent criminals.
- Italian criminologist who developed a concept of the natural crime and defined it a violation of
the prevalent sentiments of pity and probity.
Regionalism – crime rate not only vary from one region to another but also generally among the several sections of
each nation.
Religion – It emphasizes of morals and life's highest spiritual values, the work and dignity of an individual and
respect for the person and property of others generally a powerful forces.
Rural Criminality – According to Marshall B. Olinard, this kind of criminality is explained by the persons
identification with delinquents and his conception of himself as reckless and mobile an explanation which is
consistent with differential association.
Social Institutions And Crime – The general explanation of one topic in relation to criminal behavior is that causes
of crime lie primarily in the area of personal interaction and that personal interaction is confined most entirely to
local community and neighborhood.
Social Psychological – Advocated by John Dewey, George Mead, Charles Cooley and W.I. Thomas, that
development of criminal behavior is considered as involving the same learning process as does the development of
the the behavior of a banker, doctor etc.; that the content of learning not the process itself is considered as the
significant element determining whether one becomes a criminal or non criminal.
Socialist School of Criminology – Based on writings of Marx and Engels, began 1850 and emphasized economic
determinism; that crime is only a by product, variations in crime rates in association with variations in economic
conditions.
Sociological And Cultural Approach – It includes assessment of those forces resulting from man's collective
survival effort with emphasis upon his institution, economic, financial, educational, political, religion as well as
recreational.
Sociological School – Interpreted crime as function of social environment; emphasizing importance of imitation in
crime causation.
Sociology – May mean a study of human society, its origin, structure, function and direction.
W. A. Bonger – Classified crimes by the motives of the offenders as economic crimes, sexual crimes, political and
miscellaneous crimes with vengeance as the principal motive.
White Collar Crimes – crimes committed by persons on the upper socio economic level or occupying a high
position in the organization.