C-ID Descriptor
Introduction to Crime

Course will include:

1. Major sociological theories of crime
2. Definition and social construction of crime
3. History of criminal law, policing, punishment and corrections
4. Types of crime
5. Crime data and social research on crime
6. Crime intervention and prevention
7. Criminal sentencing and incarceration
8. Race, ethnicity, gender, age, class, sexuality, and crime
9. Deviance and social control
10. Victims and Victimization
11. Violent and property crime
12. White-collar and organized crime
13. Crime and substance abuse
14. Police, law enforcement, and the court system
15. Competing perspectives on due process and criminal control models
16. Issues in crime and criminal justice system

Other topics may include:

1. Youth and crime
2. Women, gender, and crime including sexual offenses
3. Cross-cultural variation of crime

N/A

At the conclusion of this course, the student should be able to:
1. Define the major concepts in criminology
2. Define the concept of social norms and explain why they exist in all cultures as a way to maintain social control.
3. Compare and contrast the sociological theories used to explain crime and criminal behavior.
4. Describe examples that illustrate the major criminology theories.
5. Compare and contrast the principles, procedures, and methods used by sociologists in the collection of crime-related data.
6. Analyze criminal patterns and trends.
7. Analyze society's means and methods of addressing criminal behavior.
8. Analyze crime rates and variations of criminality as they exist historically and cross-culturally and propose explanations for these variations.
9. Examine the role of the police, courts, and corrections as a means to enforce, sanction, and punish criminal acts.
10. Analyze the legal and criminal justice system as a social institution
11. Define and identify the types of crime and the people who commit them
12. Differentiate between actual crime and perceptions of crime
13. Analyze how race, gender, sexual orientation, age and class affect arrest, charging, and sentencing
14. Assess various types of intervention and prevention programs developed to reduce criminal behavior

May include:
Objective exams
Written assignments
Application exercises
Research Project
Field Journal
Oral Presentations
Reflection and discussion
Small group activities
Out-of-class activities

Adler, Freda, Mueller, Gerhard, and Laufer, William. Criminology and the Criminal Justice System
Criminal Justice Collective. Investigating Difference: Human and Cultural Relations in Criminal Justice.
Glick. Criminology. Quinney. The Social Reality of Crime. Transaction Publishers.
Reasons, Charles E., Darlene J. Conley and Julius Debro. Race, Class and Justice in the United States: A Text Reader.
Reid, Sue Titus. Crime and Criminology,
Reiman Jeffrey. Ideology, Class, and Criminal Justice: The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison.
Siegel, Larry J. Criminology.
Wright Jr., Bradley R.E. and Ralph B. McNeal, Jr (eds). Boundaries:Readings in Deviance, Crime, and Justice.