Criminology

 Criminology. So controversial, so loved and criticized, so undervalued and overrated ... Yes, criminology is one of the most confused sciences today, and it is all thanks to the little that is known about its object of study.

Almost always, somewhere, it is pointed out that criminology has functions similar to those of criminalistics, online we can find numerous examples, many of them give me a headache.

Let's start.

Criminology has as its main object of study antisocial behavior, that is, it is the basis of the entire criminological structure and from where secondary objects of study can start, such as crime, criminality and criminal (others delimit it more to crime , delinquency and delinquent, although for criminology it is more crime ...), social control, the victim, among others.

Antisocial behavior is one that is committed by one human being or group of human beings, against another or others, physically or psychologically damaging it, or, in a nutshell, the actual damage that occurs against others (there is also the idea of that damage against the environment and living beings can be considered as such, but a consensus among the experts has not yet been reached).

That study is eminently interdisciplinary. The knowledge and skills of other sciences come together to be able to carry out a study as objective as possible, a study that can remain certain and not uncertain, to explain why certain phenomena, and if possible, prevent them (which is the objective of criminological science).

Some people tend to point out that the object of study of criminology is crime, offender and delinquency, but it is something that should not be totally accepted. Clearly, the majority of antisocial behaviors are typified within a criminal legal order, but we can also find throughout history typified behaviors that are not antisocial, and that even, in past times, are contrary to Human Rights (subject for another post). Also, this object is very limiting for criminology, enclosing it only in what the law indicates, making it a science dependent on it, and not autonomous. If you follow the path in which this name is what criminology studies, it will be difficult to have a noticeable advance or important results for prevention. What is good is that this object is considered as one more level of "intervention" of criminology, but not the only one.

However, crime, criminal and criminal are other objects of study that are not necessarily coupled with what a criminal legal order says (although yes, a crime may or may not be a crime, but not all crimes are crimes, such as in the case of the previous paragraph). Crime is more directed to the moral and immoral acts that can be carried out, which produce mainly cultural affectations, but, we can have antisocial behaviors that, within a culture, are not taken as criminals, for simple traditional or customary reasons, but in reality, they do harm. A clear example is the mutilation of the female clitoris that was carried out in a region of Egypt, which was allowed, even under the victim's refusal. (Some point out that the same fact can be seen for the crime).

Another controversial object of study of criminology is the victim, although, I suspect, it will be left out, thanks to the impulse that Victimology is taking, which is the science that studies the victim, from a more specialized perspective, and this fact is applauded. .

Criminology studies the act of causing harm to another human being (or to the environment), under the cultural and social conditions that are, and, in short, of violence, and once certainty has been achieved, try to prevent and diminish it.

No. The criminologist is not a criminalist (although they may have a relationship, but they are not deterministic, due to their very different objects of study). It is time to begin to question more seriously the way in which these sciences are being taught academically in Mexico, separating one thing from the other, and that criminology be given the seriousness that it lacks so much, and diminish the crisis in the which is, and to promote research, which is extremely scarce.