Criminology
notes
The social milieu school of
thought is based on the following:
• – the juridical crime concept
• – a consideration/examination of
mainly the social environment of the
criminal
• – a belief that better social
circumstances will prevent crime
• – a disregard for the criminal or the
victim
• – a lack of concern for punishment or
rehabilitation
Four points of departure
in positivist criminology
• – Positivist criminologists focus on the criminal and not
the crime.
• – They believe that people’s behaviour is determined by
biological, psychological
• and socioeconomic factors over which they have little
control.
• – Crime and victimisation could be prevented by medical
and psychological
• treatment and by improving poor socioeconomic
conditions.
• – Punishment must be proportionate to the crime and,
where necessary,
• associated with treatment
Postmodern criminology is based on the following
premises:
• It accepts both the juridical and nonjuridical concepts
of crime
• It is not bound to a specific school of thought or
perspective
• It questions narrow definitions of conventional • It also focuses on universal determinants or factors
concepts such as ‘‘norms’’, ‘‘values’’, ‘‘culture’’, that contribute to crime
‘‘social restraint’’ and ‘‘anomy’’ and believes that • Victims’ rights and priorities are highlighted
they must be deconstructed
• The emphasis is on transnational and community-
• It rejects theories based on social class or culture based policing, restorative justice and community-
• It follows an integrated approach to explaining and based punishments
preventing crime
Mushanga’s views on crime
prevention in Africa.
• are that there should be compulsory
education and teaching for everyone
• that poverty and unemployment should be
eliminated
• that family values and norms should be
restored
• and that slums should be cleaned up.
Ten crime factors that are unique to South Africa are the following:
the cessation of social control and the • poverty, unemployment and relative deprivation
negotiated transition to democracy as a result of apartheid
the political culture of violence and crime • specific economic developments in South Africa
• the marginalisation of the youth
the justification of crime in political terms • social-psychological factors in South Africa; free
access to firearms
• gender inequalities
political conflict and competition
lack of a national consensus on crime
the liberation wars in South Africa and
bordering countries; gender inequalities
The classification of crime facilitates the
following:
• – establishing the common factors in crimes
• – systematising data on certain types of crime
• – determining what acts are, in fact, crimes
• – answering the question of why people commit
certain crimes
• – predicting crimes
Crime in South Africa
Introduction
-Criminology is described as the scientific study of crime
-Crime is a broad concept and includes multiple illegal activities. For this reason, crime is divided into
categories and when the incidence of crime is measured, this is indicated by statistics according to category
2.1.2 Key concepts
Crime: An intentional act in violation of the criminal law committed without legally acceptable defence or
excuse,and penalised by the state.
Code of crime list: This is used for the classification of crime in South Africa and
consists of 35 categories
Official crime statistics: Statistical data compiled by the police, courts and corrections
and routinely published by governments as indices of the extent of crime.
2.1.3 The classification of crime
The reason for this is that:
• to determine why people commit a particular
type of crime (e.g. car theft)
• try to predict whether this type of crime will
increase and how we can combat and prevent
it.
• The biggest criticism against some
classification systems is that the different
classes are not mutually exclusive.
• One crime could be classified into more than
one class, for instance. (For example, robbery
can be classified as a property crime as well
as a crime of violence.)
South African Police Service (SAPS)
classifaction of crimes
• Crimes of violence: murder, attempted murder and robbery with aggravating
circumstances
• Social fabric crime: rape, assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm,
ordinary assault
• Property-related crime: breaking into residential and business premises, other
robbery, stock theft, shoplifting, theft from a vehicle, other theft
• Commercial crime: fraud, counterfeiting, embezzlement
• Violence aimed at property: arson, malicious damage to property
• Crimes heavily dependent on police action for tracing: illegal possession of
firearms, drug-related crimes and driving under the influence of alcohol or
drugs
• Crimes falling under robbery with aggravating circumstances: vehicle (car) and
truck hijacking, robbery of cash in transit and bank robbery
