2. Criminology is a body of knowledge regarding crime as a
social phenomenon. It includes within its scope the
processes of making laws, of breaking of laws, and of
reaction towards the breaking of laws.
Criminology is the scientific study of crime as a social
phenomenon, of criminals, and of penal treatment.
The word ‘criminology’ derives its origin from Latin
word “crimen”, means accusation and Greek word
“Logia” is the scientific study of the nature, extent,
causes, and control of criminal behaviour in both the
individual and in society.
Criminology is an interdisciplinary field in the
behavioural sciences, drawing especially upon the
research of sociologists, psychologists, psychiatrists,
social anthropologists as well as on writings in law.
3. A school of thought is a point of view held
by a particular group or a belief or system
of belief accepted as authoritative by some
group of school.
Each school of criminology explains crime
in its own manner and suggests punishment
and measures which suits its ideology.
Each school represents the social attitude
of people towards crime in a given time.
4. IMPORTANT SCHOOLS OF CRIMINOLOGY
INCLUDE:
School of Demonology
Pre-Classical School of Criminology
Classical School of Criminology
Neo-Classical School of Criminology
Positivist School of Criminology
Biological School of Criminology
Sociological school of criminology
Cartographic School of Criminology
5. Cartography is the study and practice of
making and using maps.
Cartographers are the scholars who employ
maps and other geographic information in their
research.
Cartographic criminology imagines the ways
maps can inform and shape our Criminological
knowledge.
Cartographic criminologists are persons who
employ maps and geographical information to
study crime and criminal behaviour in a society.
6. The cartographic school of criminology
represents or examine the relationship of
criminality to the physical environment and
other social factors.
The school serves as an important stepping
stone between the classicism of Beccaria and
the positivism of Lombroso.
Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quételet (a Belgium
mathematician) and Andre-Michel Guerre (a
French statistician) in Europe during the
1830’s and 1840’s were the proponents of this
school of criminology.
7. Lambert Adolphe Quetelet and André Michel
Guerre compiled detailed statistical information
relating to crime and also attempted to identify
the circumstances that predisposed people to
commit crimes.
It dominated in 1830-1880 in France and from
there it spread to England.
This school of thought is called the “Cartographic
School” since it used maps to plot crimes within a
certain geographic area.
Cartographic school of criminology gave way to the
development of ‘hot spot’ theory. ‘Hot spot’ is a
term used to denote the spatial clustering of
reported criminal incidents - ‘small places in which
the occurrence of crime is so frequent that it is
highly predictable, at least over a one year period.
8. The significance of the ‘cartographic school’
lies in its use of mathematics and statistics in
conjunction with cartographic practices to
promote scientific knowledge about crime’s
relationship to social factors.
This school introduced the first spatial and
ecological perspectives on crime and criminal
behaviour.
As geography plays an important role within
modern policing, cartographic school can
contribute valuable information to criminal
research and crime prevention.
9. One of the most important tools in identifying
crime is Crime mapping, which is mapping of crime
using a geographic information system to conduct
spatial analysis of crime and other police-related
issues.
The first use of computerized crime mapping in
applied crime analysis occurred in the mid-1960s
in St. Louis, USA.
The mapping of crime establishes relationship
between society and the physical environment
and is a very important tool in managing and
controlling crime in an area.
10. Mapping crime can help police protect
citizens effectively from lawbreakers.
Simple maps that display the locations
where crimes or concentrations of crimes
have occurred can be used to help direct
patrols to places they are most needed.
Policy makers in police departments might
use more complex maps to observe trends
in criminal activity, and maps may prove
invaluable aid in solving criminal cases.
11. Two different methods of study is being
contributed by this school of criminology.
First was the usage of official data, such as
census reports, housing and welfare records,
poverty and truancy statistics to study their
relationship with crimes.
The second method was by studying the
relationship of crimes and criminal behaviour
with the life history of a person.
These methods can better explain the reason
for criminal behaviour in a person.
12. Ecological school of criminology
Chicago school of criminology
As members of this school focussed upon the
city of Chicago for doing their research, hence
the Chicago school of criminology.
Geographical school of criminology
Topological school of criminology
13. The most significant contribution of the Chicago School is
the idea of social ecology. This school believed the
community to be a major factor on human behaviour and
that the city functioned as a microcosm.
It holds that crime is a response to unstable environment
and abnormal living conditions. These criminologists
emphasised that there should be a shift from theoretical
abstracts to more concrete approaches of the real world
and real world related phenomenon.
One of their primary assertions was that disruption, e.g.
immigration, economic shifts and family instability, tends
to cause crime, which has been affirmed by studies
showing that social disorder, weak friendship networks
and low community involvement produce higher crime
rates.
This is based on the idea that if people are concentrated
in areas with limited opportunity and have close proximity
to criminals, they are more likely to learn deviant
behaviour.
14. The Chicago criminologists saw pathology in the city, which led
to criminality. They are of the view that city is a place where
life is superficial, where people are anonymous, where
relationships were transitory and friendship and family bonds
were weak.
These criminologists are of the view that weakening of
primary social relationships as leading to a process of social
disorganization.
The Chicago School clearly stressed humans as social
creatures and their behaviour as a product of their social
environment.
