Criminology

Cards · 52

Classical School of Criminology

Underpins modern determinate sentencing and legal codes that assume rational free will, aiming to deter crime through swift, certain, and proportional punishment.

Deterrence Theory

Justifies high-visibility police patrols and mandatory minimum sentences to persuade potential offenders that the costs of crime outweigh the benefits.

General Deterrence

Directs publicizing harsh penalties, such as drunk-driving checkpoints or executions, to dissuade the wider public from committing similar offenses.

Specific Deterrence

Guides sentencing individual offenders to sanctions like prison or fines specifically to prevent those particular individuals from reoffending.

Rational Choice Theory

Informs situational crime prevention by raising the perceived effort and risk of committing a crime while reducing the immediate rewards.

Routine Activities Theory

Explains crime hotspots and guides environmental design, such as installing street lighting and security guards to supply capable guardians.

Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED)

Applied by urban planners who modify physical spaces with open sightlines, secure perimeters, and access controls to naturally reduce illicit activity.

Target Hardening

Implements physical barriers like deadbolts, steering-wheel locks, and anti-theft tags to make potential targets harder to compromise.

Positivist Criminology

Promotes rehabilitative sentencing, medicalized diversion, and psychological evaluations rather than purely punitive responses to crime.

Social Disorganization Theory

Guides neighborhood revitalization grants and community development programs to rebuild social cohesion and reduce crime in distressed areas.

Collective Efficacy

Encourages community-policing partnerships where neighbors unite to supervise youth, maintain public spaces, and actively prevent local disorder.

Broken Windows Theory

Led to zero-tolerance policing targeting low-level infractions like graffiti and fare evasion to prevent escalating serious crime.

Hot Spots Policing

Deploys targeted patrol units to specific micro-geographic locations where data indicates crime is disproportionately concentrated.

Merton's Strain Theory

Informs economic safety nets, job training, and educational grants to help marginalized groups achieve societal goals through legitimate means.

General Strain Theory

Supports school counseling and anger management programs to teach individuals non-delinquent coping mechanisms for life stressors.

Institutional Anomie Theory

Advocates strengthening non-economic social institutions like family and education to counteract the criminogenic focus on wealth.

Differential Association Theory

Informs juvenile diversion programs that separate young offenders from antisocial peers and introduce prosocial mentors.

Social Learning Theory

Underpins cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) programs in prisons that model prosocial behaviors and reinforce constructive decision-making.

Social Bond Theory

Drives after-school programs and extracurriculars to strengthen youth attachment to school, family, and conventional community activities.

Self-Control Theory

Advocates early-childhood parental training and preschool education to build emotional regulation and delayed gratification before age ten.

Labeling Theory

Justifies pre-trial diversion and the expungement of juvenile records to avoid stigmatizing offenders and creating self-fulfilling criminal identities.

Primary Deviance

Cautions against overly formal court processing for initial minor rule-breaking to avoid pushing offenders into secondary deviance.

Secondary Deviance

Explains why formerly incarcerated individuals often join criminal subcultures after being rejected from mainstream employment and housing.

Reintegrative Shaming

Powers restorative justice circles that condemn the harmful act while welcoming the offender back into the community upon restitution.

Neutralization Theory

Used in correctional therapy to challenge cognitive rationalizations, such as denial of injury or victim-blaming, used by offenders.

Conflict Criminology

Prompts legal defense reforms and scrutiny of bail practices that penalize low-income defendants more severely than affluent offenders.

Critical Race Theory in Criminology

Drives systemic audits of traffic stops, prosecutorial charging patterns, and judicial sentencing to eliminate racial disparities.

Feminist Criminology

Led to trauma-informed prison policies, gender-responsive rehabilitation, and legal recognition of intimate partner violence dynamics.

Peacemaking Criminology

Encourages mediation and restorative community conferencing rather than relying on adversarial court battles and retributive incarceration.

Left Realism

Advocates practical, democratic policing and social crime prevention focused on protecting working-class victims of street crime.

Right Realism

Promotes strict law enforcement, swift punishment, and situational deterrents to control public disorder without waiting for root-cause cures.

Restorative Justice

Implements victim-offender reconciliation panels to repair measurable harm directly rather than merely punishing state-defined statutory violations.

Incapacitation

Justifies long prison sentences, three-strikes laws, and electronic monitoring to physically prevent high-risk offenders from victimizing society.

Rehabilitation

Directs state funding toward educational degrees, vocational trades, and substance-abuse programs inside correctional institutions.

Retribution

Underlies proportional sentencing frameworks where punishment severity is strictly matched to moral culpability and offense severity.

Life-Course Criminology

Identifies critical turning points like stable employment or marriage to guide reentry programs in helping adults desist from crime.

Age-Crime Curve

Informs juvenile justice policies that favor community monitoring over long detention, acknowledging that most youth naturally age out of offending.

Desistance Theory

Guides post-release case managers to support positive self-narratives, employment readiness, and social integration for former felons.

Moffitt's Dual Taxonomy

Directs intensive intervention at life-course-persistent offenders while using minimal, non-stigmatizing diversion for adolescent-limited offenders.

Biosocial Criminology

Informs policies addressing environmental lead contamination, traumatic brain injury screenings in jails, and childhood nutrition programs.

Dark Figure of Crime

Drives the use of national victimization surveys to measure crimes that victims never report to police agencies.

Procedural Justice

Guides officer training to treat citizens with respect, transparent communication, and neutrality to boost voluntary legal compliance.

Police Legitimacy

Prompts departments to build community trust so citizens will report crimes, serve on juries, and cooperate with investigations.

Net Widening

Warns policymakers that diversion alternatives often sweep low-risk individuals into state supervision who previously would have been released.

White-Collar Crime Theory

Directs regulatory agency oversight, corporate compliance audits, and deferred prosecution agreements against business offenses.

Defiance Theory

Explains how punishments perceived as unfair or disrespectful can provoke further criminality and hostility toward law enforcement.

Victim Precipitation Theory

Historically studied to understand interactional conflict dynamics, while strictly regulated today to prevent unjust victim-blaming in court.

Secondary Victimization

Prompts procedural court protections, trauma training for prosecutors, and rape-shield laws to prevent legal systems from retraumatizing victims.

Community-Oriented Policing

Deploys foot and bicycle patrols to form direct civilian relationships and co-produce local safety solutions.

Problem-Oriented Policing (SARA Model)

Guides agencies through Scanning, Analysis, Response, and Assessment to eliminate underlying systemic conditions generating repeated calls for service.

Risk-Need-Responsivity (RNR) Model

Standardizes probation and parole assessments to match supervision levels and interventions directly to offender risk and learning style.

Diffusion of Benefits

Demonstrates that crime reduction measures in one targeted block often unintentionally lower crime rates in surrounding neighborhoods as well.