Social Construct Criminology Paper Help

Social Construct Criminology Assignment Paper Help

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Learning Objectives

• Understand the difference between the key concepts “crime,” “criminology,” and “law.”

• Recognize crime as a social construct.

• Understand the complex relationship between crime and society.

• Discuss the main criminology schools and perspectives.

• Examine the strengths and weaknesses of different methods to measure and research crime.

Criminology, Crime, and the Law

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Section 1.1 Overview of Criminology CHAPTER 1

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In a small, upstate New York Suburb, 50-year-old Samuel Friedlander lived in a beau-tiful three-story colonial home with his wife and his two children, ages 8 and 10. He was a successful attorney with his own private practice, and it seemed that he had achieved what many might consider the perfect life—except that Friedlander and his wife were in the midst of a divorce. Without warning, in the early morning hours of Tuesday, October 18, 2011, Friedlander removed one of the legs from a piece of furniture and used it to beat his wife to death. Then he shot his two children and covered each with a blanket (Schweber, 2011). He then shot and killed himself. Friedlander had never been in trouble with the law, and his friends, neighbors, and family generally considered him to be a nice person. People in the community were shocked when they learned that he was the perpe- trator of such a gruesome murder and struggled to make sense of such a senseless crime.

1.1 Overview of Criminology

When a violent crime is committed, experts often look to culture, biology, and environment, as well as the stress level of the perpetrator, to try to explain the criminal behavior. They also employ criminology, or the scientific study of the nature, extent, causes, consequences, social reaction, and control of criminal behavior. The field of criminology focuses primarily on the origins of criminal behavior. However, criminologists also investigate the law-making process, how crime impacts society as a whole, as well as specific social groups. From this perspective, crime is a social construct, meaning its definition may change over time and is largely determined by the norms and values of a given society. Powerful individuals and groups also tend to dispropor- tionately influence the definition of crime. Recognizing crime as a social construct makes defining crime challenging since it is embedded with a series of moral, philosophical, and legal issues.

Many criminologists, therefore, rely on the legalistic approach (Tappan, 1947), which defines crime as any action that intentionally violates the law. As an interdisciplinary science, criminology is shaped by a number of disciplines including anthropology, biol- ogy, economics, law, philosophy, political science, psychology, and most predominantly sociology. Modern criminology benefits from this rich tradition, as those who work in the criminal justice profession can draw from a legacy of theory, research methods, and evi- dence to better understand the relationship between crime and society.

Origins of Modern American Law

The first sets of written rules were established by the Babylonian King Hammurabi (1792– 1750 BCE), in the Mesopotamia area (i.e., southern Iraq). The Code of Hammurabi con- tained 282 clauses, 50 of which dealt with crime and subsequent punishment. This code established what was known as lex talonis or the “eye for an eye” philosophy on crime and punishment, a philosophy that was also a prominent feature in Judaic law. Judaic law was the dominant code roughly 500 miles west of Mesopotamia in Canaan and became known as The Law of Moses. Elements of modern American criminal law can be traced back to these early written rules. Many of the behaviors outlawed in Judaic culture, for example, murder, rape, and robbery are also outlawed in many Westernized nations.

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Section 1.1 Overview of Criminology CHAPTER 1

The defining characteristics of the modern American legal system, however, were adopted from English common law, which was developed during the rule of Henry II as King of England (1154–1189) when royal judges started to publish case decisions. Judges were required to defer to judge-made law established in pre- vious cases, known as precedents. Once judges pub- lished their decisions regularly, a written body of laws was created and expanded upon over time. These legal rulings and precedents produced by the common law system became a central feature in the English Consti- tution, which eventually became the foundation of the American judicial process.