Criminology And Penology Owerri Cei Essay

My initial thinking of the question of “what is the difference between criminology and criminal justice?” is well suited in my situation, and a question I started asking myself before the semester began. Presently I am taking Criminology and also Intro to Criminal Justice. So I was baffled to understand how they were not basically one and the same. I believe that criminology is what a detective uses, among their repertoire of many other talents, to get into the mind of the perpetrator, and what they use to build a profile of a crime and of those who commit those crimes. The actual study of Criminology is only really taught to law enforcement near the very top of the legal system hierarchy. This is not necessarily taught to the street patrol cop or the detention officer in the state penitentiary. The study of Criminal Justice came

Within social psychology there are areas of behaviour which psychologists have been particularly interested in. These areas include conformity, obedience and social facilitation to name a few. Two key studies within the areas of obedience and conformity were carried out by Milgram and Asch (Billingham, Ladbrook, Standring & Teahan, 2008).

There were three questions asked at the start of this paper. What is Social Psychology all about? Why is the study of it so important? Is there truly a purpose or benefit from the findings of the studies? Social Psychology is the study of attitude, behavior, and interactions of individuals within a group setting. You may have heard the saying "for every action, there is a reaction," Social Psychologists observe and interpret behaviors in effort to provide further explanation of cause and effect. It is thru the studies of Social Psychology we can learn how to get into the cause and begin to foresee patterns of reactions. A simple yet sophisticated theory.

Andrews, D. A., & Bonta, J. (2006). The psychology of criminal conduct (4th ed.). Cincinnati: Anderson.

Social learning theory explains that people learn criminal and delinquent behaviour the same way we learn behaviours that are considered socially acceptable (Maskaly 2015:207). Social learning theory consists of four concepts; differential associations, differential reinforcement, imitation and definitions (Maskaly 2015:207). This theory helps explain the police subculture, which teaches and reinforces the behaviour of police officers (Maskaly 2015:209). The concept of differential associations in social learning theory states that people are more likely to commit crimes if they regularly interact with other people who commit crimes (Maskaly 2015:208). The police subculture believes that police officers have a different standard of living compared

Freud’s theory can be seen to be supported by control theory; the idea that we are all born with a natural inclination to violate rules of society ( the animalistic/aggressive nature of the Id) and crime results from a failure of others to bond with the individual and teach them not to offend. This is, however, a sociological theory and thus puts forward the question of whether to account fully for offending behaviour whether both psychological and sociological theories needs to be taken into consideration.

In this essay I will demonstrate how Albert Banduras Bobo doll theory can be applied to criminal behaviour in today’s society and how his method has some flaws to the structure when applying it in to today’s societal issues which will be going under critique. The criminological theory that this applies to is the social learning theory implying that people will imitate or copy what other people do this especially applies to children as they seek approval from their parents and others. I will explain other research methods available and why they were not used.

Within the field of psychology, there are several approaches to explaining human development and behaviour. Based on the theories and supporting studies within a particular approach, psychologists may feel that it provides a better explanation of human psychology compared to others, however there is no one approach that is currently accepted as offering an answer to all of the questions posed by researchers. At different periods in history, different approaches may have been particularly popular, and even though there can be common themes and theories, they are not all equally valid. Coolican et al (2007) stated: “Many uncomplimentary words have been uttered, and even careers lost, in the frequently bitter battles between the different “schools” of psychology.” This report will evaluate two of these approaches, examining the prominent theories and studies in order to explain their various strengths and weaknesses. The two approaches to be evaluated are the behaviourist approach and the humanistic approach.

Human beings have strived to find ways in which they can enhance their coexistence within the societies where they live. Peace and tranquility are may be rare if structures are not put in place to help control delinquent behaviors that are likely to be shown where different people from various social and cultural backgrounds exist. Crime and delinquency threaten humans’ existence. Certain behaviors are abhorred by various societies because they threaten the lives of humans and contribute to the social disorder. However, this does not mean they do not occur. Murder, for instance, is a criminal behavior that is socially condemned in every society across the globe. The need to control such gross crimes has grown especially with the increasing prevalence as witnessed in most parts of the world. Researchers have gone out to study and understand why humans exhibit certain behaviors particularly those that are criminal in nature and ways in which they can best be controlled. Through research, theories have been presented to describe and account for why certain behaviors are shown and how these criminal tendencies can influence human life (Kittay & Meyers, 2007). Among the individuals who have been keen in observing human behavior as they relate to their environment is Kohlberg. His interest has particularly revolved around morality. Just as other theorists like Piaget has tried giving an account of human behavior through

