Why does one crime have a set of different punishments? , The roots of criminologists’ work and their work in modern times, What is quantitative criminology, and how does it differ from other types of crime?
Criminology is the study of crime and criminals, including the causes, prevention, correction, and impact of crime on society. Modern criminology encompasses the study of the nature of crime and criminals, the causes of crime, the effectiveness of criminal laws, and the functions of law enforcement agencies and correctional institutions. The focus of modern criminology is criminal behaviour and the contributing biological and sociological factors that cause rising crime rates.
The earliest effort to identify the causes of criminal behaviour, the biological theories of crime state that certain human biological characteristics, such as genetics, mental disorders, or physical condition, determine whether or not an individual will have a tendency to commit criminal acts. In that case, what are the theories of punishment in reality in case of great crimes?
The Retributive Theory of Punishment, or the ‘Theory of Vengeance’, as many human beings withinside the society could understand it as, is the maximum basic, but thoughtless idea of causing a penal sentence over a perpetrator. Now, if checked out from the angle of very severe and heinous offences, just like the Delhi gang rape case, human beings can also additionally sense that it’s miles higher to inflict such retributive punishments, a good way to make certain that a deterrent is ready throughout the society, with a purpose to save you such crimes
withinside the close to destiny. Sri Ashim Dutta Alias Nilu vs State of West Bengal– In this case, it became determined that each deterrent and retributive punishment had the intention at preventing the recurrences of the offences through others passing exemplary punishment for a selected offence. That definitely manner, in keeping with this idea if a person commits any crime and he/she is punished through a excessive punishment, then, it can end result perhaps that the human beings of the society could be or can be privy to the excessive punishments for positive
varieties of crimes and due to this worry withinside the minds of the human beings of the society, the human beings can also additionally prevent from committing any type of crime or wrongful act. Philosophy of preventive idea affirms that the preventive idea serves as an powerful deterrent and additionally a hit preventive idea relies upon at the elements of promptness. The word “incapacitation” means ‘to save you from the offence through punishment, in order that the destiny technology fears to deviate from the crook’s act.’ Incapacitation takes place both through eliminating the individual from the society, both quickly, or completely, or through a few different techniques, which restricts him because of bodily inability. It has been visible that in contrast to the alternative theories of punishments like deterrence, rehabilitation and restitution, the idea of
incapacitation definitely rearranges the distribution of offenders withinside the society in order that the price of crime decreases within the society. Later within the twenty first century, the idea became modified to a few volumes, in which the offenders had been to stay withinside the number one technique of incapacitation which became determined in maximum of the present day penal systems. Also, it’s been visible that if different theories are carried out like Retributive Theory, Compensatory Theory, etc., then they lay down a reasonably stringent utility of setting the crook at the back of the bars for as a minimum five years.
General Theory: Closely related to his positivist theory, Cesare Lombroso’s general theory of crime introduced the concept of criminal atavism.
Cultural Transmission Theory: Arising in the early 1900s, the cultural transmission theory contended that criminal behaviour is transmitted from generation to generation—a “like father, like son” concept.
Social Disorganisation Theory: Developed after the end of World War II, the social disorganisation theory asserted that the sociological characteristics of peoples’ home neighbourhoods contribute substantially to the likelihood that they will engage in criminal behaviour.
Routine Activities Theory: Developed in 1979, routine activities theory suggested that when motivated criminals encounter inviting unprotected victims or targets, crimes are likely to occur.
Broken Windows Theory: Closely related to the routine activities theory, the broken window theory stated that visible signs of crime, anti-social behaviour, and civil disorder in urban areas create an environment that encourages further, ever more serious crimes.
Introduced in 1982 as part of the community-oriented policing movement, the theory suggested that stepped-up enforcement of minor crimes such as vandalism, vagrancy, and public
intoxication helps prevent more serious crimes in urban neighbourhoods.
There are generally four approaches to measure crime in order to get quantitative data: observing, victimisation reports, surveys of offenders, and using data that has already been obtained. If one were to go by the ways police are informed of crime, either by observing it themselves, or by crimes reported to them, one would realise that some crimes will not be well measured. Another way of measuring crime is the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports, which are based on police measures of crime.
But because the data in these reports are based on reported crimes, they share the same measurement problems that have been listed above. Also, the UCR will not include Part II crimes only if the arrestee has been formally charged with a crime, because individual states may have varying definitions of these crimes (Maxfield 113).
UCR data represents groups of analysis, meaning that crime reports are available for cities and states; the data just does not represent individual crimes very well.
Surveys can possibly have several advantages, like: obtaining information that has not been reported to authorities; finding out about crimes reported to police, but not recorded officially; and can provide data on victims and offenders and the incident themselves . This type is helpful especially for victimless crimes, like prostitution, public order and delinquency crimes, and rarely reported crimes, like shoplifting.
Because crime is really hard to measure, it is often best to combine many of these methods in order to get the most valid data for measurement. The difference in laws hurts the measurement of crimes because crimes in one city or state may not be punishable in other states.