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Criminologist
Studies the causes, consequences, and prevention of criminal behavior.
Did you know?
A 2008 review of many studies found that better street lighting cut crime significantly, and not just after dark.
How subjects help
- Sociology: Study how poverty, housing and neighbourhood life link to the amount of crime.
- Psychology: Understand why some people break the law and what helps them stop.
- Law: Judge whether a new law or punishment actually makes a community safer.
- Statistics: Map crime reports to find hotspots and test whether prevention plans work.
A famous name
Edwin Sutherland: Criminologist who introduced the idea of 'white-collar crime' in 1939.
Try it yourself: Weigh up a case like a judge
- Read the made-up case card slowly, like a judge reading the facts.
- For each fact, decide whether it makes things more serious (an aggravating factor) or less serious (a mitigating factor), and sort them into two lists.
- Choose one outcome from the options on the card, and write one sentence explaining which facts mattered most.
- Ask someone at home to do the same without seeing yours, then compare. Did you weigh the same facts differently?
Judges and magistrates weigh the aggravating and mitigating factors of each case, following sentencing guidelines, before deciding; lawyers argue about which factors should count.
Adapted from Sentencing Council for England and Wales: You be the Judge.
Also try: Solve the case of the missing biscuit.
Known for it in
USA, UK, Netherlands, Australia, Canada