Criminology

mala in se: acts that are thought to be wrong in and of themselves (e.g. sexual assault)

mala prohibita: acts that are wrong only because they are prohibited (e.g. drug use, prostitution)

• proscribe serious violations of a group's values
• -extends against multiple societies
• -consensus about what's right/wrong

• time honored customs based on tradition
• e.g. equality for women

• codified into formal strictures
• created for enforcement purposes

• one of first known body of law
• focused on issue of theft, property ownership, sexual relationship
• emphasis on retribution

• derived from the twelve tables
• basic rules regulating family, religion, and economic life
• based on common and fair practices

• Public law - the Roman state
• Private law - contracts, possessions

• unwritten legal precedents supported by court decisions
• based on shared traditions and standards
• often referred to as "the major source of modern criminal law"
• judge made law

• "great charter" 
• a man's home is his castle
• concept of "due process of law"
• "the foundation stone of our present liberties"

also known as the Age of Reason. A social movement that arose during the late 17th and 18th centuries and built upon ideas such as empiricism, rationality, free will, humanism, and natural law

the Enlightenment-era concept that human beings abandon their natural state of individual freedom to join together and form society but surrender some freedoms to society

• had negative view of the world and people
• introduced social contract
• people are born evil

• put forth idea that the natural human condition at birth is akin to that of a blank slate (tabula rasa)
• people are born neutral

a body of unchanging moral principles regarded as a basis for all human conduct

human beings are basically good and fair in their natural state, but world makes us cynical and bad

• natural rights cannot be granted by anyone
• if you give something, you have the right to take it away

the rights that individuals retain in the face of government action and interests

• developed from period of Enlightment
• men and women are rational beings
• crime is the result of the exercise of free will
• remedied deterrence

• torture was unfair; confession may have nothing to do with innocence or guilt
• the death penalty-people gave up certain rights when they joined society, but never agreed that the state should be able to kill them

• deterrent
• swift and certain
• fit the crime

thought humans are fundamentally rational and that criminals will weigh in their minds the pain of punishment against any pleasures thought likely to be derived from crime comission

the belief that behaviour holds value to any individual undertaking it according to the amount of pleasure or pain that it can be expected to produce for that person

• criminal codes
• modern police forces
• modern prisons 
• crime statistics
• due process

the notion that criminal offenders deserve the punishment they receive at the hands of the law and that punishments should be appropriate to the type and severity of the crime committed.

the prevention of crime

a goal of criminal sentencing that seeks to prevent a particular offender from engaging in repeat criminality

a goal of criminal sentencing that seeks to prevent others from committing crimes similar to the one for which a particular offender is being sentenced

the repetition of criminal behaviour

the legal imposition of a sentence of death upon a convicted offender

the likelihood that a given individual will later harm society or others; it is often measured in terms of recidivism, or the likelihood of new crime commission or rearrest for a new crime

the use of imprisonment or other means to reduce the likelihood that an offender will be capable of committing future offences

those who suggest that, under certain circumstances involving criminal threats to public safety, the interests of society should take precedence over individual rights

a concept used by Cesare Lombroso to suggest that criminals are physiological throwbacks to earlier stages of human evolution.

those that explain criminality by reference to offenders' body types, genetics, and/or external observable physical characteristics

the classification of human beings into types according to body build and other physical characteristics

a body type originally described as soft and round, or overweight

a body type originally describe as athletic and muscular

thin and fragile, with long, slender, poorly muscled extremities, and delicate bones

the aspect of the personality from which drives, wishes, urges, and desires emanate. More formally, it is the division of the psyche associated with instinctual impulses and demands for immediate satisfaction of primitive needs

• most likely to be criminal
• characterized by creativeness, tough-mindedness, anti-sociability, a lack of empathy, hallucinations, and delusions

personality component that is conscious, most immediately controls behaviour, and is most in touch with external reality

moral aspect of personality

crime is a compromise, representing for the individual the most satisfactory method of adjustment to inner conflicts which he cannot express otherwise.

a form of adjustment resulting from changes in the environment surrounding an individual

a form of adjustment resulting from changes within an individual

a standard for judging legal insanity that requires that offenders did not know what they were doing, or if they did, that they did not know it was wrong

a finding that offenders are responsible for committing the offence that they have committed but, because of their prevailing mental condition, should be sent to a psychiatric hospital for treatment rather than a prison. The maximum length of stay is predetermined

a social policy that seeks to protect society by incarcerating those individuals deemed to be the most dangerous