Michelle Skelton Profile picture
Criminal Justice professor, avid reader, budding artist, aspiring yogi, tattoo aficionado, coffee drinker, football & color guard Mom, TedX, she/hers

Aug 24, 2021, 87 tweets

Hi friends! I'll be online today at 1:00pm, cst, to start our discussion of #Criminology.

Let's start with a THINKING CHALLENGE: Should an employee taking a company pen home for personal use be considered a crime or not?

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

Good afternoon! Today I am going to introduce "What is Criminology" to my #CRJ105 students.

I hope you'll follow along! #MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

If you're a Twitter-Newbie, hopefully you're a little more acquainted after our "Welcome To The Course" yesterday.

If you still have questions, worry not! I'm here to help

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

Each week, I'll be covering a chapter from the text here on Twitter. I'm *TRYING* to simulate what our in-class discussions would look like. You can follow along in real time or at your own pace.

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

I do a variety of fun (??) exercises in these discussions. I like to ask poll questions, provide insight from "guest" speakers, and try to answer ALL your questions, as well

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

So let me get to know a little about YOU before we get started ...

Are you a Criminal Justice major?

I majored in History & French

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

Why are you reading this thread?

I'm here because ... well ... I'm teaching the class!

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

Let's get started!

Welcome to Criminology, today will be an overview of our first chapter in the text (Chapter 01) but also give some insight as to what you can do with criminology in the larger study of Criminal Justice

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

Many of my Moraine Valley CRJ students are interested in law enforcement. What are your career ambitions?

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

What area of study do you think plays the most significant role in understanding why people break the law?

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

Today we will look at criminology in terms of the economy, the environment, and globalization

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

What aspect of #Criminology is most interesting to you?

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

Let's add another THINKING CHALLENGE:

WOULD YOU RATHER:
An innocent man be wrongly convicted
– OR –
a guilty man go free? WHY?

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

What?

What is the significance of the above question, wouldn't most of us not want either?

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

We are going to look at how Americans don't always agree what the primary goal of the Criminal Justice system should be.

WOULD YOU RATHER:
Crime control
-or-
Rights protected?

WHY?

We will examine a broad range of criminal behavior this semester, let's introduce a few of these top trending criminology topics

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

“The use or threat of violence directed at people or governments in response to past action and/or to bring about a change of policy that is consistent with the terrorists’ objectives.”

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

Terrorism is at the center of many forms of criminality that feed or are fed by terrorism.

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

Why should criminologists study terrorism?

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

What form of terrorism is most pressing to most Americans today?

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

What form of terrorism is of most interest to you?

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

We will examine the complex relationships between various forms of crime & their international impact

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

The globalizing era has produced an explosion in the volume of illegitimate commercial and financial transactions. North American and European banking and investment institutions have been flooded with laundered and ill-gotten gains

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

“Dirty” money cannot be spent freely. While there is evidence that terrorist weapons have been obtained by direct exchange for drugs, for dirty money, most expenditures by terrorists are for goods or services obtained on the free market

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

How does money laundering work? - Delena D. Spann

ed.ted.com/lessons/how-do…...

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

Please don't leave me hanging that money laundering always makes you think of this scene ...

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

Cyberspace is there for everyone to use—or to abuse. And the abuses are increasingly being discovered and, indeed, legislated as crime

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

Have you been the victim of online identity theft?

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

The market in small arms is vast and mostly clandestine. What is new, however, is the market for weapons of mass destruction: nuclear, biological, and chemical.

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

In the issue of firearms, do you consider yourself to be ...

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

Smuggling would-be illegal migrants from less-desirable homelands to more promising lands of opportunity has become a huge criminal enterprise involving millions of human beings

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

THINKING CHALLENGE: What country is currently considered the #1 purchaser of human trafficking / sex for trade?

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries https://

Many of the countries of destination fear the growth of immigrant communities that might be terrorist havens. Even greater is the fear that terrorist organizations deliberately infiltrate their members into immigrant populations

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

Terrorists, especially those with millennial goals or of religious or political extremism, seek to destroy past cultures and to impose their own vision of culture.

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

There is no limit to the reach of criminological inquiry, because every human activity is capable of deviance that produces significant harm, thus requiring criminological scrutiny

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

THINKING CHALLENGE:

"Every human activity is capable of deviance that produces significant harm"

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

THINKING CHALLENGE:

"Every human being is born inherently good"

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

THINKING CHALLENGE:

"Basic human nature is collective, cooperative"

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

In 1885, the Italian law professor Raffaele Garofalo coined the term “criminology”.

The French anthropologist Paul Topinard used it for the first time in French in 1887

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

Criminologists use the term deviance to describe behavior that violates social norms, including laws.

