SOC 101 Lecture Notes - Richard Cloward, Lloyd Ohlin, Autopsy
16 Oct 2011
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Document Summary
Criminology: the study of causation, crime prevention, and the punishment and rehabilitation of offenders: also the body of knowledge regarding crime as a social phenomena. Those who adopt a sociological approach tend to focus on the societal context within which criminal law is created and applied. Crime: behaviours and actions that require social control and social intervention, codified in law. Most crimes are understood as deviant, but not all deviant acts are considered criminal. Informal social control occurs through interactions among individuals; includes ways in which we try to communicate and enforce standards of appropriate behaviour: formal control is exerted by the government through the criminal justice system, social workers and psychiatrists. Classical conception of crime later identified as positivism: the application of the scientific method to the social world. Focused on the individual, assumed that once we could distinguish features between criminals and non criminals, it would be possible to prevent, control and eliminate criminal behaviour.
