Laura Melendez
Module one Essay Assignment
CCJ1010 801 Criminology
1/7/2017
Chapter 1 Questions:
1. What is crime? Crime is human contact in the violation of the criminal law of a state, the federal government or local jurisdiction that has the power to make such laws.
2. What is deviance? Any social behavior or social characteristic that departs the conventional norms and standards of a community or society and for which the deviant is sanctioned.
3. Who decides what should be criminal? This can be answered in two ways. The consensus perspective where the members of society agree that such laws are needed and the pluralist perspective in which the viewpoint says that behaviors are criminalized through a political process only after…show more content… What is criminology? An interdisciplinary profession built around the scientific study of a crime and criminal behavior including their forms, causes, legal aspects and control.
B. Chapter 2 -
1. What three eras have characterized the field of criminology over the past 100 years? Defined by John H. Laub to describe the history of criminological thought; The first era covered the years 1900 to 1930 and can be thought as the “Golden Age of Research” The second era covered the period from 1930 to 1960 and was called the “Golden Age of Theory”, the third era extended from 1960 to 2000 and was a time of scientific examination of the accuracy of criminological theories that had been advanced previously.
2. What is a theory? A series of interrelated propositions that attempts to describe, explain, predict and ultimately control some class of events. Theories can be defined in many ways. One criminologist, Don M. Gottfredson felt theories consist of postulates, theoretical constructs, logically derived hypotheses and definitions.
3. What purposes do theories serve? Theories serve a number of purposes. A good theory provides relatively compete understanding, and is supported by observation’s and stands up to continued scrutiny. They also give meaning to observations, explaining what we see in a particular setting by relating it to other things already
