Perspective in criminology that sees human behavior as

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Administration of Criminal Justice

• Chapter 1

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Mala in Se, Mala Prohibita, and Criminal Harm
Mala in Se. Acts considered evil in themselves.
Examples Murder, Robbery, Rape, and Assault.
Mala Prohibita. Acts considered undesirable
although not inherently evil.
Three (3) types Offenses against morality (or
crimes without victims) Political
Crimes Regulatory Offenses
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Mala in Se, Mala Prohibita, and Criminal Harm
Offenses against Morality. Generally involve
consensual acts between the offender and the
victim.
Examples Gambling, prostitution, and drug
offenses.
Political Crimes. Acts viewed as threats to the
government.
Examples Espionage, bribery, and treason.
Regulatory Offenses. Acts viewed as threats to
public health, safety, and welfare.
Examples Inadequate food and drug labeling or
usage warnings, unsafe products.
Overcriminalization. Blurring of the distinction
between crime and merely inappropriate offensive
behaviors.
What effects can we see from overcriminalization
of certain behavior in the United
States? (i.e. gambling, alcohol, drugs). Would
it be possible to address these problems
differently?
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How Can Crime Be Explained?

• There are four (4) theories
• Classical School
• Positivism
• Ethical View
• Structural / Conflict View

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How Can Crime Be Explained?
1. The Classical School. Perspective in
criminology that sees crime resulting from the
conscious exercise of an individuals free will.
The classical school assumes that all people are
equal in their capacity to guide their conduct
rationally. If the law is violated, the
punishment is based on the violation committed
rather than on the type of person who committed
the crime.
Classicalists focus on punishment of offenders as
the best way to prevent future crime.
2. Positivism. Perspective in criminology that
sees human behavior as determined by internal and
external influences, such as biological,
psychological, and/or social factors.
Rather than seeing crime as the product of the
rational exercise of free will, as classicists
do, positivists see crime largely determined by a
variety of internal and external influences on a
person.
Positivists focus on factors that occurred in an
individuals environment to explain criminal
behavior.
Positivists focus on rehabilitation of the
offender to avoid future crime.
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How Can Crime Be Explained?
3. The Ethical View. Perspective in criminology
that sees crime as a moral failure in decision
making.
Believe that crime occurs when a person fails to
choose the proper course of conduct, and this bad
choice results from the failure to appreciate an
acts wrongfulness.
Solution to crime is to give individuals a
greater appreciation of the wrongfulness of
certain conduct.
4. The Structural / Conflict View. Perspective
in criminology that see criminal law as
reflecting the will of those in power and notes
that behaviors that threaten the interests of the
powerful are punished most severely.
Believe criminal law is derived from social,
political, and economic conditions.
View is supported by the fact that prisons are
mostly filled with lower class individuals,
rather than middle and upper class wrongdoers.
Examples Refusing to pay your income taxes, or
refusing to send your child to school.
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Biological Determinism and Psychological
Explanations
Biological Determinism. Positivistic view of
criminal behavior as rooted in biological
attributes.
Believe that criminals are determined by our
biological make-up.
Psychoanalytic Theory. Freudian theory that
behavior results from the interaction of the
three components of the personality Id, Ego,
and Super Ego.
Id. Defined as the primitive, instinctual
drives of aggression and sex that everyone is
born with. Ego. Mediates between the
self-centered desires of the id and the learned
values of the superego. Super Ego. Acts as a
persons conscience, reflecting the values one
develops in the early years of life through
interactions with family members.
Theory Criminal activity occurs when the Ego or
Super Ego fail to control the impulses of the Id.
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Sociological Explanations
Sociological Explanations look at environmental
influences to explain the way people behave.

• Three (3) Theories to Sociological Theories to
  Criminal Behavior
• Theories Based on Learning.
• Theories Based on Blocked Opportunities.
• Theories Based on the Social Bond to Conventional
  Society.

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Sociological Explanations
Theories Based on Learning Criminal behavior is
learned in much the same way that people learn
anything else through observation and role
modeling.
Differential Association. Theory that a person
becomes criminal or delinquent when he or she
associates with people who condone violation of
the law than with people who do not.
Theories Based on Blocked Opportunity.
Criminal behavior results from lack of access
to legitimate means for achieving goals, or
blocked opportunity.
Conclude that lower-class individuals have a
greater risk of entering crime because of the
lack of access. Instead of pursuing legitimate
goals, they substitute illegitimate goals. (i.e.
Instead of getting a job to earn money to buy new
shoes, they steal the new shoes).
Create Criminal Subcultures when youths
fail to adhere to middle class standards.
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Sociological Explanations
Labeling Theory. The view that adjudicating a
juvenile as a delinquent serves to encourage
future delinquency by generating a negative
public identity or changed self-image.
Juveniles who are labeled as delinquents are
actually encouraged to commit future acts of
delinquency through lowered expectations of
others and their own changed self-image.
The Social Bond. An individuals attachment to
society, with has four primary elements (a)
attachment to others (b) commitment to
conventional activities (c) involvement in
conventional activities and (d) belief in widely
shared moral values.
Believe that criminal activity occurs when the
social bond is weak or broken in an individual.
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Correlates of Crime
How do Guns and/or Drugs and Alcohol correlate
with criminal activity?
If all guns disappeared tomorrow, would violent
crime disappear? Would it be significantly
reduced?
To what extent is drug use linked to criminal
activity?