Transcript What is Criminology?

What is criminology?
101CRM Introducing Criminology
Lecture 3
Dr Anthony Colombo
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The Influence of Demonology:
Thinking about the world around us
 Historical changes and events rarely just
happen. Criminology didn’t just appear
over night.
 According to the influential French
sociologists Auguste Comte (1798-1857)
people have tried to make sense of the
world around them in three key stages:
 theological (religious)
 Metaphysical (rational)
 scientific (modern)
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The Influence of Demonology:
Theological thoughts about crime I
 During the long Middle Ages, roughly
between the 5th – 16th centuries – religion
dominated.
 Celestial bodies such as the sun and the
moon were considered as having human,
God-like qualities.
 Floods, poor harvests, etc were explained
in terms of the will of God.
 Spiritualist forces controlling our
behaviour can still be seen today.
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The Influence of Demonology:
Theological thoughts about crime II
 This religious or spiritualist way of
thinking about the world was also
used as the basis for trying to
understand crime, via God’s law.
 Crime was considered a sin against
God’s law and those who committed
such offences were predominately
viewed as sinners.
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The Influence of Demonology:
Theological thoughts about crime III
 Explanations of
crime/sin were strongly
influenced by
demonology: the belief
that those who strayed
from the ‘path of
righteousness’ were
either witches or
sorcerers, heretics
dabbling in the satanic
black arts, or somehow
overcome by the devil.
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The Influence of Demonology:
Theological thoughts about crime IV
 Michael Foucault (1926-
1984), judges would
employ a range of cruel
and unusual punishments
directed towards damaging
the only thing most people
owned - their body - which
was either burnt, whipped,
branded or maimed, often
to the point of destruction
(Foucault, 1977).
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