Definition of Public Criminology
Public criminology takes information, research and education to the next level, as discovered through this essay. It doesn’t just include lab work, research and discoveries, it involves community based teaching in a way that the public can be informed and educated through upfront communication. Throughout this essay, the broad definition of public criminology will be discussed as well as its relevance to society. As with anything, there are challenges and promises that accompany public criminology and those will be stated in this essay. Examples will be given to help you learn the different concepts of public criminology and how it relates to our modern society. Given as a starting point, according to Larson (2012), public criminology involves:
Conscious efforts to critique existing approaches to questions of crime and justice, demystify concepts and issues that are laden with political and ideological baggage, situate debates about crime control within a socio-historical context, and facilitate the imagination and exploration of alternative ways of thinking and acting in relation to crime and justice. (p. 3).
That is a very simple explanation of public criminology that incorporates much of its diversity. This quote is of great importance to gaining an understanding of public criminology, as it is not only about incorporating the public in the generation of knowledge, but more about activism. It is about directly gaining knowledge through different people’s experiences and eventually changing opinions through public presentations. Through many sources, this broad term will be analyzed and described as clearly as possible, drawing from course presenters’, course readings, and research.
Public cri...
... middle of paper ...
...lic-criminology/
Loader, I., & Sparks, R. (2011). Public Criminology? Oxon: Routledge.
Manson, A. (2001). The Law of Sentencing. Toronto: Irwin Law.
McCormick, C. (September 17,2013). Crime Matters: The Criminological Imagination and Public Criminology. Public Lecture. Brantford.
Mills, C. W. (2000). The Sociological Imagination (Reprint from 1959 ed.). Oxford University Press.
Moroney, S. (2011). Through the Glass. Double Day Canada.
Oxford. (2013). Definition: Moral Panic. Oxford University Press.
Piche, J. (Performer). (2013, November 5). What is Justice. Brantford, Ontario, Canada.
Ruggiero, V. (2012). How Public is Public Criminology? Crime Media Culture , 8 (2), 151-160.
Simon, J. (2010). Public Criminology? A Cool Read on a Hot Topic. Governing Through Crime.
Uggen, C. and Inderbitzin, M. (2010), Public criminologies. Criminology & Public Policy, 9: 725–749.
Criminology. The. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2012. Print. The. Shakur, Sanyika.
Schmalleger, Frank. Criminology: A Brief Introduction. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc., Publishing as Prentice Hall., 2011.
Lilly, Robert J., Francis T. Cullen, and Richard A. Ball. 2011. Criminological Theory: Context And Consequences. 5th ed. California: SAGE.
Jock Young’s book “The Criminological Imagination” very clearly spells out the author’s feeling that orthodox criminology has lost its way and has been swallowed up into obscurification through bogus, post-modern positivism. Young postulates, the cost of this phenomena is the loss of critical thinking and objectivity in the field of criminology. Young contends criminology can be rescued from obscurity if returning to its orthodox beginnings by reducing the impact of neo-liberalism with critical imagination, and not simply succumbing to empirical data to try to explain everything. Young contends, doing so seems to simply cloud the view, thus giving rise to a host of incomplete and overly politicized theories.
Hickey, T. J. (2010). Taking Sides: Clashing Views in Crime and Criminology, 9th Edition. New York, NY: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Akers, R, & Sellers, C. (2009). Criminological theories: introduction, evaluation, and application. New York: Oxford University Press, USA.
Young, J. (1981). Thinking seriously about crime: Some models of criminology. In M. Fitzgerald, G. McLennan, & J. Pawson (Eds.), Crime and society: Readings in history and society (pp. 248-309). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Mays, G. Larry., and Rick Ruddell. Making Sense of Criminal Justice: Policies and Practices. New York: Oxford UP, 2008. Print
Winslow, R. W., & Zhang, S. (2008). Contemporary Theories of Crime. Criminology: a global perspective (). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson/Prentice Hall.
The social construction of myths of crime and criminal justice seems to follow a series of recurrent patterns. These patterns allow for an unprecedented amount of social attention to be focused upon a few isolated criminal events or issues. This attention is promoted by intense, but often brief, mass media coverage of a select problem. Intense social concern of an issue is achieved by a variety of means from the mass media, government, law enforcement officials, interpersonal communications, and the interests of reform groups whom all play major roles in focusing the publics attention on select so...
Although we have a general definitions of crime, some criminologists argue that crimes is better placed within the concept of social harm, Stuart Henry and Mark Lanier (1998) as quoted in Muncie, Talbot and Walters (2010). pp 16-17 were leading authors who done just that. Criminologists such as “Tifft, 1995 an...
In my undergraduate studies, I endeavored to further my knowledge and understanding up to the more advanced levels and achieved an outstanding result. As I started my CJ studies in the Spring of 2014, I became preoccupied by the systematic trainings that I received in the criminological theories, crime correction, and the relevant laws. I was keen to study for this particular program because I understood how this knowledge can be utilized to reduce and prevent crime to benefit the lower classes of different communities. These experiences helped me to build up a solid foundation to carry out higher-level research in the
Newburn, T., (2013) Criminology Tim Newburn. (2nd ed). 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon 0X14.4RN: Routledge.
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).
Criminology, as defined by the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Criminology, is the scientific study of the causes of crime, prevention of criminal behavior and the functioning of criminal justice institutions. Ian Hay, a distinguished criminologist from the Flinders University of South Australia states that many few criminologist have written about topics regarding research ethics (Mark Israel I. H., 2005). Several, however, have orally shared their research in ethics and research committees. Furthermore, this paper will outline ethical issues confronted by criminologist. These ethical issues include, for example, confidentiality, informed consent, as well as the method and integrity of the research being conducted.