Crime, Criminals and Criminology

Every society has only few intelligent people rest it is full of mediocres, fools and criminals. It is important for everyone to know certain basics about crime so that we can cope up with it at any point of time.  

In my opinion, Crime is that any intentional activity which can hamper the progress of the society. Criminals are the people who commit crime and Criminology is that field in which we study about crime patterns and criminal behaviour.

Generally, Crime takes place due to political and economical disharmony. Labourer is found 14 times more likely to go to prison than a professional. Poor people commit more crime than Rich people. Lombroso, an Italian Physician and Professor, is considered to be the “father of criminology”, He claimed that combination of certain genes make us Criminals. He did a detailed study on the hereditary aspects of criminal behaviour. He was the first man to coin the word ‘Born Criminals’.

There are 46 chromosomes in our body which make our heredity. Among them 44 chromosomes affect our physical qualities. Some researchers believe that people with certain physical structure are more prone to commit crime e.g. tall and thin people are more likely to commit murder and robbery; tall and fat people are likely to be cheats; short and thin people are tend to be small thieves; short and fat people tend to commit sexual crimes.

Hooton (An anthropologist from Harvard who did a 12 year research on prisoners) stated that generally criminals have sloping forehead, thin lips, short ears, straight hairs, long thick neck and sloping shoulders. His research somewhere proves that our biological development can make us criminal by nature.  

If crime takes place due to social or economic problems then we can stop it by changing our customs, laws, by generating more employment etc. but if it takes place due to mental or personality disorder then it becomes difficult to stop it.

Crime can be classified into 4 groups- against person, against property, against public interest (e.g. embezzlement) and against public decency (e.g. disorderly conduct).  Crime takes place when people want money, sex, recognition or revenge of something. There is no other reason for committing crime.  

There are certain activists which support the brutal punishment for crime esp. Rape. I do agree with them, it is important to give punishment to prevent people from doing any abnormality. But, I also say that instead of punishment we should think of treatment of criminals because it is difficult to explain what happened for what reason.