Hale et al: Criminology 2e 
Glossary
Test bankHale et al: Criminology 2e
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[A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [J] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [U] [V] [W] [X] [Y] [Z]
A
Abolitionism
A political and criminological perspective that advocates the radical transformation/replacement of modern punishment forms with a more reflexive and multifaceted approach capable of better understanding dominant ideological constructions of crime.
Accountability
The ways in which organizations and individuals are rendered answerable for their policies and day-to-day activities, exerted by internal and external mechanisms.
Acquisitive crime
A term used to categorize economically motivated crimes.
Actuarial justice
A term coined by Malcolm Feeley and Jonathan Simon to try to characterize a possible emerging aspect of criminal law and criminal justice. The term derives from ‘actuary’, meaning a statistician who works for an insurance company to calculate risks, premiums and payouts. Actuarial justice thus suggests a form of justice based on calculation of risks, and the statistical use of past data to predict the likelihood of future events.
Administrative criminology
A form of practical policy-relevant criminology that focuses almost exclusively on the nature of the criminal event and the particular setting in which it occurs. Under this perspective, the offender is considered only as a ‘rational actor’ who makes calculated decisions about the costs and benefits of criminal action. Administrative criminologists seek to reduce the opportunities for crime, thus making the costs/risks of crime outweigh the potential benefits.
Aetiological crisis
The majority of post-war criminology was predicated on the basis that poor social conditions caused crime. Consequently, if a meaningful reduction in crime was to occur, then governments needed to implement a series of social democratic policies specifically aimed at reducing unemployment and raising general living standards. Despite substantial improvements in the Western world in these and other areas during the years 1950–70, recorded crime soared to unprecedented levels. This refutation of the then major thinking in the social sciences has been described by Jock Young as the ‘aetiological crisis’.
Aetiology
The philosophy of causation; the study of causes.
Ageism
Discrimination or prejudice against people because of their age or presumed age.
Appeal
The initial decisions made by magistrates’ or Crown Courts can be challenged by a convicted defendant (or in some cases by the prosecution). This is known as an ‘appeal’ and can be either on the question of the correctness of the conviction itself or the appropriateness of the sentence. The appeal will be to a higher court—this will normally be to the Crown Court from the magistrates’ or to the Court of Appeal from the Crown Court.
Atavism
The recurrence of certain primitive characteristics that were present in an ancestor but have not occurred in intermediate generations.
B
Behaviourism
A psychological approach (first promoted by
J.B. Watson in 1913) that stresses that the only proper subject matter for scientific study in psychology is directly observable behaviour.
Bifurcation
A dual-edged approach to the problem of offending which allows governments to reserve custody for the most serious offenders and to use community penalties for not-so-serious offenders. In practice, it often involves a more punitive approach across the whole range of punishments.
Binge drinking
Refers to the consumption of large amounts of alcohol in a single drinking session.
Business cycle (or economic) cycle
The ups and downs often seen simultaneously in most parts of a country’s economy. They tend to repeat at fairly regular time intervals. This involves shifts over time between periods of relatively rapid growth of output (recovery and prosperity), alternating with periods of recession or relatively slow economic growth.
C
Civilizing process
Concept developed by Norbert Elias (1897–1990) to refer to the pacification of medieval society through the development of self-restraint, social regulation and increasing repugnance towards violence.
Cognition
A somewhat inexact, indeterminate term that encompasses concepts such as memory, imagery, intelligence and reasoning. Often described as ‘a synonym for thinking’.
Community notification
Allowing communities to know when a sexual offender who may pose a risk has moved into their midst. This policy is not pursued in the UK, but is in the USA where it is sometimes known as ‘Megan’s Law’. The policy is premised on the idea that information on the offender known to the professionals and practitioners working with the offender should not be held only by those professionals and practitioners and that with such ‘notification’ the community will be better able to protect itself.
Community penalties
In its broadest sense, this term refers to any sentence that does not involve imprisonment and therefore includes cautions, discharges and fines as well as sentences involving supervision or monitoring. In its narrower sense, the term refers to community orders.
Conscious mind
Being aware (cognisant) of one’s actions and emotions. Actions undertaken by the conscious mind are intentional.
