Notes of Criminology.
Crime as social problem
Crime is a violation of criminal law for which formal penalties are applied by some
governmental authority. It represents some type of deviation from formal social norms
administered by the state. Crimes are divided by law into various categories, depending
on the severity of the offence, the age of the offender, the potential punishment that can
be levied, and the court that holds jurisdiction over the case. There is no society in any
part of the world, which is without crimes.
One of the serious problems of today’s crimes is that in many cases the criminals
are socially, politically and economically so powerful that they decide the course of
punishment for others while they themselves manage to get escaped completely.
Causes of Crime
There are many causes of the crime. Few of the many causes may be discussed as under:
1. Poverty
2. Education System
3. Unemployment
4. Political Setup
5. Change in Values
1. Poverty
Poverty is one of the most importance causes of crime. In fact it can be said that it is the
root cause of many crimes. Though poverty is a relative term, yet in every form it result
in corruption and adopting illegal and underhand means. Poverty results in committing
suicide and prostitution as well as bribery and so on. Directly or indirectly poverty is
responsible for all sorts of crimes.
2. Educational System
Unfortunately present day educational system is very defective. The system of education
does not lay stress on morality and character, which are effective forces for checking
crimes. Similarly we find the education is mostly not vocational biased and does not
help the young people to get timely employment. Delay in getting proper employment
encourages tendency towards crime.
3. Unemployment
In the economic field unemployment plays an important role in committing of crimes.
Thus an unemployed young person can become robber or a thief. He can become violent
and take law into his own hands. In this way unemployment results in many crimes. That
is the reason that we find that in countries, which have undeveloped economy, and in
which chances of unemployment are marginal, rate of crimes is high.
4. Political Set up
Our political set up also encourages crimes in our modern times government machineries
are slow and inefficient with the result that this becomes premium on the illegal activities
of the criminals. Similarly our legal system too is very complex and complicated and the
criminals are confident that they can escape free and involve some innocent persons in it.They know that by their illegally earned wealth they can purchase as well as mould the
course of law. Not only this, but we find that some of our politicians encourage criminals
for one reason or the other.
5. Change in Values
As we know that due to industrialization and advancement of science and advancement
of science and technology social values have very greatly changed. Today we are more
materialists and rational as well as individualists. Collectivism and blind faith is being
replaced by new ideas. Due to these changes, social values have also together changed
and restrictions considerably reduced. This has resulted in committing many crimes.