Criminologists have long tried to fight crime and they have developed many theories along the way as tools to help them understand criminals. In the process of doing so, criminologist have realized that in order to really understand why criminals are criminals, they had to first understand the interrelationship between the law and society. A clear and thorough understanding of how they relatively connect with criminal behavior is necessary. Therefore, they then created three analytical perspectives which would help them tie the dots between social order and law, the consensus, the pluralist and the conflict perspectives. Each provides a significantly different view of society as relative to the law. However, while they all aim to the same exact purpose which is to help us understand crimes from a social viewpoint, the consensus perspective is more effective as it presents a more radical and logical view of how society interacts with the law. For instance, the consensus view focuses more on norms, unification, and equality. At the same time, it questions individuals ‘self-control as causes of crime.
As Michalowski described it, most members of a society believe in the existence of core values (Schmalleger, 2012). The consensus view is about nothing but values, the different that are commonly known as right and wrong. The teaching of those values start at a very early stage of one’s life and we tend to adapt to them quite effectively. Most importantly, they become part of our lives to a point where we do not very much need a piece of paper to demonstrate it, we just grow to know that, for example, the killing of another person is wrong and respect for others is right. Those are the things that we know and believe and what makes it ...
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...at it really is. It presents society as a united force respecting and following the norms as to every member can be satisfied. It is equal and common as to what is what and what to expect. It also projects that there probably would not be laws if it were not for the norms, as we, as a society agree on what is unacceptable and considered a violation. Finally, the consensus perspective sees violators of the norms as weak people with very low self-control.
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Criminology is the study of crime and criminals; a branch of sociology. More accurately, it is the study of crime as a social trend, and its overall origins, its many manifestations and its impact upon society as a whole. That makes it more a form of sociology than a law enforcement tool. But the trends it studies have a huge impact on the way the police do their jobs, the way society treats its criminals, and the way a given community goes about maintaining law and order. The writer will describe and give examples of the three perspectives of viewing crimes. The perspectives that will be highlighted are the consensus view, the conflict view or the interactionist view. Each perspective maintain its own interpretation of what constitutes criminal activities and what causes people to engage in criminal behaviors (Siegel, p.12).
Williams, F., & McShane, M. (2010). Criminological Theory, 5th Edition. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.
The Classical School of Criminology generally refers to the work of social contract and utilitarian philosophers Cesare Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham during the enlightenment in the 18th century. The contributions of these philosophers regarding punishment still influence modern corrections today. The Classical School of Criminology advocated for better methods of punishment and the reform of criminal behaviour. The belief was that for a criminal justice system to be effective, punishment must be certain, swift and in proportion to the crime committed. The focus was on the crime itself and not the individual criminal (Cullen & Wilcox, 2010). This essay will look at the key principles of the Classical School of Criminology, in particular
I now know that criminology prefer to highlight the correlations between crimes’ social climates and criminals’ psychological states of mind. While some argues that criminal behavior is a result of individuals’ association with criminal peers, other claims that crime is a reflection of an individual’s genetic disadvantages. I have come to learn that there are no universally agreed formulas on decoding crimes and criminal behaviors. What we have, however, is a manual full of academic opinions and subjective views that have emerged alongside of the development of criminology. At the same time, the volume of conflicting perspectives that I have stumble upon in studying criminology reminded me again that the success of our current assessment models has yet to be determined. Thus, the study of criminology is an appropriate practice that will further prepare me to conduct meaningful research on legal studies and to provide accurate and in-depth findings in the near