The social environment provides values and definition that
govern behaviour.
Urbanization and industrialization break down older and more
cohesive patterns of values, thus creating communities with
competing norms and value systems.
The breakdown of urban life results in basic institutions such
as family, friendship and other social groups to become
impersonal.
15. The criminologists of this school opined that any city
could be divided into various concentric zones
emanating from the centre of the city.
The middle zone (Zone 1) is the central business
district in any city.
The next is the inner city (Zone 2), sometimes called
the Interstitial Zone or Zone of Transition.
This Zone is surrounded , respectively, by:
Respectable working class housing (Zone 3)
The (middle class) suburbs (Zone 4)
The city fringe (rural / semi-rural areas) inhabited by
the rich (Zone 5)
In examining crime rates in relation to each zone, they
found that one zone in particular (Zone 2) exhibited
higher rates of crime than any other zone.
16. Zone 2 or the zone of transition had a
consistently higher rate of crime than any other
zone because of cheap housing and low standard
of living.
It is a fact that no settled community could
establish itself in this zone because of the
repeated waves of immigration into - and
emigration out of - the zone.
This movement in the zone 2 is called as “white
flight” – the phenomenon of well-off, well-
educated (usually white) people moving out of
urban centres to more affluent suburbs, leaving
cities with concentrations of poor, less-educated
citizens, often concentrated in ethnic or racial
groups.
17. This pattern of movement and separation helps
explain the observation that certain areas are
more crime-prone.
It is not the result of more criminals flocking to
certain areas, but rather that the bad living
conditions and poor infrastructure create barriers
and offer opportunities or even incentives for
criminal behaviour.
In effect, the high turnover of people in the
"zone of transition" resulted in the idea of "social
disorganisation" - the idea that a lack of clear,
moral, guide-lines deriving from a settled, stable,
community structure resulted in a lack of informal
social controls and hence high rate of crime.
18. According to geographical school, the climate, altitude
and topography affects behaviour of a person.
Quetlet, Guerre, Montesquieu and Lambroso were the
supporters of this theory.
Montesquieu said that the criminality was more near
the equator and drunkenness are near the poles.
Adolphe Quetlet in his ‘Thermic law’ of crime said that
in the countries with warm climate, the crimes against
human violence were more in number while in the cold
countries, the crimes against property were more in
number.
Crime rate is lower in the areas of fertile lands and
crime rate is higher in the areas of barren and
unirrigated areas. Excess temperature causes irritation
in human beings, and inspires them to commit crimes.
19. This school concentrated on geographic variations
in social conditions under the assumption that they
were related to patterns of crime.
The crime rates varies according to the weather,
months, north and south, cold and warm and rural
and urban areas.
Various studies also suggest that there is a
variation of crimes of different nature according
to the geographical area.
Criticism of this school.
The modern criminologists do not accept the
tenets of this school. They argue that the crime
causation is within the society and individual, but
not depended upon the geographical conditions.
20. Ecology is a branch of biology, which deals with animals
and plants in relation to their natural surroundings. It
explains the effects of environmental changes on the
growth and development of plants.
In the beginning of the 19th century many a
criminologists were inspired by the principles of Ecology,
and they adopted these principles in criminology.
Gabriel Trade, Core, Turati, Colajani, Henry, Mayhew,
Rawson, Lafargue, Battaghia, Lacassangne were the
supporters of this school.
Ecological criminologists opined that social environment
affects the individual behaviour.
Bad social environment force the individual to commit
crime.
Ecological school analysed the crime causation depending
upon the density of population, town planning, literacy,
unemployment, distribution of wealth among people,
intelligence of the people, etc
21. They found that greater the economic
inequality, greater will be the criminality in
the society. They pointed out that the
scarcity of food creates criminal behaviour in
the people. The rich hide the food grains and
the poor plunder them. The business people
hike the prices. Thus the entire society moves
to criminality.
They also link up crime with industrialization.
More the industrialisation, more the crime
rates will be. The children of poor do not go
to schools and illiteracy in turn causes
criminal behaviour.
Prostitution increases in the lower classes of
society. Truancy(school dropping) increases in
poor and middle classes of society.
22. CRITICISM OF ECOLOGICAL SCHOOL OF
CRIMINOLOGY
The criminologists who adopted the idea of ecology,
analysed the crime causation correctly to certain
extent. Their idea came nearest to the socialistic and
sociological school of criminology. However, the critics
point out that the principles of Ecological school shall
not suit for every community and society.
There are different societies in the world. Each has
its own distinctive features. Ecological school could not
explain all of them. This school depended up on survey
and statistics. It takes huge time for survey and
solution to problems and crime causation.
Meanwhile, the society itself changes its character due
to different social, economic and political problems.
Again the scientists have to start afresh their work on
survey. Further, this theory concentrated only on
economic environment. It forgot the political and
individual crime causation.
23. Cartographic school of criminology has its
significance even in this twenty-first century
that it helps to understand the crime patterns
and trends and thus helps in resource
allocation and geographic profiling
of criminals and their suspicious locations.
Crime mapping under the cartographic school
is a powerful decision making tool for
investigators, supervisors, and administrators
to compact crime and criminal behaviour.
