CCJ113 Introduction to Criminology and Criminal Justice Assignment

This assignment solution addresses two short answer questions from the CCJ113 Introduction to Criminology and Criminal Justice course at Griffith University. The first answer defines criminology, explaining its broad scope beyond crime-solving to include the study of crime types, causes, criminal behavior, and societal responses. It highlights various sub-fields like feminist criminology and penology. The second answer analyzes the media's portrayal of crime, discussing how media coverage influences public perception and often exaggerates crime rates. It references Australian crime statistics, demonstrating that while media coverage might suggest rising crime, actual victimization rates have decreased in several categories. The assignment showcases an understanding of criminology's core concepts and the relationship between crime, media, and public perception.

Running head: CCJ113
INTRODUCTION TO CRIMINOLOGY & CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Authors Note

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Answer- 1
First of all, criminology not only deals with solving crimes. The sphere of criminology is
vast. Apart from the strategies of solving crimes, it deals with some other things as well, which
includes types of crime, reasons behind a crime, identifying the behaviour of the criminal,
history of a wrongdoer, his/her psychological stability, age, and most importantly the social and
governmental responses to crime (White, Haines & Asquith, 2017).
The term criminology is derived from a Latin term which means ‘allegation’. On the
other hand, the transcribed Greek logia denote it as ‘the study of’. Thus, the literal meaning of
the term criminology is ‘the study of crime’. The scientific education on crime is considered to
be as Criminology, which includes law enforcement and preventive strategies. The empirical
study of social conduct is a sub-group of sociology which is also included in criminology.
Several fields of education are used and included in the study of criminology, such as biology,
economics, anthropology, psychiatry, statistics, and psychology. The study of criminology itself
has various sub-groups which includes:
 Feminist criminology: The education on women and crime;
 Penology: The education on jail and jail system;
 Criminalistics: The education on crime discovery; and
 Bio-criminology: The education of biology based on the conduct of criminal.
The primary aim of criminology is, of course, to identify the root reasons for crime and to
establish efficient and ethical ways to prevent it by improving the criminal justice system. These
aims are responsible for the creation of several schools, such as positivist school, classical
school, and Chicago school (Davis & Dossetor, 2017). Moreover, over the last 250 years, the

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study of crime has advanced, but in some countries, one can still go to jail for the offence of
stealing a pizza.
Answer- 2
Whether the media portrays crime is highly reliant on the public’s perception of crime.
The media covering crime gives rise to the impression that the rates of crime are at all times high
or that crime is on the increase.
The media selectively covers crime and appears to concentrate on crimes and offenders
that are considered ‘newsworthy’. The media represents offences that concern the general public
and concentrate on interesting stories that also have a high degree of aggression and a direct
effect on the environment. It has also been observed that sometimes media plays with the fears
and emotions of human beings (Cunneen, & Russell, 2017).
Media is considered to be as the fourth estate. Despite that, the facts discovered by media
regarding a violent crime is not admissible in courts. If the statistics regarding the violent crime
rates of Australia examined critically, it will be observed that national victimization rates
dropped in all groups except the sexual assault and also in all domestic crimes from 2008–09 to
2017–18. Around 5.0% (966,600) of Australian people between the age group of 15 years and
more faced personal criminality. The victimization rate for killings was 0.8%. The rate of
national homicide has been decreased to 1.8 per cent from 1989-1990 and 2013-2014. In 2013-
14 there were 238 murder cases compared to 307 in 1989-90 in Australia ("Australian Bureau of
Statistics, Australian Government", 2020).
These ratios indirectly indicate that the crime rates in Australia is always high but the
difference is that previously those incidents of crimes were not highlighted like now. Nowadays,

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due to technology and internet development, these incidents are broadcasted in television or
uploaded in various social networking sites to inform and warn the society about crimes.

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Reference
Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australian Government. (2020). Retrieved 27 March 2020, from
https://www.abs.gov.au/
Cunneen, C., & Russell, S. (2017). Social media, vigilantism and Indigenous people in
Australia. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Crime, Media, and Popular Culture, Oxford
University Press, New York. Published online Sep.
Davis, B., & Dossetor, K. (2017). (Mis) perceptions of crime in Australia.
White, R., Haines, F., & Asquith, N. L. (2017). Crime & criminology.