Legal Advice
Crime and Criminology
By
Adil Waseem
Introduction
In this article, we shall study the nature, type of crime
as defined and methods propounded by various jurists for controlling them
and we also study criminology as subject its origin, classification,
methodology and approaches in criminology for study of crimes. The
interpretation of the historical development of criminology , any such
history is inevitably a contentious undertaking, entailing theoretical
choices and rhetorical purposes as well as the selection and arrangement of
historical materials. Whether they acknowledge it or not, histories of the
discipline necessarily come up against fundamental issues – what is crime
and ‘criminology’?
What is Nature Crime?
The classical School Was Not Interested In Studying Criminals, But Rather
In Preventing Crime and people choose to commit crime after weighing the
benefits and costs of their actions.
The crime according to the social theories is correlated with structure
of the society of society. It is also originate from the social
disorganization of the society, more urbanization more the ecological
problems result in mental strains causes gangs and delinquent crimes. Social
conflict theory portrayed crime as a function of social demoralization and a
collapse of people’s humanity reflecting a decline in society. The brutality
of the capitalist system turns workers into animal-like creatures without a
will of their own.
The Marxist theory of the criminology believe the empirical relation of
the development of the capital economy leads to development of “CLASS
STRUGGLE” results in indulgence in crime for securing their right from
privileged section of the society. The economic inequality intensifies
personal problems and crime.
Crime is a product of society and each society will produce its own types
and amounts of crime. The critique of Marxist says that if the Marxist is
accepted as then what is cause of crime in socialist countries? Marxist
standards are too high and moralistic.
Powerlessness increases the likelihood of Victimization for women, Crime
is a way of “doing gender” for men. The patriarchal structure of the society
leads to dominance of the male gender weakening of the position of the woman
and causes crimes like cool blood murders, murder in the name of “AZHAT”,
rapes and prostitution etc and the patriarchal structure of the society is
being resisted by various quarters’ causes feminist crime.
The inferior biological structure coupled by weakness of basic instinct
like possession, sex and fear of body of human accentuate delinquent
behavior and the tendency towards crimes, and the biological school of
thought believe in proper physical development for curbing committing of the
crime.
Basic theme is that criminals represent physically different structure
from non-criminals and criminals as atavistic e.g. sloping foreheads, joined
eyebrows, long arms, twisted noses etc.
Chambliss and Seidman propounded the modern conflict and on empirical
relation of Law, Order and Power in 1971.They believe that the justice
system operates to protect the rich and powerful by defining crimes and law
enforcement and punishment for law-breaker.
How to prevent them?
There are various theories has propounded by jurists for prevention of
the crime in societies.
Punishment
The Marxist has labeled the tool of punishment by saying “only crimes of
the poor are punished ” and also believes in fact that the crime will
virtually disappear with equal distribution of property. The punishment is
inflicted for the purposes of breaking norms of the society which has been
codified into the law provisions.
Methods Of punishment
There are various method of punishment has prescribed, radical and
classical school of thought extend their appreciation for the strict
punishment for curbing the committing of crimes while modern jurist prefer
the reformative schools.
Justifying the Punishment
Cesare Beccaria, follower of classical school, while justifying
punishment say that, the retributive approach maintains that punishment
should be equal to the harm done, either literally an eye for an eye, or
more figuratively which allows for alternative forms of compensation. The
retributive approach tends to be retaliatory and vengeance-oriented. The
second approach is utilitarian which maintains that punishment should
increase the total amount of happiness in the world. This often involves
punishment as a means of reforming the criminal, incapacitating him from
repeating his crime, and deterring others. Beccaria clearly takes a
utilitarian stance. For Beccaria, the purpose of punishment is to create a
better society, not revenge. Punishment serves to deter others from
committing crimes, and to prevent the criminal from repeating his crime.
The nature of Criminology
Criminology is an interdisciplinary study of the making of the law,
breaking of the law, and enforcement of the law . Its subject matter covers
all topics related to crime and criminal justice. This theory and research
on the explanation and causes of crime and criminal delinquency, the rates,
distribution, and changes in crime and delinquency in society; individual
criminal and delinquent behavior; criminal victimization and fear of crime.
History of Criminology
Origin of Criminology is dating back roughly a hundred years when
criminologists received their academic training in the social sciences,
usually taking degrees in sociology.
Criminology gained its place in America academic earlier 20s when
sociology was recognized as the home of academic criminology and it gained
its knowledge and benefit from the knowledge and insights of the those with
little or no academic training but plenty of experience with some aspects of
the crime scene.
Now, Criminology is a detailed academic and established subject of the
study, this does not means that criminologist agree definition of the field.
Those authors of the criminology texts who offer a definition rarely offer
the same one. Don C. Gibbons and Peter Garadbedian discuss the competing
value per specific that has shaped criminology over the years. They identify
three major perspectives: conservative, liberal-cynical and radical sometime
called critical.