Consumer expenditure (or in shorthand consumption)
The money from income, savings, or from borrowing spent on the purchase of currently produced goods and services. Consumption tends to increase as income increases, but not by as much.
Corporate crime
Illegal acts or omissions which are the result of deliberate decision-making or culpable negligence within a corporation.
Corporation
Used here to denote all companies registered under the UK Companies Acts, from the smallest limited liability company to the largest multinational.
Corporatism
A word used to describe an approach to criminal justice based on centralization, government intervention and cooperation of agencies and professionals working towards common goals. Typically, it has also been associated with the use of targets, and prescribed ways of working.
Crime count
The number of offences occurring within a given referent of time and space, for example, the number of burglary offences in England and Wales per year.
Crime flux
A concept that defines the crime rate as a product of the prevalence of victims in the population, and the frequency with which they are victimized.
Crime frequency
How the counts of criminal offences are distributed amongst a population, for example, how many people are victims, and how frequently are they victimized.
Crime markets
A market that deals specifically with the acquisition, distribution and consumption of illegal goods and services.
Crime rate
The measure that gives an index of crime occurring in a particular jurisdiction for a specific time period.
Crime statistics
The accounts that the State compiles of the actions of its agencies concerning those acts which the law proscribes.
Crime victimization surveys
Large-scale sample surveys of general populations whose purpose is to estimate, describe and explain the distribution of crime victimization and victims.
Criminal law
This is the regulation of conduct by the creation of criminal offences—laws, made by Parliament, that forbid particular conduct and lay down punishments. Nowadays the courts no longer create new offences, although their decisions shape the boundaries of offences.
Criminological psychology
A sub-discipline existing broadly at the interface between psychology and criminology that seeks to apply psychology to help explain criminal behaviour.
Criminological verstehen
Sympathetic or affective understanding regarding the situated experiences and emotions of criminals, crime control agents and crime victims.
Cultural criminology
A distinct theoretical, methodological and interventionist approach to the study of crime that places criminality and its control in the context of culture; that is, it views crime and the agencies and institutions of crime control as cultural products—as creative constructs. As such they must be read in terms of the meanings they carry. With its focus on situated meaning, identity, space, style, and media culture, along with its commitment to understand and account for the ongoing transformations and fluctuations associated with hypercapitalism, cultural criminology is an attempt to create a ‘post’ or ‘late’ modern theory of crime.
Culture
The symbolic environment created by social groups; the meaningful way of life shared by group members.
Cybercrime
Criminal activities which take place in ‘virtual’ space using networked technologies. They cut across national boundaries, which has implications for law enforcement and punishment.
D
Dangerousness
An individual’s actions or behaviour pattern considered dangerous to the safety of that individual or other people—a person may be so disposed by individual characteristics or by pre-disposing circumstances in their immediate environment—the behaviour is usually associated with elements of unpredictability.
Decarceration
Refers to policies and practices that aim to reduce the numbers of offenders in prison by providing alternative measures for dealing with them in the community. Theoretically, the debate about decarceration was at its height in the 1960s and 1970s and included reduction in the use of other institutions, most notably psychiatric hospitals. With the dramatic increase in the prison population in the 1990s, the term and the debate has largely fallen into disuse.
Defence representation
A key element of a fair trial is that of ‘equality of arms’—that the prosecution and defence are allowed the same facilities to put their case. An individual defendant will never have the same resources as the State but the State must provide for adequate representation of offenders, whether in the police station or in court. The criminal justice system also provides for defendants to be assisted by lawyers, paid out of public funds.
Deterrence
The idea that crime can be reduced if people fear the punishment they may receive if they offend.
Discipline
A term used by Michel Foucault to describe a method by which some people can efficiently control others, and which he claims is at the heart of modern public institutions such as the prison, school and hospital. Discipline is the analysis and ‘correction’ of others’ behaviour, especially in relation to time and space, and is a key part of his understanding of how surveillance operates and what it is trying to achieve.
Discrimination
The unfavourable treatment based on a person’s colour, age, sexuality, gender or ethnicity.
Diversion strategy
Describes efforts to minimize young offenders’ involvement with the formal youth justice system, steering them away from the more punitive sentences such as custody, and where possible keeping them out of the system entirely.
