Theories and Approaches in Criminology

This article discusses the different theories and approaches in criminology including classical school, positive school, social deviation theory, criminal subculture theory, objective causes theory, and labeling theory. It also covers critical criminology and the development of public policy to combat crime. The article emphasizes the need for a clear state policy to combat crime and the importance of consistency in resolving fundamental issues. The study uses qualitative methods to answer the question of the best policy to effect in criminological situations to bring out the best results.

Running head: CRIMINOLOGY 1
Criminology
Name:
Institution:
Date:

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Theories of criminal sociology/ criminology
The different approaches that have been adopted will allow a global analysis of crime to
understand its development.
A. CLASSICAL SCHOOL
Defines man as selfish by nature and therefore capable of committing crimes. In society, a
contract is made to respect individual assets. From this it follows that the one who commits a
crime is because of an illness, due to ignorance or bad behavior. Later, the subject begins to
be seen as a being with a background and a specific personal situation that makes him
responsible for his actions (ADLER, 2016).
B. POSITIVE SCHOOL
Human action is defined by natural laws that define personal decisions. Man is driven in his
behavior by forces he does not know (destiny, chance, nature). At that time, the delinquent is
understood as a being deviated from the normal, who lacks something; it is different from the
other citizens who remain in a way of life accepted by society.
According to Lombroso, the criminal is a being with a lower level of biological development,
getting to identify types of criminals by their physical characteristics
C.2. THEORY OF SOCIAL DEVIATION
Social deviance is understood as an individual response to the oppressive system. Sutherland
states that crime is learned through direct or indirect contact with criminal behavior. It is or is
not criminal for the relative degree of frequency and intensity of contacts with the behaviors
inside or outside the law (Conklin, 2013). According to Norbert Elías, the deterioration of

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customs and the evolution of crime is based on the prolonged action of violent actors with
success; producing a progressive adaptation of individuals to the dominant environment. It
imitates the elite and if the path of this is successful to accumulate wealth or power, will have
followers and will be perpetuated, whatever that path (Jones, n.d.).
C.3.- THEORY OF THE CRIMINAL SUBCULTURE
The subject through social conditions, structures and mechanisms of communication and
learning determines the membership of a subculture (a group of people living under their own
values different from the dominant culture). The subculture expresses and justifies the
hostility and the aggression, against the society, for the own frustration. The crime cannot be
considered as an expression contrary to values because each group or subculture has its own.
C.4.- THEORY OF OBJECTIVE CAUSES.
The material conditions of existence determine the level of social life.
a) Theory of Poverty: It is argued that poverty is the reason why violent conflicts are solved
daily and justifies crimes against private property as an inevitable consequence of
deprivation.
The middle and lower social classes, obsessed by the consumer society, seek a better quality
of life by any means.
C.5.- THEORY OF LABELING
The subject can be designated according to their social environment or certain criminal
behavior, which generates a tendency to continue playing that role. Belonging to a low social
class gives a higher probability that their behavior will be defined as criminal and therefore of
being imprisoned, than a person who does the same but of a higher class (Macdonald, 2013).

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CRITICAL CRIMINOLOGY
Alessandro Baratta bases his theory on several assumptions:
The evil resides in society and in man. The offender learns the crime, this seems normal and
expected. The State has exceeded its functions by political delinquency and the loss of moral
values. The Criminal Law is not equal for all, the lower classes are more apprehensible. The
rehabilitation of criminals occurs by putting them all together and separating them from
society, for the author prison is synonymous with psychological and physical torture
(Parmelee, 2011).
Criminal behavior is an antisocial and aggressive behavior that encompasses a wide range of
acts and activities that violate rules or social norms and expectations that reflect actions
against the environment, people and property. It is caused by human action, understood as
any fact that violates social rules or goes against others. Before this, the psychologist Ana
Margarita MerazInzunza commented that there are numerous factors that try to explain why a
person presents criminal behaviors, why he acts in that way and if he or she decides it or not
(HERRING, 2017).
Design a research study
The study will use qualitative methods to answer the question which is the best policy to
effect in criminological situations to bring out the best results(Jha, 2008).
Developing public policy
Under the state policy of combating crime is often understood the same as under
criminal policy in the broad sense, ie. it covers criminal-legal policy in the narrow sense,
penitentiary, criminal procedural, administrative-legal, criminological forensic sectoral
policies.

