In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term crime does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition, though statutory definitions have been provided for certain purposes. The most popular view is that crime is a category created by law; in other words, something is a crime if declared as such by the relevant and applicable law. One proposed definition is that a crime or offence is an act harmful not only to some individual but also to a community, society, or the state. Such acts are forbidden and punishable by law.
Victimology is the study of victimization, including the psychological effects on victims, the relationship between victims and offenders, the interactions between victims and the criminal justice system—that is, the police and courts, and corrections officials—and the connections between victims and other social groups and institutions, such as the media, businesses, and social movements.
Crime statistics refer to systematic, quantitative results about crime, as opposed to crime news or anecdotes. Notably, crime statistics can be the result of two rather different processes:
Articles related to criminology and law enforcement.
Crime science is the study of crime in order to find ways to prevent it. It is distinguished from criminology in that it is focused on how crime is committed and how to reduce it, rather than on who committed it. It is multidisciplinary, notably recruiting scientific methodology rather than relying on social theory.
Marxist criminology is one of the schools of criminology. It parallels the work of the structural functionalism school which focuses on what produces stability and continuity in society but, unlike the functionalists, it adopts a predefined political philosophy. As in conflict criminology, it focuses on why things change, identifying the disruptive forces in industrialized societies, and describing how society is divided by power, wealth, prestige, and the perceptions of the world. "The shape and character of the legal system in complex societies can be understood as deriving from the conflicts inherent in the structure of these societies which are stratified economically and politically". It is concerned with the causal relationships between society and crime, i.e. to establish a critical understanding of how the immediate and structural social environment gives rise to crime and criminogenic conditions.
The feminist school of criminology is a school of criminology developed in the late 1960s and into the 1970s as a reaction to the general disregard and discrimination of women in the traditional study of crime. It is the view of the feminist school of criminology that a majority of criminological theories were developed through studies on male subjects and focused on male criminality, and that criminologists often would "add women and stir" rather than develop separate theories on female criminality.
Quantitative methods provide the primary research methods for studying the distribution and causes of crime. Quantitative methods provide numerous ways to obtain data that are useful to many aspects of society. The use of quantitative methods such as survey research, field research, and evaluation research as well as others. The data can, and is often, used by criminologists and other social scientists in making causal statements about variables being researched.
Victimisation is the state or process of being victimised or becoming a victim. The field that studies the process, rates, incidence, effects, and prevalence of victimisation is called victimology.
Victimology is the study of crime victims and their circumstances, including the factors contributing to their victimization. To do this, one would also have to study how the criminals grew interests in their victims and their relationships with them. And they also look into the norms of the society in which the criminal lives in and how a victim might fit a specific pattern. Victimology has a broad range of different theories; the most prevalent one is abuse.
Criminology is the interdisciplinary study of crime and deviant behaviour. Criminology is a multidisciplinary field in both the behavioural and social sciences, which draws primarily upon the research of sociologists, political scientists, economists, legal sociologists, psychologists, philosophers, psychiatrists, social workers, biologists, social anthropologists, scholars of law and jurisprudence, as well as the processes that define administration of justice and the criminal justice system.
The International Review of Victimology is a triannual peer-reviewed academic journal that covers the field of victimology. The editor-in-chief is Joanna Shapland and the editors are Edna Erez, Matthew Hall, Leslie Sebba and Jo-Anne Wemmers. It was established in 1989 and is currently published by SAGE Publications.
Crime contagion models relate to the idea, of whether crime is contagious. Contagion models predict a positive relationship between neighborhood violent crime rates and the propensity of moving to opportunity (MTO) participants to engage in violent crime. The notion of crime spreading across surrounding environments feeds on the idea of clinical hysteria. Hysteria and the fear of crime are the main components of the contagion model.
Sarah Ben-David is an Israeli Professor of Criminology whose scientific and public activity focuses mainly on victimology and criminology and overlapping areas between these two fields. In recent years, Ben-David has worked to encourage research, awareness and therapy in the field of sexual harassment of men and women, and regarding awareness of the reciprocal nature of intimate partner violence and domestic violence.
Lee E. Ross is an African-American criminologist and author of articles and books that address issues of domestic violence and topics related to race, crime, and justice.
The feminist pathways perspective is a feminist perspective of criminology which suggests victimization throughout the life course is a key risk factor for women's entry into offending.
Janet Lynn Lauritsen is an American criminologist and the Curators’ Distinguished Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Missouri–St. Louis.
National Forensic Science University, Delhi is the Delhi Campus of the National Forensic Sciences University and an Institution of National Importance under the Ministry of Home Affairs(MHA), Government of India as recognised by an act of the Parliament of India. It is one of the Central Police Organization(CPO) of the country. It specializes in teaching criminology, cybersecurity, digital forensics and forensic science and is located in New Delhi, India. The institute was established by Government of India in 1972 within the Bureau of Police Research and Development following recommendations of the University Grants Commission (UGC).
Joanna Mary Shapland is a British criminologist, forensic psychologist, and academic, specialising in restorative justice and victimology. Since 2013, she has been Edward Bramley Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Sheffield. Before joining Sheffield in 1988, she was a research fellow at King's College, London and the University of Oxford. She is executive editor of the International Review of Victimology.