E
Edgework
The momentary integration of subcultural practices with experiences of extreme risk and excitement.
Elder
The blanket label of the ‘elderly’ can perpetuate a stereotype that the elderly population constitutes a homogeneous social group. The term elder will be used as a generic term to define those persons over the age of fifty in recognition of the positive aspects that older age can confer.
Empathy
The ability to identify mentally with another person and thus understand how others feel.
Empirical research
Research based upon the analysis of data rather than conceptual analysis.
Environmental criminology
A form of criminology that focuses on the complex relationships that exist between crime, space and environment.
Ethnicity
The problem that arises from using the biological concept of ‘race’ to describe social phenomena has led some theorists to reject the term ‘race’ in favour of ‘ethnicity’. Like the terms ‘race’ and ‘racism’, ‘ethnicity’ has no universally agreed definition. The term ethnicity characterizes social groups based upon a shared identity rooted in geographical, cultural, historical factors and migratory patterns.
Ethnography
The study of groups of people in their natural setting, typically involving the researcher being present for extended periods of time in order to collect data systematically about their daily activities and the meanings they attach to them.
Evaluation
A form of research, which prioritises solving practical problems over the generation of new theoretical knowledge.
Experiments
An approach to social research which involves emulating the approach of the natural scientists by collecting data from an ‘experimental’ and a ‘comparison’ group to test a hypothesis.
F
‘Fair trial’ and criminal procedure
Procedural laws govern the actions of law enforcement agencies. In the pre-trial process, such laws provide legal powers for the police enabling them to arrest and detain suspects. The rules also ensure that suspects are treated with due respect. Equally important are trial procedures—the idea of a ‘fair trial’ is enshrined in many human rights conventions and this idea governs such matters as the way in which defendants can defend themselves from accusations, the roles of the judge, as well as of the prosecuting or defending lawyers, the presentation of evidence, the questioning of witnesses and the taking of verdicts.
Fear of crime
General term that suffers from lack of clarity in its definition. Generally taken to refer to concern, worry or anxiety about crime but there is research evidence that it may be a conduit for broader concerns about change and uncertainty. At the start of the twenty-first century the focus for the police has broadened to encompass a reassurance agenda as politicians struggle with falling recorded crime levels and rising levels of public anxiety.
Focus groups
A data collection method which takes advantages of the dynamic interaction of groups to collect largely qualitative data.
Folk devil
As constructed by the mass media and public officials, a public identity that comes to embody a larger sense of threat and social insecurity.
Functionalism
A structuralist perspective, which argues that, although crime and deviance are problematic, they also serve a social function by contributing to the smooth running of the social system as a whole (see Chapter 4).
G
Gender
A socially constructed phenomenon that refers to differences ascribed by society relating to expectations about appropriate social and cultural roles.
Generalizabilty
The extent to which research findings can be applied beyond the sample being studied; for example, to other groups or to different locations.
Gerontology
Interest in the study of human ageing has grown steadily throughout the twenty-first century. Gerontology is a broad discipline, which encompasses psychological, biological and social analyses of ageing. It is also the study of social welfare and social policy focused on ageing. The various stands within gerontology seek to problematize the construction of ageing and to identify the conditions experienced by elders in society. Gerontology raises questions about the role of the State in management of old age to issues about the purpose of growing old within the context of a postmodern life-course.
Governance
This is often used as a general term to denote governing strategies originating from inside and outside the State, though in this volume is used more straightforwardly to refer to the constitutional and institutional arrangements for framing and monitoring the policies of the police.
Governmentality
A term invented by Michel Foucault to describe certain specific techniques developed over the centuries by governments and the State, so as to exercise power over populations as a whole. It complements ‘discipline’, which refers to the operation of power at the level of public institutions.
Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
The total value of all goods and services produced within a country during a specified period (most commonly per year).
H
Hegemonic masculinity
The prevailing idealized cultural conception of dominant (hegemonic) masculinity involving the dominance of women, heterosexuality, the pursuit of sexual gratification and independence. This is a cultural resource enacted to maintain domination over ‘subordinate masculinities’.