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With regard to criminal policy in the narrow sense, recently in the press appeared
serious publications, which reflected the concern about its crisis condition(Goddard &
Melville, 2011). Concern about the state of criminal policy in modern conditions, both from
scientists and practitioners, seems quite justified. Unfortunately, is characterized as not
always justified liberalism, which is not always consistent with the criminological situation in
the country, as well as inconsistency in resolving fundamental issues, shuffling from one
extreme to another, which is reflected in numerous amendments and additions that are
permanently introduced into the Criminal Code code (Mackey &Levan, 2013).Unjustified
incursions into the sphere of criminal law are also taking place when issuing laws on
administrative liability.
There is also no adequate consistency of criminal-legal and criminological policies.
Suffice it to recall how colossal damage to the fight against crime was caused by the
breakdown of the prevention of violations in the first half of the 1990s.Carrying out such a
policy in conjunction with other social, economic, cultural and educational factors led to a
sharp aggravation of the criminological situation in the country (Mackey &Levan, 2013).
Crime in our country has reached such a scale in terms of the number of crimes and
their gravity, that it poses a threat to the national security of the country. Sociological
research shows that the majority of the population, in terms of the degree of danger and
significance, puts this problem first, even in comparison with poverty, unemployment, etc.
The organization of crime, its technical equipment, its armament, and such dangerous forms
of crime as banditry, terrorism, drug business, etc.
In such conditions it is very important to work out and even more importantly to
implement a clear state policy to combat this phenomenon. To curb crime requires a strong
state. Therefore, it is necessary to increase the role of the state in all spheres of society. The

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state should act as one of the main factors of economic and social transformations, become a
real guarantor of the rights and freedoms of citizens proclaimed by the Constitution. An
important role in this can play local government (Promising and model crime prevention
programs, 2011).
It is necessary to clearly define the ways and means to confront the criminal
onslaught, to develop, based on a realistic, balanced assessment of the situation, laws,
opportunities and tendencies of social development, strategy and concrete measures for
taming crime(Kothari & Garg, 2016).
We need a qualitatively new level of management of the forces involved in the anticriminal
front, the consolidation of state bodies and civil society structures, the coordination of actions
of all branches of government, coordination not only within the law enforcement system, but
also at the level of authority and management both in the subjects of the Federation, federal
districts, and so and in the scale of the country (Promising and model crime prevention
programs, 2011).
The political and legal document that defines the basis of the state policy in the field of
combating crime should, if adopted at the level of the highest state power, become a
document of long-term action, the implementation of which will facilitate the unification of
efforts of the authorities and healthy forces of society on priority areas of counteraction to
this negative social phenomenon and, ultimately, overcoming the current extremely acute
criminal situation(Walsh, 2008).
The state policy of combating crime is designed to ensure the maximum possible limitation of
this negative phenomenon, reducing it to a level at which it can be managed (Welsh, 2009).
The general and special prevention of this negative phenomenon should clearly be defined as
a priority area for combating crime. The restoration and development of the links between

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law enforcement and other state bodies and the population is the decisive condition for
ensuring the effectiveness of crime prevention. In order to prevent crimes, the state needs to
more actively establish and develop cooperation with political parties and movements,
religious denominations, non-state media; to promote both the revival of traditional (public
points of order, voluntary people's squads, councils of prevention at the enterprise, etc.), and
the creation of new public structures of preventive orientation; support the efforts to prevent
violations committed by the commissions for the affairs of minors and the protection of their
rights, as well as by street, quarterly, house committees, Cossack formations, parental
councils of schools, trustees, charitable and other non-state organizations. To form an integral
state policy to combat crime, great importance has the development of principles, basic ideas
that determine the tasks and directions of all branches of government the power and law
enforcement agencies in this area (Welsh, 2009).
Correspondence of anti-crime measures to international legal acts. Particular rejection of
supporters of liberal criminal policy provokes the principle of intensity and offensive: they
tend to see in it the call to return to the accusatory bias of criminal proceedings, to disregard
the rights of citizens falling into its orbit. However, the offensive in combating criminality is
incompatible with emergency measures, it involves the systematic expansion of various kinds
of efforts in strict accordance with the law. It is inadmissible as an accusatory bias and
calculation only on the severity of criminal repression, and unjustified liberalism, which
actually leads to impunity of offenders. In order to combat crime, it is necessary to make full
use of the mechanism of state coercion, including appropriate criminal procedural and
criminal executive means. At the same time, offensiveness involves anticipating, advancing
the actions of criminals, the consistent implementation of a preventive approach to the crime
prevention effort. If a crime is committed, all measures should be taken that would exclude
the criminal from evading the investigation and the court, continue his illegal activities, cover

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up the traces of the crime, conceal the property obtained illegally. All the listed principles are
interrelated, none of them can to some extent "compete" with others (Welsh, 2009). The
principles of criminal policy are unified and binding for each of the branches of state power:
legislative, executive, judicial. Strictly observing them is to ensure coherence in the activities
of all state bodies(Hibbard & Worring, 2002). Violation of the principles of state policy, from
whomever it comes, should entail personal responsibility of officials, because of whom it was
committed (Welsh, 2009). In this connection, it is important to ensure direct regulatory action
of the principles of state policy in the field of combating crime through their consolidation in
legislative and other legal acts.

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