Criminology: Understanding Crime and Criminal Behaviour
Why crime happens and what the evidence says about preventing it, for future police officers: what criminology studies and how crime differs from deviance, consensus, conflict and interactionist views of the criminal law, the main types of crime, police-reported statistics, the Crime Severity Index and victimization surveys from Statistics Canada, the dark figure of crime and how to estimate it, classical and rational choice theories and the evidence that certainty of being caught deters far more than severity of punishment, biological and biosocial perspectives including adolescent brain development, psychological theories of self-control, learning and thinking and the risk-need-responsivity model, social disorganization, collective efficacy, strain and subcultural theories, differential association, social learning, neutralization, social bond and labelling theories, critical and feminist criminology, the overrepresentation of Indigenous and racialized people and the Gladue principles, criminal careers and desistance, the patterns of crime by age, gender, place and time and the law of crime concentration, routine activity and crime pattern theories, repeat victimization and the rights of victims, situational, developmental and community crime prevention and what does not work, and evidence-based policing, with a capstone crime problem analysis set in the fictional city of Port Ardent.
LES-102 Year 1 3 credits 12 lessons · 4 h 23 min ▶ Video lessons coming soon
Offered by HSM University · Engineering Core
This is the Canadian version of this course. See the American version.
What you'll learn
- Define criminology and distinguish crime from deviance, explain consensus, conflict and interactionist views of how crime is defined, and classify types of crime.
- Interpret police-reported statistics, the Crime Severity Index, victimization surveys and self-report studies, explain the dark figure of crime and estimate unreported crime.
- Explain classical and rational choice theories and evaluate the evidence on certainty, severity and swiftness of punishment as deterrents.
- Describe biological and biosocial perspectives, including heredity, brain development and environmental risks, and recognize the ethical dangers of biological explanations.
- Explain psychological theories of offending, including self-control, learning and thinking patterns, and apply the risk-need-responsivity model.
- Explain social structure theories, including social disorganization, collective efficacy, strain and subcultural theories, and connect them to neighbourhood patterns of crime.
- Explain social process theories, including differential association, social learning, neutralization, social bonds, labelling and reintegrative shaming.
- Describe critical, feminist and life-course perspectives, including the overrepresentation of Indigenous and racialized people, pathways research, criminal careers and desistance.
- Describe the patterns of crime by age, gender, place and time, including the law of crime concentration, and calculate concentration from incident data.
- Apply routine activity, lifestyle-exposure and crime pattern theories, analyze repeat victimization and describe the rights and needs of victims.
- Classify crime prevention approaches, evaluate situational, developmental and community programs against the evidence, and measure displacement and diffusion of benefits.
- Apply evidence-based policing, the SARA model and the Maryland scale to prepare a crime problem analysis that measures, explains and proposes responses to a local problem.
Course content
12 lessons · 4 h 23 min total · final exam
- 1 What is criminology? Crime, deviance and the study of offending 23 min · quiz
- 2 Measuring crime: police statistics, victim surveys and the dark figure 21 min · quiz
- 3 Classical and rational choice theories: deterrence and decisions 21 min · quiz
- 4 Biological and biosocial perspectives 20 min · quiz
- 5 Psychological theories: personality, learning and risk 20 min · quiz
- 6 Social structure theories: disorganization, strain and subcultures 21 min · quiz
- 7 Social process theories: learning, control and labelling 21 min · quiz
- 8 Critical, feminist and life-course perspectives 22 min · quiz
- 9 Patterns of crime: age, gender, place and time 20 min · quiz
- 10 Opportunity and victims: routine activities, crime patterns and repeat victimization 26 min · quiz
- 11 Crime prevention: situational, developmental and community approaches 24 min · quiz
- 12 Capstone: evidence-based policing and a crime problem analysis 24 min · quiz
- E Final exam 20 questions
Description
Why crime happens and what the evidence says about preventing it, for future police officers: what criminology studies and how crime differs from deviance, consensus, conflict and interactionist views of the criminal law, the main types of crime, police-reported statistics, the Crime Severity Index and victimization surveys from Statistics Canada, the dark figure of crime and how to estimate it, classical and rational choice theories and the evidence that certainty of being caught deters far more than severity of punishment, biological and biosocial perspectives including adolescent brain development, psychological theories of self-control, learning and thinking and the risk-need-responsivity model, social disorganization, collective efficacy, strain and subcultural theories, differential association, social learning, neutralization, social bond and labelling theories, critical and feminist criminology, the overrepresentation of Indigenous and racialized people and the Gladue principles, criminal careers and desistance, the patterns of crime by age, gender, place and time and the law of crime concentration, routine activity and crime pattern theories, repeat victimization and the rights of victims, situational, developmental and community crime prevention and what does not work, and evidence-based policing, with a capstone crime problem analysis set in the fictional city of Port Ardent.
Part of the Engineering stream, typically taken in year 1.