Criminology

Criminology is the scientific study of crime that dates from the late eighteenth-century Enlightenment. It encompasses all aspects of crime and punishment, including the nature of crime, the characteristics of criminals, the causes of crime, and efforts to control crime and punish offenders, including efforts by the police, courts, and correctional agencies. This entry concentrates on the causes of crime.

Criminologists have developed several major theories to explain the causes of crime, describing the individual characteristics and environmental factors that lead to criminal behavior. Some theories try to explain why certain individuals are more likely than others are to engage in crime. Other theories focus on the reasons why certain groups of people have higher rates of crime than other groups; for instance, males have higher crime rates than females. Still others try to explain why crime is more likely in some situations than in other situations. Finally, certain theories attempt to explain why individuals exhibit particular patterns of offending over the course of their lives; for example, most individuals increase their levels of offending during adolescence. This entry describes the most prominent theories of crime and then provides a short overview of the research inspired by these theories, focusing on the relationship between crime and individual, family, school, peer group, and work factors.