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Criminology · Unit 1

Nature and Scope of Criminology, and its Schools

Unit 1 of Criminology and Penology (syllabus: Module I — the legal definition of crime and its five conditions; the changing concept of crime; the social viewpoint, and why the law looks backward while society looks forward; the forward-looking programme and the four objections to it; intent as no index of dangerousness; the relation between criminology, penology and criminal law; whether criminology is a science; and the schools of criminology). Below: what the unit covers, the provisions it turns on, and the cases an examiner expects you to name.

What this unit covers

  • What are the five conditions that must be satisfied before a person may be dealt with as a criminal?
  • What are the four elements and the four stages of a crime, and why does the law not punish the first two stages?
  • Can criminology be separated from penology, and what follows if it cannot?
  • Is criminology a science?
  • What was Beccaria's programme, and what did the classical school assume about human nature?
  • Why did the classical school give way to the positive school?
  • What did Lombroso actually claim, and what survived Goring's refutation?
  • What does the clinical school claim, and what is its penal consequence?

Treat that list as a self-test: recite each topic's rule from memory before you open its cases.

Provisions

  • The legal definition of crime, s. Five conditions
  • Indian Penal Code, s. 11, 44 and 511
  • The definitions of criminology, broad and narrow, s. The related fields
  • The debate on the scientific status of criminology, s. Three objections and two answers
  • The classical school of criminology, s. Beccaria's nine principles
  • The neo-classical and cartographic schools, s. The chain of defeats
  • The positive school of criminology, s. Atavism and the three classes
  • The clinical school of criminology, s. Diagnosis, treatment and sentence length

Leading cases

  • The legal definition of crime
  • The scheme of the Indian Penal Code on elements
  • The standard criminological account of the scope of the subject and its related fields
  • The demarcation argument
  • Cesare Beccaria
  • The first annual national crime statistics
  • Cesare Lombroso
  • The clinical school of criminology

Exam questions on this unit

In this paper