Hegemony
The dominance of one particular ideology, resulting in the empowerment of particular values, beliefs and practices over others and frequently resulting in the naturalization of those values, beliefs and practices throughout the social body.
History from below
A form of historical narrative developed and popularized in the 1960s. This form of history focuses on the study and analysis of the lives of ‘ordinary’ individuals within society as well as individuals and regions that were not previously considered historically important. This has given rise to the important developments in such fields as women’s history, black history, and gay and lesbian history.
Home Office Counting Rules
Official instructions that set out how, and in what ways, incidents are to be recorded and counted as offences.
Hypothesis
A theoretical assertion about the relationship between two or more variables which can be tested.
I
Ideal type
An abstract model of a phenomenon which illustrates a generalization for descriptive purposes. For example, in the context of victimization, the ‘ideal victim’ is an innocent, elderly, vulnerable person. This does not imply that such people are typical of victims of crime—rather, it shows how many people think about victims and suggests a commonsense understanding which should be challenged and tested by research.
Incapacitation
Punishment which calculates the risk of future crimes and uses a custodial setting to remove the offender from society to protect the public from further harm.
Institutionalized racism
The term ‘institutionalized racism’ was first introduced in 1968 by Carmichael and Hamilton in their seminal text, Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America. Common to most definitions of institutionalized racism is the collective failure of an organization to provide an appropriate service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin.
Interviews
A data collection method based upon the posing of a series of questions, usually face-to-face but sometimes using more indirect approaches (for example, telephone).
Intimate (domestic) violence
Predominantly (but not exclusively) violence against women and children within the family, which can take many forms including physical assault, rape and sexual violence, psychological or emotional violence, torture, financial abuse including dowry-related violence, and control of movement and of social contacts.
J
Jurisprudence
The science or philosophy of law.
Justice model
One that places the offence at the centre, regarding it as an act of will. It is to be dealt with by punishment set to reflect the seriousness of the crime. The justice model also emphasizes the legal rights of offenders, for example, to representation in court.
L
Labelling theory
A criminological theory that locates the meaning of human activity not in the activity itself, but in others’ reactions to it.
Late modernity
A period in the historical development of capitalism characterized by individualization, globalization, personal insecurity, hyperconsumption and the decline of large-scale collective initiatives such as the welfare state.
Legal psychology
A sub-discipline of psychology specifically concerned with the application of psychological knowledge and research to the process of law.
Life-Course
A term that has replaced the term life stages to reflect holistic understanding of the ageing process. The blurring of the life-course problematizes negative ‘ageist’ stereotypes and practices and in turn produces more accurate and positive images that imply that later life is a time for vitality, creativity, empowerment and resourcefulness—all attainable in old age.
M
Mafia
A term often used to describe an organized crime group consisting of particular ethnic members, for example, Sicilian Mafia, Russian Mafia. It has also been used in reference to individuals and groups who deal specifically in illegal protection.
Managerialism
The use of a more corporatist strategy to deal with crime. The ‘managerial’ approach aims not necessarily to deliver ‘welfare’ or ‘justice’, but to find the most efficient and effective way of managing a visible crime problem.
Media
Any technological form of communication or expression designed to impart meaning (television, newspapers, Internet, radio, brochures, road signs, advertising billboards).
Meta-analyses
When a number of studies on a particular research area are reviewed and assessed in a bid to find some overall conclusions.
Method triangulation
The practice of using more than one research method when conducting empirical research.
Moral entrepreneur
A powerful person or group seeking to impose a moral agenda by creating a new category of crime and crime control.
Moral panic
As generated by the mass media and public authorities, the public’s belief that a particular crime or criminal is symptomatic of larger moral failures and social harms.
N
National Crime Recording Standard
A protocol to standardize crime recording practices amongst police forces, with effect from April 2002.
Neighbourhood Watch
Voluntary organizations that are devoted to preventing crime and disorder in local neighbourhoods. Members are not expected to intervene in possible criminal incidents but to be the eyes and ears of the police by being alert to unusual activity. Grew rapidly in numbers during the 1980s as part of the Conservative government’s emphasis on active citizenship.