Criminologists and sociologist have long been in debate for century's to explain criminal behaviour. The two main paradigms of thought are between 'nature' and 'nurture'. Nature is in reference to a learnt behaviour where a multitude of characteristics, in society influence whether a person becomes deviant such as poverty, physical abuse or neglect. Nurture defines biological features which could inevitability lead to a individuals deviant or criminal behaviour, because criminality is believed by biological positivist to be inherited from a persons parents. However, I believe that criminal behaviour is a mixture of characteristics that lead to deviant acts such as psychological illness & Environmental factors. Therefore, this essay

It has been fourteen years since Goethals’ (2003) “A Century of Social Psychology” and seven years after Ross, Lepper, and Ward’s (2010) “History of Social Psychology”. From that time, much has changed in the historical, intellectual, and social zeitgeist that has always influenced social psychology as a field—through the latter’s desire to meet the needs and trappings of its place and time. In the same way that people interact with the situation to understand behavior and construe their social reality, the discipline (not unlike a living organism of its own) has grown and been defined by the priorities and research questions most relevant to the social issues of each point in history.

In previous summaries it was discussed that there are numerous theories that attempt to explain criminal behavior including biological, psychological, social, economic etc. These theories share a common understanding that there are factors influencing deviant or criminal behavior that predispose some individuals to aggressive, violent or criminal behavior. While these theories give a convincing argument that crime is caused by biological, psychological, social and economic factors. They tend to focus on one train of thought and excluding other factors that play a major role in crime causation. This often results in limited understanding of a phenomena and can cause one to miss the “big picture.” In this summary, it is argued that people are not born good or bad, instead, they learn to be good or bad based on their surrounding environment and their definition of the situation.

The revolutionary thinking of Sigmund Freud and his psychoanalytic approach of the early 1900’s challenged existing human nature and development and inspired offshoot theories that continue to be applicable to healthy development in modern day society. Bandura’s social cognitive theory, for example, was devised in response to Freud’s philosophy regarding the conscience (Peterson, 2010). Bandura’s theory asserts that individuals will behave similarly across the lifespan through modelling or imitation. This behaviourist based theory explains human behaviour in terms of a reciprocal interaction between cognitive, behavioural and environmental factors (Sharf, 2012). In observing other people, the learner pays attention to and perceives the other model, constructs and remembers the behaviour, and retrieves and reproduces this behaviour subsequently, dependent on motivating factors (Archer & McCarthy 2007). An individual is said to be motivated internally, as in achieving a personal goal, or vicariously, when the learner observes the consequences of the behaviour in the model.

This assignment will explore and compare psychology approaches, like the psychodynamic approach, the cognitive approach and the behaviour approach in human development, which stems from birth and how it interweaves with social work. Theorist's Piaget, Freud and Erickson focused-on interaction between biological maturing and experience with the social world and the physical world (Gross,2015). Psychology was recognised as a science in 1840. (Eysenck,2005,p.21) “Psychology is the science and mind, behavior and experiences”. Human development starts from when we are born into the world, the most basic question for a child when its born is it nature or nurture. This is a discussion to whether a human being is born with the inheritance of our identity or whether our identity is shaped by the atmosphere in which we are brought/raised up in. Many children and adolescents can show behavior problems or some sort of difficulties some point in their lives. One of the most frequent questions is the behavior normal for that child/person(Wilson,2018). It is very important for Social Workers and Social Work students to recognise how a person develops and how the various periods of human life form, this is after a birth of a child to adulthood. Social Workers will use a variety of skills and approaches which adapt to the service user. There are 5 main theorists on human development, Jean Piaget, Sigmund Freud, Erik Erickson, Lev Vygotsky and John Bowlby (Gross,2015).

Basing his research off of the social learning theory, Bandura conducted the experiment using multiple control groups. Social learning theories believe that “human interaction is the primary factor in the development of human personality.” Important people and those with authority can influence a child’s behavior by “reinforcing certain behaviors and ignoring or punishing others.” If a child sees that it is okay for an adult to act in an aggressive manner, they will most likely also act aggressively. However, if a child sees that others are punished for acting aggressively, they are less likely to perform those actions.