Criminology, Penology, and Victimology

Course Introduction

Crime is always to be expected in society. Breaking the norms of society will lead to crime. Prevention of crime and mitigation of crime causation factors is the most important exercise for upkeeping the social order and peace. By the advancement of technology and changes in social norms the venues of crime causation has increased. An expert in any discipline can have knowledge of crime causation factors and can prescribe or suggest policies so as to reduce such crime causation in their respective disciplines. Criminology as the study of crime causation and prevention will help a student from any discipline to capture the fundamentals of crime causation theories and apply the knowledge in their respective disciplines. This will help them to emerge with novel ideas in addressing the crime causation factors in their branch of knowledge. The course will help them to learn more about the science of punishments and also about the rights of victims of various crimes. Primarily the course introduces the basic lessons relating to the theory of crime and punishment to students from UG and PG streams in social sciences. Apart from that, students of science disciplines, especially forensic sciences and computer sciences can have the advantages of learning this course.

Course Objectives

On successful completion of the course a student will be able to 

• a) To illustrate how the various factors as put forth by the various schools of criminology influence crime and to relate the crime to different factual situations.
• b) To analyse the sentencing policy which influence a judge in imposing appropriate sentences and to evaluate the propriety of sentences imposed on the offenders.
• c) To demonstrate the efficacy of the rehabilitative and correctional techniques as envisaged by the criminal justice system and to assess whether the state addresses the various rights of the victims.
• d) It will help to demonstrate the human rights and other socio- legal dimensions of crime and punishment in modern society.