Netwidening
A term used to identify the counter-intuitive problem posed by the proliferation of ‘alternatives’ to prison. There is a risk that innovative non-custodial sentences might be used by sentencers for offenders who would previously have received less severe sentences rather than more severe sentences. If this happens, it means that more, rather than fewer offenders are likely to end up in prison. In this way, the net of criminal justice intervention is thrown wider.
Night-time economy
Used to describe bars, pubs, nightclubs and fast-food outlets, often clustered in town and city centres.
Normalization thesis
Particularly associated with the work of Howard Parker and his colleagues who argue that recreational drug use has become a central component of contemporary youth culture.
Nothing works
The notion that became popular in the 1970s and 1980s that nothing could be done to reduce re-offending. It fitted well with the anti-welfarist views of the time, which have now been replaced by the more nuanced view that some interventions work for some offenders in some situations.
O
Observation
A research method which involves watching, and sometimes participating in, social activities.
Offender Management
A term increasingly used to describe the process of working with offenders at different stages of the criminal justice process with the aspiration of preventing reoffending. The nature and extent of ‘management’ is determined by the level of risk and harm the offender is judged to pose to the public.
Organizational culture
Culture has been defined as ‘the way we do things around here’, and while organizations themselves tend to have their distinct cultures, these often take distinct forms within different parts of an organization.
Organizational structure
Refers to the lines of authority, decision-making, accountability, management systems and the relationships between constituent parts of an organization.
Organized crime
A generic description of any criminal activities carried out by a group of two or more people. Official usage of this term specifies that the groups engaged in these activities are motivated by profit, operate over a period of time and are willing to use violence as well as actively seeking to influence those across the legal divide such as the police, politicians, bankers and so on who can further their cause. Organized crime is not a legal term.
P
Patriarchy
Refers to a system of social structure and practices in which men dominate.
Phenomenology
A method of philosophical investigation that seeks to describe and understand experienced phenomena. Although phenomenological methodologies are deliberately complex and opaque, one could say that the ‘goal’ of phenomenology is to challenge and question the foundational knowledge claims.
Phrenology
Phrenology is the study of the structure of the skull to determine a person’s character and mental capacity. It is associated with the work of the Austrian physician Franz Joseph Gall (1758–1828). Gall was one of the first to consider the brain as the home of all mental activities.
Physiognomy
Physiognomy is the interpretation of outward appearance, especially the features of the face, to discover a person’s predominant temper and character.
Police
The specialist state agency tasked with law enforcement and order maintenance.
Policing
Organized and purposive forms of social control and regulation, involving surveillance and the threat of sanctions for discovered rule-breaking.
Positivism
Positivism is a form of empiricism that was established by the sociologist Auguste Comte in the nineteenth century. Rejecting metaphysical or theological explanations, it attempted to emulate the methods of natural science. Thus only scientific or empirical investigation and observation will enable a true understanding of social structures and institutions.
Post-disciplinary
Refers to theories of surveillance and/or punishment that derive from, and accept in part, Foucault’s theory of technologies of power and of discipline, but which argue that the disciplinary historical phase is in the process of being superseded by a new technology of power.
Problem drug use
Problem drug use involves dependency, regular excessive use or use which creates serious health risks (for example, injecting) and it is usually associated with the use of Class A drugs.
Proportionality
A philosophical ideal stating that punishment should be proportionate to the criminal act.
Prosecution and trial
In its technical sense, ‘prosecution’ means bringing an offender in front of a properly constituted tribunal (the magistrates’ or Crown Court) in order to test the validity of a formal accusation made against the defendant. The obligation is on the State as prosecutor to satisfy the tribunal that the accusation is true beyond reasonable doubt. The preparation of a case for trial and the presentation of that case is predominantly undertaken by the Crown Prosecution Service, although other agencies such as Customs and Excise and Inland Revenue may take responsibility for mounting their own prosecutions.
Psychometrics
The measurement (typically via questionnaires or inventories) of psychological characteristics such as intelligence, personality and creativity.
Punitive populism (or variants on it such as populist punitiveness, penal populism)
The pursuit of a set of penal policies to win votes rather than to reduce crime rates or to promote justice. Central to this strategy is the support of imprisonment and, generally, the advocacy of tough measures to deal with offenders.
