Sociology & Criminology for a Changing World
Frank Tannenbaum’s concept of “tagging”, developed in his 1938 work Crime and the Community, is widely regarded as a foundational contribution to labelling theory. Long before Howard Becker or Edwin Lemert formalized the labelling approach, Tannenbaum argued that crime is not simply a quality of the act itself but emerges through social reactions and the
Introduction Biological theories of crime seek to explain criminal behavior by reference to physiological, genetic, neurological, or evolutionary factors. Unlike sociological theories that emphasize social structures or cultural norms, biological theories focus on individual traits, predispositions, and processes within the body and brain that may increase the risk of offending. Historically controversial, these perspectives have
Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) is an approach to crime prevention that emphasizes the design and management of built environments to reduce opportunities for crime and enhance perceived safety. Rather than focusing on offender rehabilitation or punitive deterrence, CPTED works proactively to shape spaces in ways that discourage criminal behavior while supporting social cohesion
Situational Crime Prevention (SCP) is an evidence-based strategy that reduces crime by altering environmental conditions and increasing the perceived risks for offenders. It shifts the focus from changing offender motivation to managing the situations in which crimes occur. Situational Crime Prevention (SCP) represents a shift in criminological thinking from offender-focused explanations of crime toward a
Space & Surveillance theories examine how crime is shaped by the physical and social environments in which it occurs. Rather than locating the causes of crime solely in individual pathology or motivation, these theories analyze how spatial organization, social structures, and surveillance practices influence opportunities for crime and the distribution of criminal events in specific
Critical criminology is not a single, unified theory but an approach that analyses crime, law, and criminal justice as deeply embedded in social power relations. It challenges conventional criminology’s focus on individual offenders by examining how inequality, state power, and ideological control shape definitions of crime and practices of punishment. At its core, critical criminology
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