Alfred Russel Wallace was an English naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, biologist and illustrator. He is best known for independently conceiving the theory of evolution through natural selection. His 1858 paper on the subject was published that year alongside extracts from Charles Darwin's earlier writings on the topic. It spurred Darwin to set aside the "big species book" he was drafting, and quickly write an abstract of it, published in 1859 as On the Origin of Species.
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.
A misdemeanor is any "lesser" criminal act in some common law legal systems. Misdemeanors are generally punished less severely than more serious felonies, but theoretically more so than administrative infractions and regulatory offences. Typically, misdemeanors are punished with monetary fines or community service.
Vandalism is the action involving deliberate destruction of or damage to public or private property.
Neo-Darwinism is generally used to describe any integration of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection with Gregor Mendel's theory of genetics. It mostly refers to evolutionary theory from either 1895 or 1942, but it can mean any new Darwinian- and Mendelian-based theory, such as the current evolutionary theory.
In criminology, the broken windows theory states that visible signs of crime, anti-social behavior and civil disorder create an urban environment that encourages further crime and disorder, including serious crimes. The theory suggests that policing methods that target minor crimes such as vandalism, loitering, public drinking, jaywalking, and fare evasion help to create an atmosphere of order and lawfulness.
Edward Blyth was an English zoologist who worked for most of his life in India as a curator of zoology at the museum of the Asiatic Society of India in Calcutta.
Terence John Hamblin was a British academic and scientist who was professor of Immunohaematology at the University of Southampton from 1987 until his death.
Patrick Matthew was a Scottish grain merchant, fruit farmer, forester, and landowner, who contributed to the understanding of horticulture, silviculture, and agriculture in general, with a focus on maintaining the British navy and feeding new colonies. He published the basic concept of natural selection as a mechanism in evolutionary adaptation and speciation in 1831, but did not further develop or publicize his ideas. Consequently, when Charles Darwin later published On the Origin of Species in 1859, he and Alfred Russel Wallace were regarded by their scientific peers as having originated the theory of evolution by natural selection; it has been suggested that Darwin and/or Wallace had encountered Matthew's earlier work, but there is no hard evidence of this. After the publication of On the Origin of Species, Matthew contacted Darwin, who in subsequent editions of the book acknowledged that the principle of natural selection had been anticipated by Matthew's brief statement, mostly contained in the appendices and addendum of his 1831 book On Naval Timber and Arboriculture.
Articles related to criminology and law enforcement.
Blending inheritance is an obsolete theory in biology from the 19th century. The theory is that the progeny inherits any characteristic as the average of the parents' values of that characteristic. As an example of this, a crossing of a red flower variety with a white variety of the same species would yield pink-flowered offspring.
In the United States, the relationship between race and crime has been a topic of public controversy and scholarly debate for more than a century. Crime rates vary significantly between racial groups. Academic research indicates that the over-representation of some racial minorities in the criminal justice system can in part be explained by socioeconomic factors, such as poverty, exposure to poor neighborhoods, poor access to public and early education, and exposure to harmful chemicals and pollution. Racial housing segregation has also been linked to racial disparities in crime rates, as Blacks have historically and to the present been prevented from moving into prosperous low-crime areas through actions of the government and private actors. Various explanations within criminology have been proposed for racial disparities in crime rates, including conflict theory, strain theory, general strain theory, social disorganization theory, macrostructural opportunity theory, social control theory, and subcultural theory.
The Positivist School was founded by Cesare Lombroso and led by two others: Enrico Ferri and Raffaele Garofalo. In criminology, it has attempted to find scientific objectivity for the measurement and quantification of criminal behavior. Its method was developed by observing the characteristics of criminals to observe what may be the root cause of their behavior or actions. Since the Positivist's school of ideas came around, research revolving around its ideas has sought to identify some of the key differences between those who were deemed "criminals" and those who were not, often without considering flaws in the label of what a “criminal” is.
The Crime Survey for England and Wales is a systematic victim study, currently carried out by Kantar Public on behalf of the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Curated by the UK Data Service, it can be accessed for research on their website: https://ukdataservice.ac.uk. The survey seeks to measure the amount of crime in England and Wales by asking around 50,000 people aged 16 and over, living in private households, about the crimes they have experienced in the last year. From January 2009, 4,000 interviews were also conducted each year with children 10–15 years old, although the resulting statistics remain experimental. The survey is comparable to the National Crime Victimization Survey conducted in the United States.
Charles Robert Darwin was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended from a common ancestor is now generally accepted and considered a fundamental concept in science. In a joint publication with Alfred Russel Wallace, he introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding. Darwin has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history and was honoured by burial in Westminster Abbey.
Zemiology is the study of social harms. Zemiology gets its name from the Greek word ζημία zēmía, meaning "harm". It originated as a critique of criminology and the notion of crime. In contrast with "individual-based harms" such as theft, the notion of social harm or social injury incorporates harms caused by nation states and corporations. These ideas have received increased attention from critical academics such as neo-Marxists and feminists who have sought to create an independent field of study, separate from criminology, that studies the harms that affect individuals' lives that are not considered to be criminal or are rarely criminalised such as mortgage misselling, poverty and unemployment.
Universal Darwinism, also known as generalized Darwinism, universal selection theory, or Darwinian metaphysics, is a variety of approaches that extend the theory of Darwinism beyond its original domain of biological evolution on Earth. Universal Darwinism aims to formulate a generalized version of the mechanisms of variation, selection and heredity proposed by Charles Darwin, so that they can apply to explain evolution in a wide variety of other domains, including psychology, linguistics, economics, culture, medicine, computer science, and physics.
Cultural criminology is a subfield in the study of crime that focuses on the ways in which the "dynamics of meaning underpin every process in criminal justice, including the definition of crime itself." In other words, cultural criminology seeks to understand crime through the context of culture and cultural processes. Rather than representing a conclusive paradigm per se, this particular form of criminological analysis interweaves a broad range of perspectives that share a sensitivity to “image, meaning, and representation” to evaluate the convergence of cultural and criminal processes.
Market reduction approach (MRA) is an approach to reducing crime by reducing the opportunity for thieves to fence or resell what they have stolen.
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, psychologists, philosophers, psychiatrists, social workers, biologists, social anthropologists, as well as scholars of law.
