Criminology

Scope of criminology
Sub groups of criminology:

Penology: the study of prisons and prison systems

•Biocriminology: the study of the biological basis of criminal behavior

•Feminist criminology: the study of women and crime

• highlights the gendered nature of crime.

• The main aim of Feminist Criminology is to focus on research related to women, girls and
crime. The scope includes research on women working in the criminal justice profession,
women as offenders and how they are dealt with in the criminal justice system, women as
victims, and theories and tests of theories related to women and crime. The feminist critique
of criminology incorporates a perspective that the paths to crime differ for males and
females, thus research that uses sex as a control variable often fails to illuminate the factors
that predict female criminality. This journal will highlight research that takes a perspective
designed to demonstrate the gendered nature of crime and responses to crime. The main
focus of the journal will be empirical research and theory, although the editor welcomes
practice-oriented manuscripts.

•Criminalistics: the study of crime detection

•Trace Evidence Analysis

•Forensic Toxicology

• Forensic toxicology is the use of toxicology and other disciplines such as

analytical chemistry, pharmacology and clinical chemistry to aid medical or legal
investigation of death, poisoning, and drug use.
•Forensic Psychology

• Forensic psychologists are most commonly licensedpsychologists who

specialize in applyingpsychological knowledge to legal matters, both in the
criminal and civil arenas. They hold graduate degrees in psychology,
•Forensic Podiatry

• Forensic Podiatry is a subdiscipline of forensic science in which specialized

podiatric knowledge including foot and lower limb anatomy, musculoskeletal
function, deformities and diseases of the foot,
•Forensic Pathology

• Forensic pathology is pathology that focuses on determining the cause of

death by examining a corpse. A post mortem is performed by a medical
examiner, usually during the investigation of criminal law cases and civil law
cases in some jurisdictions.
•Forensic Optometry

• Forensic optometry – study of glasses and other eyewear relating to crime

scenes and criminal investigations. Forensic pathology is a field in which the
principles of medicine and pathology are applied to determine a cause of death
or injury in the context of a legal inquiry.
•Forensic Odontology

• Forensic odontology is the application of dental science to legal investigations,

primarily involving the identification of the offender by comparing dental records
to a bite mark left on the victim or at the scene, or identification of human
remains based on dental records.
•Forensic Linguistics

• Forensic linguistics, legal linguistics, or language and the law, is the

application of linguisticknowledge, methods and insights to the forensiccontext
of law, language, crime investigation, trial, and judicial procedure. It is a branch
of appliedlinguistics.
•Forensic Geology

• Forensic geology is the study of evidence relating to minerals, oil, petroleum,

and other materials found in the Earth, used to answer questions raised by the
legal system. In 1975, Ray Murray and fellow Rutgers University professor John
Tedrow publishedForensic Geology.
•Forensic Entomology

• Forensic entomology is the scientific study of the invasion of the succession

pattern of arthropods with their developmental stages of different species found
on the decomposed cadavers during legal investigations. It is the application
and study of insect and other arthropod biology to criminal matters
•Forensic Engineering

• Forensic engineering is the application ofengineering principles to the

investigation of failures or other performance problems. Forensic
engineering also involves testimony on the findings of these investigations
before a court of law or other judicial forum, when required.
•Forensic DNA Analysis

•Forensic Botany

• Forensic botany is thus defined as the use of plants and plant parts -- including
as pollen, seeds, leaves, flowers, fruits and wood -- in the investigation of
 criminal cases, legal questions, disputes, or, in non-criminal cases, to ascertain
cause of death or former location
•Forensic Archeology

• Forensic archaeology is the application of archaeological skills to the location

and recovery of human remains and forensicevidence. Forensic anthropology
is the analysis of human remains for the medico-legal purpose of establishing
identity.
•Forensic Anthropology

• Forensic anthropology is a special sub-field of physical anthropology (the

study of human remains) that involves applying skeletal analysis and techniques
in archaeology to solving criminal cases.
•Digital Forensics

• Digital forensics (sometimes known as digital forensic science) is a branch

of forensic science encompassing the recovery and investigation of material
found in digital devices, often in relation tocomputer crime.
•Criminalistics

•Criminalistics can be defined as the application of scientific

methods to the recognition, collection, identification, and
comparison of physical evidence generated by criminal or illegal
civil activity. It also involves the reconstruction of such events by
evaluation of the physical evidence and the crime scene.
Criminalists, usually called “forensic scientists,” analyze evidence such
as body fluids in order to determine if DNA in those fluids matches blood
found at a crime scene (see DNA fingerprinting). Other forensic scientists
may help identify, collect, and evaluate physical evidence at a crime
scene.
•

Criminologist
Green criminology
Green criminology is a branch of criminology that involves the study of harms and crimes
against the environment broadly conceived, including the study of environmental law and
policy, the study of corporate crimes against the environment, andenvironmental justice from
a criminologicalperspective.
Criminal behavior
Criminal psychology, also referred to as criminological psychology, is the study of the wills,
thoughts, intentions, and reactions of criminals and all that partakes in the criminal
behavior. It is related to the field of criminal anthropology.

Traits of criminal behavior

Criminal peers
Anti social personality
Dysfunction family
Low self control
Substance abuse
Crime as social problem
Deviance
Deviance and relativism
_location
_ age
_ social status
_ individual societies
Types of devance
Types of deviance
Primary deviance
Secondary deviance
Form of deviance
Individual as a cause
Society as a cause
Culture as a cause
Strain theory
Not everyone has access to institutionalized means, or legitimate ways of achieving
success. Strain theory, developed by sociologist Robert Merton, posits that when people are
prevented from achieving culturally approved goals through institutional means, they
experience strainor frustration that can lead to deviance.