Task One - How Would You Define Criminology? Essay Example

Task One
How would you define Criminology?

There are many ways in which Criminology can be described. Criminology is a social science and it looks at society’s reaction to the laws which have been broken and tries to find out what has led a person to commit a crime by looking at the criminal’s behaviour and the criminal as a person.
The definition of Criminology depends on the individual society, that the people involved come from, wither it be the criminal, the victim or the people trying to investigate the pacific crime which is taking place.

My understanding of Criminology is that there are many ways in which to describe it. Many people from different societies and cultures see crimes in a different way from others and what is a crime in one country may not be a crime in another country. To define a crime, the Criminologist has to look at where and when the crime has taken place.
My understanding is that there can be no ‘set-in-stone’ definition for Criminology as crime is ever changing which makes it difficult to define because what may be seen as a crime today may not be a crime in five years. Also some thing that is not a crime today may be seen as a crime in five years.

Task Two
Explain the difference between macro and micro theories used by Criminologists.

Both the macro and micro theories used by Criminologists are detailed theories that pay very close attention to all of the different aspects of crime and the criminal behaviour of the person committing the crime.
The differences between the macro and micro theories are that the macro theory explains the crime on a larger scale and, due to this, it can also explain why the crime in one town or city has a higher crime rate than another local town or city. The micro theory is in contrast with the macro theory as it tends to focus on the smaller groups (or individual) of criminals. The micro theory attempt to explain why the certain individuals are more likely that others to commit a crime