Q
Qualitative data
Textual, visual or audio data which are not amenable to measurement, provide an insight into social phenomena (for example, crime, sentencing, victimization) and convey, for example, subjective interpretations of meaning.
Quantitative data
Numerical data which measure social phenomena (for example, crime, sentencing, victimization), typically through some form of counting and subsequent statistical manipulation.
Quantitative history
Quantitative history involves the use of empirical, statistical historical data (such as census returns, crop yields, tax records) in the study of historical topics. It is often associated with the emergence of social history, which borrowed methodologies from the social sciences.
Questionnaires
A standardised research instrument used to collect data from respondents about a particular topic.
R
Race
The terms race and ethnicity have been used interchangeably but are not synonymous. Current notions of race are centred exclusively on visible (usually skin colour) distinctions among populations, although its historical origins and usage were broader and included religious and linguistic groups (such as Jews or the Irish) who were considered to be ‘races’.
Racism
Many authors define racism as a ‘doctrine, dogma, ideology, or set of beliefs’. All definitions of racism have a set of common themes—typically the belief that certain groups are innately, biologically, socially, morally superior to other groups, based upon an assumption held about them.
Racist violence
Any incident, including threats, harassment, emotional and physical harm, which is perceived to be racist by the victim, or any other person.
Rational choice theory of crime
A classical model of human choice that assumes that offenders rationally calculate the costs and benefits of committing a crime. The rational choice theory is the leading perspective behind the majority of contemporary situational crime prevention initiatives.
Rational economic (wo)man
An ideal type economists use to derive theories about human behaviour. The assumption is that, faced with choices and given their preferences, individuals will always act in such a way as to optimize their economic well-being. They weigh up the costs and benefits of different actions and choose the one that will leave them the best off.
Recession (economic recession)
Defined formally by economists as occurring when the amount of goods and services produced by a country’s economy falls in two successive quarters. A sustained recession, such as that in the 1930s, is often referred to as a depression. A recession will lead to fewer jobs and higher levels of unemployment.
Recreational drug use
Characteristically centred on the use of cannabis and ‘dance drugs’ (for example, ecstasy), recreational drug use may be frequent but does not involve excessive use, dependency or serious risks to health.
Reflexive
A heightened degree of self understanding and reflection about one’s theorizing or particular standpoint/ position; from the Latin term Reflectere, meaning ‘to turn back on oneself’.
Regulation
Within criminology, this term implies the control of business activity within the framework of a set of rules, by an agency or by dedicated personnel assigned to ensure compliance with those rules.
Rehabilitation
The belief that it is possible to tackle the factors that cause offenders to commit crimes and so reduce or prevent re-offending. The focus is usually on individual factors such as employability, problem substance use, and anger management.
Relativism
The perspective that knowledge is relative and contingent rather than absolute and determined.
Resettlement
Refers to a long tradition of work which aims to reintegrate imprisoned offenders back into the community.
Restoration
In the History of England the term ‘Restoration’ has a specific meaning in as much as it is used to describe the process whereby Charles II regained the English throne after the Parliamentarian rule in the wake of the English Civil War. More commonly, though, the Restoration period refers to the subsequent years of Charles II’s reign (1660–85).
Restorative justice
An approach to criminal justice which aims to restore victims, offenders and the wider community as far as possible to the position they were in before the offence was committed, by involving them in the decision-making process and attempting to reconcile their conflicts through informal (but structured) discussion. Mechanisms for implementing RJ include victim–offender mediation; direct or indirect reparation; family group conferences; changes to sentencing arrangements which involve wider community representation; and community involvement in supervising offenders using circles of support and accountability.
Retribution/Just desert
Punishment that seeks to express social disapproval and concern but which is proportionate to the harm caused by the crime.
Revisionist history
Historical revisionism is the re-examination and reviewing of the stories told as history with an eye to updating them with more recently discovered, more unbiased or more accurate information. Broadly, it is the approach that history as it has been traditionally told may not be entirely accurate and may be subject to review. Revisionist history challenges orthodox and traditional approaches to an historical problem. A revisionist history of crime offers new perspectives to the orthodox (often called Whig) version that many historians accept.