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

The difference between crime and other forms of deviance is subject to constant change and may vary from one state or country to another and from one time to another

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

A crime is any human conduct that violates a criminal law and is subject to punishment.

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

THINKING CHALLENGE:

Who in a society decides—and when and under what circumstances—which acts that are already considered deviant in that society should be elevated to the level of gross deviance or crime, subject to punishment?

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

This brings us back to the start of our discussion, let's see how similar or different our views on what should - or shouldn't be - a crime

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

THINKING CHALLENGE: Should or should not be a crime?

Exchanging money for sex between two consenting adults

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

THINKING CHALLENGE: Should or should not be a crime?

Playing poker for money with friends

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

THINKING CHALLENGE: Should or should not be a crime?

Playing poker for money with friends

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

THINKING CHALLENGE: Should or should not be a crime?

An industrial company polluting a river

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

THINKING CHALLENGE: Should or should not be a crime?

Attempting suicide

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

THINKING CHALLENGE: Should or should not be a crime?

Smoking Marijuana

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

THINKING CHALLENGE: Should or should not be a crime?

Taking a candy bar from the store without paying for it

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

THINKING CHALLENGE: Should or should not be a crime?

An employee taking a company pen home for personal use

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

THINKING CHALLENGE: Should or should not be a crime?

Calling someone else a racially derogatory name

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

THINKING CHALLENGE: Should or should not be a crime?

Kneeling during the national anthem

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

THINKING CHALLENGE: Should or should not be a crime?

Entering a government building during a public protest

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

THINKING CHALLENGE: Should or should not be a crime?

Purposely, publicly using an individual's dead name

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

How do we come to an understanding about what behaviors are so heinous, they should be outlawed?

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

The consensus model. According to this view, certain acts are deemed so threatening to the society’s survival that they are designated crimes.

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

Consensus assumes that members of a society agree on what is right and wrong

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

Some criminologists view the making of laws in a society from a different theoretical perspective.

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

According to the conflict model, the criminal law expresses the values of the ruling class in a society, and the criminal justice system is a means of controlling the classes that have no power

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

Conflict theory encourages questioning how the system operates and who it benefits

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

Criminology is the body of knowledge regarding crime as a social phenomenon. It includes within its scope the process of making laws, of breaking laws, and of reacting toward the breaking of laws

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

Criminology is a discipline composed of the accumulated knowledge of many other disciplines

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

The study of making laws includes collecting and understanding criminal statistics

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

Do red light cameras work?

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

Criminologists examine what laws are effective at changing behavior

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

Sutherland, in saying that criminologists have to study the process of lawbreaking, had much more in mind than determining whether someone has violated the criminal law. He was referring to the process of breaking laws

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

There is no agreement as to why some people are prone to commit crime and others are not. Researchers have approached the question from different perspectives.

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

The study of reactions to lawbreaking demonstrates that society has always tried to control or prevent norm-breaking

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

Does imprisonment work?

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

The research has also revealed that society’s reaction to lawbreaking has often been irrational, arbitrary, emotional, politically motivated, and counterproductive

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

Scientists who study the criminal justice system are frequently referred to as “criminal justice specialists.”

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

The United States has well over 50 criminal justice systems—those of the 50 states and of the federal government, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, and the military

Crimes that have an interstate or international aspect are under the jurisdiction of federal authorities, and such offenses are prosecuted under the federal criminal code.

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

What aspect of Criminology seems the most interesting?

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

Crime, like life itself, has become globalized, and responses to lawbreaking have inevitably extended beyond local and national borders

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

The perception that the crime problem is increasing or decreasing rests on a fear of crime that is fueled by media portrayals

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

In fact, some criminological research demonstrates the futility of escalating punishments and often points to measures of quite a different nature as more promising, more humane, and more cost-beneficial

#MoraineValley #CRJ105 #ChangingBoundaries

What do Criminologists actually do?

What are YOUR career goals? How might understanding criminology help in your line of work?

#CRJ105 #MoraineValley

THINKING CHALLENGE: How does criminology help someone who wants to work in law enforcement?

#CRJ105 #MoraineValley

For my students, for credit, respond anywhere IN this thread with your thoughts, questions, follow-up.

#CRJ105 #MoraineValley

Include the link to your tweet in the discussion board. Extra credit if you include a picture of your pet(s) with your twitter comment

#CRJ105 #MoraineValley

This concludes our introductory look at Criminology, our next discussion, next week, we will look at measuring & defining #crime.

#CRJ105 #MoraineValley

Overall, how would you grade today's discussion?

#CRJ105 #MoraineValley

Thank you for following along. RT-ing the poll questions is greatly appreciated, as the most participation, the more discussion. Have a great afternoon, all!

#CRJ105 #MoraineValley

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