LESMA204
What are the major approaches that criminologists use to explain crime? Explain each of them. Which approach or approaches would be of greatest practical use to the security manager?
Since ancient times, criminologists study various theories of crime in order to place measures that may reduce or eliminate specific crime risks. They are trying to use different approaches to explain crime by different category of theory, such as psychology, biology and sociology. I am going to introduce four major approaches in criminology that criminologists use to explain crime. There is positivist criminology, classical perspective, sociological criminology, environmental criminology.
Positivist criminology was founded in the late 19th century by Italian academic who called Cesare Lombroso. He believes that the positivist scientific method could be applied to the study of crime so as to find out its causes and prevent it. His particular approach was described as criminal anthropology. He compared the known offenders and a control group of soldiers by the post-mortem measurement and examination. After studying the resulting, Lombroso think that there a correlation between certain physical features, such as an asymmetrical face, large jaws and long arms, and criminality. In his opinion, these physical traits were characteristic of an earlier period of human evolution. It calls the born criminal. That means it was a throwback or atavistic. Lombroso concluded that behavioural traits such as criminality may link to the shape of the skull and the physiognomy may links behavioural characteristics to physical features, particularly of the face. He thinks that the pre-given dispositions of crime can be determine by observational physical features differences. And he assumed that known criminals were representative of all criminals.
On the other hand, there are some weaknesses in positivist criminology. Firstly, the positivist criminology assumes that apparently natural human features
Since ancient times, criminologists study various theories of crime in order to place measures that may reduce or eliminate specific crime risks. They are trying to use different approaches to explain crime by different category of theory, such as psychology, biology and sociology. I am going to introduce four major approaches in criminology that criminologists use to explain crime. There is positivist criminology, classical perspective, sociological criminology, environmental criminology.
Positivist criminology was founded in the late 19th century by Italian academic who called Cesare Lombroso. He believes that the positivist scientific method could be applied to the study of crime so as to find out its causes and prevent it. His particular approach was described as criminal anthropology. He compared the known offenders and a control group of soldiers by the post-mortem measurement and examination. After studying the resulting, Lombroso think that there a correlation between certain physical features, such as an asymmetrical face, large jaws and long arms, and criminality. In his opinion, these physical traits were characteristic of an earlier period of human evolution. It calls the born criminal. That means it was a throwback or atavistic. Lombroso concluded that behavioural traits such as criminality may link to the shape of the skull and the physiognomy may links behavioural characteristics to physical features, particularly of the face. He thinks that the pre-given dispositions of crime can be determine by observational physical features differences. And he assumed that known criminals were representative of all criminals.
On the other hand, there are some weaknesses in positivist criminology. Firstly, the positivist criminology assumes that apparently natural human features
References: The Open University of Hong Kong. LESM A204 Security Practices and Management (Unit2). Hong Kong: OUHK