Theories Of Sociological Criminology

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The sociological understanding of crime and criminal justice is called sociological criminology. This approach to understanding crime focuses on issues such as race, poverty, and the structure of communities and social relationships as a cause. John Hagan defined sociological criminology as structural criminology as it takes all of the previous issues and views their fundamental composition to determine if they have effects on crime. Furthermore, the sociological perspective claims that human beings are very social beings, signifying that society greatly impacts our behavior, attitude and life chances. Emile Durkheim was a strong supporter of this view, as he believed that humans had no control over what happened in their life. Durkheim claimed that social forces influence people’s actions and attitudes. On top of that, social structure is divided into horizontal and vertical structures. Horizontal social structure pertains to communities and social relationships that affect an individual, while vertical social structure, also social inequality, are qualities such as race, gender, …show more content…

Many norms that are not written are called customs. Customs are not necessarily the law but it is customary to follow these rules. When a norm is broken, it creates deviance. Deviant behavior not only violates the norm but it upsets the established order and results in negative reactions by those who witness it. The most basic level of maintaining the norm through social control would be to make fun of or make the deviant feel uncomfortable. Criminal and deviant behavior has been accounted for many different causes. The classical school of criminology states that criminal behavior is done because the reward outweighs the risk of getting caught. By gathering stats and crime data, Adolphe Quetelet discovered that poor younger male adults mostly commit crimes more than any other type of

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