Risk assessment
The activity of collating information on an individual, their immediate circumstances and social environment with a view to assessing the likelihood of particular behaviour patterns occurring in the future. This may divide into clinical collection and assessment, and actuarial assessment; the latter implying a statistical analysis based on particular categories of people. In the case of sexual offenders this is an increasingly formalized and coordinated activity sometimes using risk assessment ‘instruments’.
Risk factors
Increasingly used to refer to individual or social factors which increase the probability of involvement in crime.
Risk management
The activity of using a risk assessment to manage the future risk an individual may pose. In the case of sexual offending this is an increasingly formalized and coordinated activity involving various forms of containment and incapacitation to achieve public protection (for example, supervision, registration, routine surveillance, longer custodial or hospital detention).
‘Rule of law’
The idea of the ‘rule of law’ is that individuals and the State should regulate their conduct according to the law. Laws must be created in a constitutionally proper fashion to be effective, normally through legislation passed by Parliament but such statutory offences can be contrasted with ‘common law’ offences which are based on the decisions of courts. Law enforcement agencies such as the police, the prosecution, the courts or prisons can only exercise their powers (such as those of investigation, trial or detention) where they have legal authority to do so.
S
Self-regulation
Self-regulation refers to the expectation that most people are capable of complying with the law most of the time, not because of the fear of punishment but because they have internalized the values and norms of society and consider that it is in their own interests, and the interests of those that matter to them, to comply. If they occasionally break the law then it is assumed that this will produce a sufficient feeling of guilt and shame for them to regulate their behaviour without either restrictions or assistance from other people. The ultimate aim of criminal justice policy, therefore, is to produce self-regulating citizens who require minimal outside intervention to be law-abiding.
Sex
Refers to biological criteria for classifying persons as male or female.
Sexism
Refers to oppressive attitudes and behaviours directed towards either sex.
Sexual offending
The commission of acts of a sexual nature against a person without that person’s consent (for example, rape, indecent assault) or where that person lacks the capacity to consent (for example, because they are a child, have learning difficulties, or are otherwise incapacitated); these acts may be accompanied by violence or the threat of violence. The commission of acts of a sexual nature that are ‘prohibited’ by law (for example, between members of the same family, or abuse of a position of trust).
Situational crime prevention
An approach to crime prevention involving the management, design or implementation of the immediate environment in which crimes occur in order to reduce opportunities for crime.
Social control
A term used in various different ways in criminology. In the context of surveillance, its most frequent use is to claim (following Marxist theories of class conflict and domination) that the essential ‘function’ of surveillance is to help the State gather information on individuals or groups it perceives as representing a threat to its (class-based) interests, and/or to prevent such threats from arising in the first place.
Social exclusion
A term used to describe people or areas suffering from a combination of problems such as unemployment, poor skills, low incomes, poor housing, high crime environments, bad health and family breakdown. It is distinguished from financial poverty and focused rather on constricted access to civil, political and social rights and opportunities.
Social interactionism
A theoretical approach that stresses the interactions between individuals as ‘symbolic and linguistic exchanges’. Within this rubric, crime is understood as a product of social interaction.
Style
A symbolic medium for the display of collective identity and affiliation; style often serves also as the medium for others’ attempts at surveillance and control.
Subculture
The distinctive symbolic environment of a criminal group, often embodying language, rituals and symbols that, when considered in relation to the study of crime and deviance, run counter to the legal constraints and conventional understandings proffered by mainstream society.
T
Tautology/Tautological
(In theoretical terms) something that relies upon circular reasoning.
Thatcherism
A label given to a set of political values associated with Margaret Thatcher, the Conservative Prime Minister of the UK from 1979 until 1990. Economically committed to allowing markets to operate freely and opposed to supporting firms or industries that performed badly, its policies involved privatizing nationalized industries, reducing state expenditure particularly on welfare. Its advocates believed the Welfare State was to blame for the growth in a ‘dependency culture’ where people relied on State handouts rather than working and providing for themselves and their families.