Types of Criminology
Criminology has identified in number of classification.
Conservative Criminology
Conservative criminology gained ascendancy in America with early writing
of parson , Gibbon and Parmelee, who were among the conservative
criminologist such later contribution as harry Barnes and Negley teeters,
whose text, New horizons in criminology , because a best-seller.
...Criminal law a given and is interpreted as the codification of the
prevailing moral concepts and faith in ultimate the perfectibility of police
ad criminal justice machinery.”
Liberal Cynical criminology
According to Gibbons and Garabedian , liberal Cynical criminology emerged
along with the more the 1940s and 1950s because liberal cynical criminology
has dominated the field over the past thirsty years, we might also call it
mainstream criminology.
Liberal criminology
Liberal criminology retained the emphasis on offenders and their behavior
and attempted to explain crimes in terms of either social structure or
social process. Those are three major versions of liberal criminology.
Another dimension of the liberal criminology is the liberal criminology
which has taken deviance from the culture definition of the criminology.
Liberal criminology has become a 'gatekeeper' for state domains of control,
the value assumptions of hierarchical authority, of centralized controls and
a safety valve and temperature gauge in the limits on how far the state can
go.
The liberal writings of the various sociologists, criminologists and
psychologists are given much attention in criminology which is indicative of
the continued fascination with power, control and the models of the
mechanical world. Their thinking is that man is the centre of the universe,
but that they are the centre of man. They prescribe what is good and
acceptable and how the world and life processes should be managed.
Radical Criminology
The radical criminology rejects the liberal reformism that claims have
helped to create probation and parole the juvenile court system. They
emphasized on the reformatory schools and half way school. More Modern
Cynical liberal criminology shades into the newer brands of the liberal
criminology but still crime and criminology as manifestation of the
exploitation character of monopoly capitalism. Unless the present
political-economic structure of America capitalist society in legal
machinery will continue to undermine the interest of the people while
consolidating those rule.
One of the first things to note and or understand is that "Marxism", as a
theoretical perspective, involves a number of different variants or "ways of
seeing" the social world . In this respect, although we often tend to talk
about Marxism as if there were only one kind just as we tend to talk about
other sociological perspectives - such as Functionalism - as if it only
involved one basic set of ideas), it is evident that Marxism, as a school of
thought, has been interpreted in a number of different ways by various
writers. Approach and methods the criminology for Study of Crimes are
following.
The Biological Approach
The biological theories of criminal behavior says that it study of
criminal in biological perspectives.
Psychogenic Approach
Psychologist investigators are pursing the psychogenic approach to the
criminology behavior, in which the emphasis is based on linking criminal
behavior to mental state, especially mental evidence disease; mental
disorders, pathologies, and emotional problems and they repeatedly assert
that crime is outcome of criminal mind. The root cause of the criminal
behavior neither environmental nor biological than question seems to be
unclear.
Multifactor Approach
A long-standing criticism of the earlier bioorganic and psychological
approach to crime has much of the work entered around the search for single
factor or single set of like factors that could be shown to account for all
criminal behavior.
The multifactor approach in criminology grew out of the discrepancies and
arguments attending the single-factor tradition of the earlier days and its
adherent argument for the approach to crime that would reconcile the
disparate orientation and contribute made by a variety of the factors. That
underlying assumption was that different crimes are result of different
combination of the factors.
Whose interests are represented by criminal law?
This is not normative system of study but represent the interest of
various segment of the society like interest of majority or interest .
Criminology represents the interest of groups in society and interests of
either all members of the society; the representation of the interest of
criminology entire depends upon the type of the system prevailing in the
society.
Summary
After presenting a picture of crime and criminology deviance in its
definition and scope from post modern era, complex and heterogeneous society
as an ongoing struggle. Equilibrium is difficult, if not completely
impossible to achieve. The behavior of any group, and perhaps most
importantly, the crime meaning and significance defined in criminology is
destined to provoke a negative reaction from another group. In particular,
authority groups will continuously strive to maintain and expand there
control over societal resources by defining the activity of "subject groups"
as threatening therefore deviant and/or criminal, to the existing order
implicit here is the idea that the existing order is the order, the only
legitimate order.
The writer is an advocate of High Court and practicing immigration and
corporate laws in Pakistan since September 2001. He is a self employed and
pioneer in research on electronic commerce taxation in Pakistan. His
articles were published widely in the critical areas of cyber crimes,
electronic commerce, e-taxation and various other topics. He wrote LL.M
thesis on titled “Legislation of electronic commerce taxation in Pakistan”
in which he provided comprehensive legal proposals for statutory
reconstruction of tax laws for purpose of imposition of taxation on
e-business in Pakistan. Currently he is conducting is research on topic
‘Electronic commerce taxation: emerging legal issues of digital evidence’.
Author can be contacted by adil.waseem@lawyer.com.
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