Criminology Research

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1. Research a criminal offender of your choice (bank robber, drug dealer, mob boss,
assassin, serial killer, embezzler, etc…whoever you are most interested in). The key is to
make sure there is a lot of biographical information available on that person.
Here is a starting point for ideas if you don’t have anyone specific in mind:
http://www.biography.com/people/groups/criminals
2. Develop a paper that focuses on the relevance of specific biological, psychological and
sociological factors to your chosen offender -for example traumatic brain injury, IQ
(biology), child abuse/neglect, mental illness (psychology), lack of
resources/opportunities (sociology).
Note that the “type” of offender you choose may determine how much information you
can find about his/her life relevant to particular crime theories. For instance, biographical
information that implies sociological factors may take precedence for a drug dealer while
psychological factors may be emphasized for a serial killer (and not necessarily because
that accurately reflects the dominance of one theory over another), although certainly
there will still be biographical information to apply to the other perspectives. This
definitely depends on the individual offender though.
The goal is to correctly explain and apply the theories from the textbook and lectures to
the person’s psyche, upbringing, environment (i.e. life history). Analyze information that
supports and discounts the crime theories you are examining.
3. Cite where you get the information about the offender throughout your paper (books,
articles, websites), and also when you refer to, define, and elaborate on specific theories.
If a potential biological, psychological, or sociological theory comes up in your research
that was not explicitly discussed in the textbook or via other course content, I encourage
you to find a scholarly source and include those findings in your analysis. So to reiterate:
You can (but are not required to) bring in outside sources for theory application but they
must be SCHOLARLY. The biographical information on your offender need not be from
a scholarly source.
*The goal of this paper is NOT to summarize how other people analyze your offender’s
behavior, but to synthesize the biographical information yourself and apply it to course
material/ scholarly sources discussing particular crime theories.
4. Discuss how much support there is for each set of theoretical perspectives (the particular
biological, psychological, and sociological factors explaining your criminal’s behavior).
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Is this individual’s crime/s explained mostly by one particular factor or set of factors, or
some combination? The point here is to make a logical argument supported by the data,
factors and theories discussed throughout your paper.

 

Sample Solution

However, this recommendation was never made official, perhaps due to cultural relativism. The fact that some US states use the death penalty does not automatically mean that they are against human rights, but rather that the social history around the death penalty is unchangeable.

The Amicus interviewee explained to me the exact work of public pressure groups. Margot Ravenscroft, the Director of Amicus, does a number of jobs that contribute to the defence of the right to life including finding cases to work on, procuring pro bono legal teams at large law firms and securing funding. Thus, the amount of effort the pressure groups put into the issue they are fighting for is evident. This was one of the points raised in the discussion groups; that public pressure groups solely work towards defending the right to life whereas governments have numerous matters to work on meaning they cannot concentrate on their legislation for one specific issue. Furthermore, Amicus’ work can constitute as pro bono work for law firms. This means that they can combine the passion and time of the Amicus employees with the knowledge and expertise of established lawyers. The employees in the government responsible for the legislation on the right to life may have the same level of knowledge and expertise as the lawyers, but lack drive and incentive for the issue in case. Additionally, the government wants to make the most out of its money and so will employ the same minister to handle a range of issues, meaning less time is spent on the very specific issue of the right to life. Thus, it is possible to argue that public pressure groups are in fact more effective in defending the right to life.

Democracy is important to consider because it has differing roles in public pressure groups compared to the law and can either inhibit or promote effectiveness. In the discussion group, I found that many people were interested in the level of democracy in both options. It was generally agreed that pressure groups are less democratic than the law. On the surface, they seem extremely raw and succinct, focusing on one issue and articulating the will of the people. However, they can also be linked to very corrupt ideas. For example, the leader of the pressure group is not elected and is often the creator of the group, meaning they have unlimited power. This lack of internal democracy coupled with the very nature of public pressure groups (labelled pressure for a reason) results in members of the public being forced into a particular school of thought. This is highly undemocratic and undervalues the power of one’s intuition. Thus, many people will argue that the law is much more effective due to its democratic nature.

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