CRIMINOLOGY

Criminology

Criminology

Criminology has a Latin root word, lege, which means "opinion", "accusation" or "crime." Criminology is the scientific study of crime and criminals. As two well-known criminologists, Edwin Sutherland and Donald Cressey (1978: 3), said, criminology includes "the processes of law, violate the laws, and react to breaking the law." But this masks very simple definition of a good debate and diversity in the field of criminology, it is not a unified discipline.

Criminologists disagree about how to study crime and criminals, the causes of crime, the most effective methods of responding to crime, and even the definition and nature of the crime. For example, some criminologists argue that the main focus of discipline should be individual offenders and their behavior, but tend to maintain a legalistic view of crime as a violation of consensus generated statutes. Others, however, argue that criminologists should study the legal system itself, including how laws are created, how they apply, and in whose interests have developed and implemented. These criminologists conceive of crime as conduct that causes social harm, so that crime can include behaviors that are not officially considered illegal by the state. Throughout much of the history of criminology, the first approach has been dominant, the latter perspective is a relatively recent development.

Despite concerns about crime or breaking the rule can be found in ancient Babylon, as evidenced by the Code of Hammurabi, modern criminologists usually the origins of their discipline to Western Europe during the century Enlightenment XVIII. The Enlightenment was a time of social and intellectual reforms. Enlightenment philosophers such as Locke, Voltaire and Rousseau, argued that social life should be guided by reason and direct experience, not superstition and blind faith that characterized the social life during feudalism. Human reason and experience are built into what philosophers of the Enlightenment called the social contract, ie, members of a society based on sacrifice some of his personal liberty by the government transfer the authority to enact laws the benefit of all and punish those who, in their pursuit of personal pleasure or profit, choose to limit the freedoms of others. This philosophy of the Enlightenment gave birth to what today is called the classical school of criminology.

The classical school is exemplified in the writings of Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794) and Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832). Both Beccaria and Bentham was critical of the tyrannical and corrupt union leaders of the church and the aristocracy had been formed against the peasants and the rising middle class. She saw corruption and tyranny is reflected in the criminal justice system that is used secret accusations and flimsy evidence as grounds for imprisonment of people and relied on torture to extract confessions. The sentences imposed by judges, who had unlimited powers were often arbitrary and had more to do with the social situation of the offender with the seriousness of the crime. Both Beccaria and Bentham said it is beyond the authority of judges to decide what and how laws should be enforced and ...