Time series data
Refers to data collected from a particular geographical unit—town, region or country—at fixed intervals—daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually—for example, annual recorded crime in England for each year from 1950 to 2003. Time series analysis refers to statistical techniques that examine how the measurement varies over time. In contrast, cross-section data is collected for a particular time period across different geographic units, for example, recorded crime in each local authority in the UK in 2004.
Total institution
An organization which controls all aspects of people’s daily lives. Primarily associated with the work of sociologist Erving Goffman, who saw the total institution as a social microcosm which was controlled by an hegemony with clear hierarchies and sets of rules. Examples include prisons, schools, mental institutions and workhouses.
Traditional crime
Those acts upon which criminal justice agencies—and criminologists—have typically focused their energies, such as interpersonal violence, theft, burglary, the use and distribution of illegal substances, public order offences, and so on; also frequently referred to as ‘street’ crime or ‘conventional’ crime.
Transnational organized crime
A relatively recent term that is applied to activities carried out by crime groups across jurisdictions, either by the same group or in collaboration with others. It is intended to reflect the globalizing tendency of organized crime.
U
Unconscious mind
The part of the mind that is inaccessible to the conscious mind but which still affects behaviour and emotions.
Unemployment
The State of being available and able to work but unable to find a paid job. In practice, difficult to identify and measure. For example, government rules as to the meaning of ‘available for work’ or eligibility for benefit can change, altering the numbers counted as unemployed without the material position of any particular individual altering.
V
Validity
The extent to which the conclusions reached are credible and plausible.
Verdicts and sentencing
At the end of a trial, the magistrates (or the jury in a Crown Court) will bring in a verdict—this derives from the Latin for a ‘true statement’. This verdict will be guilty or not guilty. After a verdict of guilty, the court will proceed to sentence. A sentence is a court order which specifies the penalty (from fines to community-based sanctions to imprisonment) to be imposed and which gives legal authority to agencies such as probation or the prison service to enforce that penalty.
Victim blaming
Ways of thinking about the causes of criminal victimization which seek explanations from the individual victim’s conduct and the victim’s relationship with the offender, rather than looking for wider social factors which help to explain victimization. In the context of police investigations, victim blaming can take the form of disbelieving the victim’s report of a crime being committed, or giving some types of incident lower priority on the grounds that the victim is less deserving than others.
Victim impact statements
A mechanism for allowing victims of crime to give a written statement of the impact of the offence upon them, materially and emotionally, so that courts and other criminal justice agencies can take this information into account. An apparently straightforward and sensible innovation which has been controversial and largely ineffective in practice.
Victimology
A sub-discipline of criminology. It is concerned with the study of victims of crime; the causes, nature and impact of victimization; and the dynamics of relationships between victims, offenders and the environments in which victimization occur.
Violence
Behaviour that intentionally threatens or does physical harm, and involves the infliction of emotional, psychological, sexual, physical and material damage.
W
Welfare model
One in which offending is taken to be a symptom of psychological or social deprivation. The response rests with providing expert-led treatment in order to meet the individuals’ needs and so reduce offending.
Welfare State
A State which takes the responsibility for providing basic services to its population. Through systems of social security it guarantees to meet people’s basic needs for housing, health, education and income.
‘What works’
In its narrowest sense, ‘What works’ refers to a movement that emerged in the 1980s and 1990s in North America and spread worldwide. Its aim has been to revive interest in offender rehabilitation through the promotion of programmes for offenders, based on cognitive behavioural psychology and supported by scientific evidence of success in reducing rates of re-offending. The term is intended to counteract the claim that ‘nothing works’ in offender rehabilitation. In its broader sense, the term has come to refer to a very wide-ranging and controversial political and ideological agenda that emphasizes individual responsibility for offending and minimizes the role of social determinants.
Whig History
A term used to describe the views of some eighteenth and nineteenth century British historians that British history was a march of progress whose inevitable outcome was the constitutional monarchy. It takes its name from the British Whigs, advocates of the power of Parliament, who opposed the Tories, supporters of the power of the King and the aristocracy. Whig history is criticized for its overemphasis of the roles played by key political figures and for downplaying the historical importance of the struggles between different classes and groups.
White-collar crime
Offences committed by people of relatively high status or enjoying relatively high levels of trust, and made possible by their legitimate employment.
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