A fundamental question that is commonly asked by many is when humans start to learn about crime and if it is the same as learning criminology when learning about crime. Not only one of the most common, it is also one of the hardest questions to answer. The question is followed by another commonly asked question, which is about who was the one who created the term Criminology for the first time and why people need to learn about Criminology, especially students in law schools.
Apparently, humans have known crime since their first generation was sent to the earth. In the holy books, it is stated that the first crime was committed by the children of the Prophet Adam. At that time, they were matched. However, they did not like the results as they opposed their wish. Murder was prohibited by religion, even though at that time there was no society and there was only Prophet Adam and his family. As religion is a demand for human behavior, it means religious law is the law that is followed by humans. From this, it can be concluded that violating the commands and prohibitions of religious law is the same as violating the law. This is known as a crime.
If humans have known crime since their first generation, then have they studied crime since then? A few literatures mention that in the history of development of human criminology, people have questioned the causes of crime since the Classical era, in the Ancient Greek era. A question occurs whether questioning something is considered studying something. If, during the Ancient Greek era, crime was studied, then what did it do to knowledge when compared to other knowledge, such as astronomy, politics, and so on? The most important question is, is learning crime the same as learning criminology?
The answers to these questions are no. Humans have not studied crime since the Ancient Greek era and learning about crime is not the same as learning about criminology. In the Ancient Greek era, humans considered crime a commonplace and something with no charm to study. Rather than learning about crime, they preferred to learn natural sciences, exact sciences, philosophy and political science. Crime has not been studied by humans, especially Criminology as a branch of scientific discipline.
If learning about crime is not the same as learning about Criminology, then when exactly did humans start learning about Criminology as a branch of the scientific discipline? According to various literatures, the development of criminology originally came from the research of Cesare Lombrosso, even though the term criminology itself was used for the first time by several authors such as Paul Topinard, a French anthropologist, in 1879. According to other literature, the first criminologist is Franz Joseph Gall and some other names include Adolphe Quetelet, a mathematician from Belgium, the one who introduced crime statistics to the world. For your information, crime statistics are now used mainly by the police in all countries in providing a description of the development of crime in their countries. Lombrosso’s research was carried out after that (1835-1909), and the results were compiled in a book called L’ uomodelinquente.
The likes of Lombrosso, Topinard, Gall and Quetelet are known as scientists who try to learn about the factors that cause crime from their respective disciplines, including medicine, anthropology, sociology, and mathematics. As they are from different backgrounds, it is not surprising if the results are also different from one to another. The diversity of scientific disciplines in seeing crime as something that is interesting to study indicates the importance of crime being studied by humans. Efforts to find the causes of crime scientifically continue to be pursued after new methods for concluding the causes of crime were found.
In the process of development, crime can be considered as the result of a process of community engineering both in the social, cultural, economic, politics and so on. In its progress, criminology is no longer a science for science but has shifted to science for the welfare of society. In addition, it can also be considered as science for the interest of the power elite. According to Romli Atmasasmina, criminology must be a social control over policies in the implementation of criminal law. In other words, it must have an anticipatory and reactive role in all policies in the field of criminal law so that the possibility of adverse consequences can be prevented, both for perpetrators, victims, and society as a whole.
There are two things that influence people to study crime. These two include the statistical approach to crime and criminal statistics and the start of scientific research methods on crime.
A bookworm and researcher especially related to law and citizenship education. I spend time every day in front of the internet and the campus library.
