Criminology

A Like most sciences, criminology was driven by curiosity—the curiosity to learn about the criminal mind, the antisocial mind. This, in turn, is based on the scientific method; that is, starting from observation, problem, hypothesis, experimentation, and conclusion.

Criminology originated with César Lombroso, an anthropologist who conducted studies on people in prisons, performing anthropometry, meaning he measured the bodies of individuals (mainly the skull). Lombroso developed the hypothesis of comparing criminal groups with non-criminal ones. This was because, when Lombroso joined the ranks of the Italian military, he noticed that dishonest soldiers had a large number of tattoos compared to those who were not. At this point, Lombroso began to wonder if there might be some physical pattern among those who were criminals versus those who were not, which led him to conduct these studies to justify his hypothesis. Based on these studies of the skull, Lombroso suggested that cranial deformities, among other physical characteristics, pointed to criminal types, leading to his later classification. Following this positivist school, Enrico Ferri and Rafael Garófalo joined, adding more in-depth and specialized knowledge in sociology and psychology, respectively (Hikal, Introduction to the study of criminology, 2013). These theories may now be considered outdated, but they nevertheless remain present.

On the other hand, doing criminology is not something relatively new if we consider that there have always been rules in all societies and eras, as well as the desire to identify the reasons behind a crime or act. What we might call “new” would perhaps be the terminology, the attempt to establish standardized protocols, an order to the systematization of knowledge, and the fact that this science is self-correcting (Hikal, Introduction to the study of criminology, 2013).

Criminology has gone through many definitions throughout history, and within its scope, it has changed, evolved, learned, and adapted to keep up with crime rates. That is, as criminologists, we have learned to continue updating ourselves to innovate in this field with the firm goal of social good and prevention, as well as improving criminological practice.

The definitions of criminology vary depending on the author consulted, but etymologically speaking, criminology derives from the Latin “criminis,” meaning crime or offense, and “logos,” meaning treatise or study. That is, criminology is the treatise or study of crime (Centro de formación, 2014).

Now, criminology is an inter- and multidisciplinary science whose foundations are forensic and social bases, without neglecting the legal framework (Juárez, 2018).

As mentioned earlier, the definitions are too numerous to list, but what they have in common are key words that most use:

• Science

• Multidisciplinary

• Subject / perpetrator

• Victim

• Crime / act

• Conduct / behavior

• Prevention

References

Centro de formación, e. c. (2014). Estudio criminal. Especialistas en criminología y derecho penal. Obtenido de Estudio criminal: http://www.estudiocriminal.eu/criminologia.htm

Hikal, W. (2005). Criminología psiconalítica, conductual y del desarrollo. México.

Hikal, W. (2013). Introducción al estudio de la criminología. México: Porrúa .

Juárez, B. E. (2018). El criminólogo como perfilador criminal. Jalisco: Vizcaya.

Wiarco, O. A. (2012). Criminología. Moderna y contemporánea. México: Porrúa.

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