Critical Criminology in the Classroom

• NCJ Number: 74784
• Author(s): R C Kramer
• Date Published: 1979
• Length: 22 pages
• Sale Source: Eric Document Reproduction Service
• Publication Type: Instructional Material
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Paper presented at the 74th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, Boston, Massachusetts, August 30, 1979.

Annotation

Recommendations are given for structuring a college-level introductory criminology course around a criminality labeling perspective and a social conflict and power definition of criminal behavior.

Abstract

The central theme of both the labeling perspective and the various conflict power approaches, including radical Marxist criminology, is that crime is a label or a legal status and not a type of behavior. The labeling perspective maintains that the way in which criminology concepts are defined influences the types of issues and questions focused upon. Conflict and power approaches assume that criminality is a legal status, while traditional approaches defined criminality as a social behavior. To increase student understanding of crime as a social phenomenon, criminology instructors should incorporate these concepts into an introductory criminology course by organizing the course around five major topics: (1) a comparison of definitions of crime as a behavior and crime as a legal status; (2) investigations of bias in crime statistics; (3) an historical, analytical, and critical survey of criminological theory; (4) a review of the literature on criminal law, law enforcement, the structure and functioning of criminal courts, and the correctional process; and (5) types of criminal behavior including violent, property, corporate, occupational, public order, organized, professional, and political crime. Course materials are suggested and briefly annotated, case studies are cited, and a course outline is presented. Eighteen references are provided. (Author abstract modified)