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Hale et al: Criminology 2e

Chapter 1

As an intellectual discipline, criminology is often compromised by disputes over its fundamental object of study. Do the terms crime, criminal and criminality refer to 'real entities', in the sense that they exist in the 'real' world in verifiable forms, or are they created by social norms or more rigid legal definitions? If the second case is true, does this mean that criminology lacks a firm foundation, and therefore is it liable to be reduced to the status of ideology or cultural artefact? This chapter explores this fundamental issue through contrasting definitions of crime. Each of these definitions fits with a mode of explaining crime and policy implications. It will be suggested that the imaginative grasp of criminology - the logos concerning crime - is restricted within each definition. Key themes have been:

  1. Accepting crime as that which is processually defined by the legal process. Many critics describe this as circular and/or historically relative, but does this also mean that criminology is the servant of state power and an apologist for the acts of the powerful? What are the institutional implications and consequences of this reliance on 'official power'? Does this imply that if the state has not 'criminalized' activities, or has not prosecuted, they are not crimes? What of state crime and genocide?

  2. Attempting to escape from the law by taking a sociological notion of deviance. Most studies under the term 'sociology of deviance' come under this heading, but what notion of the normal and the deviant is applied?

  3. Attempting to build 'theoretical' definitions that are inherent in the traditions that make up criminological history.

In our increasingly globalised world, definitions of crime have become ever more pluralistic, even nebulous. Understanding these different definitions and features of contrasting conceptions of the human condition may provide some orientation for the future.