Social Policy, Essay Example

Over the last century the sociological approach to criminology has become the most significant approach, thus divided into social-structural and social-process approaches. Social-structural approaches to criminology tend to investigate the way in which social situations and structures impact the criminal behavior. For instance, it looks for a description of why certain areas of a city tend to attract crime and also have less- dynamic police enforcement. Thus, urban areas in transition to residential to business uses are usually targeted by criminals. Another social-cultural approach is the criminology conflict theory, which suggests that social laws come forward out conflict and not out of consensus. Thus, the laws are made by the group in power, in order to implement control over those who are not in power. However, I think that ideally these laws should be created by all the social groups, and not simply by those in power.

On the other hand, social-process criminology theories tend to explain how people actually become criminals. Thus, they are developed through recognition of the fact that not everyone who is exposed to certain social-structural conditions necessarily becomes a criminal. Control theory tends to explain major ways to train individuals to engage in law-abiding behavior, thus making crime a result of insufficient attachment and commitment to other people in the society. Consequently, criminology and public policy focus is aimed at the contributions that criminological theory and research can provide to enhancing our knowledge and understanding of criminal behavior and developing efficient policies of crime control and crime prevention.

References

Sociology and Criminology. (2008). Retrieved 25 May, 2009, from http://law.jrank.org/pages/5884/Criminology-Sociology-Criminology.html