---
title: "Criminology"
chunk: 6/8
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminology"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:57:42.603938+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

In 1968, young British sociologists formed the National Deviance Conference (NDC) group. The group, restricted to academics, consisted of 300 members. Ian Taylor, Paul Walton, and Jock Young – members of the NDC – rejected previous explanations of crime and deviance. Thus, they decided to pursue a new Marxist criminological approach. In The New Criminology, they argued against the biological "positivism" perspective represented by Lombroso, Hans Eysenck and Gordon Trasler.
According to the Marxist perspective on crime, "defiance is normal – the sense that men are now consciously involved ... in assuring their human diversity." Thus, Marxist criminologists argued for a society in which the facts of human diversity, whether social or personal, would not be criminalized. They further attributed the processes of crime creation not to genetic or psychological facts, but rather to the material basis of a given society.
State crime is a distinct category of crimes studied by Marxist criminology, which considers these crimes among the most costly to society in terms of overall harm/injury. In a Marxist framework, genocides, environmental degradation, and war are not crimes that occur out of contempt for one's fellow man, but are crimes of power. They continue systems of control and hegemony which allow state crime and state-corporate crime, along with state-corporate non-profit criminals, to continue governing people.

=== Convict ===
Convict criminology is a school of thought in the realm of criminology. Convict criminologists have been directly affected by the criminal justice system, oftentimes having spent years inside the prison system. Researchers in the field of convict criminology, such as John Irwin and Stephan Richards, argue that traditional criminology can be better understood by those who lived within prison walls. Martin Leyva argues that "prisonization" oftentimes begins before prison, in the home, community, and schools.
According to Rod Earle, Convict Criminology began in the United States following the major expansion of prisons in the 1970s, and the U.S. remains the primary focus for those who study convict criminology.

=== Queer ===
Queer criminology is a field of study that focuses on LGBT individuals and their interactions with the criminal justice system. The goals of this field of study are as follows:

To better understand the history of LGBT individuals and the laws put against the community
Why LGBT citizens are incarcerated and if or why they are arrested at higher rates than heterosexual and cisgender individuals
How queer activists have fought against oppressive laws that criminalized LGBT individuals
To conduct research and use it as a form of activism through education
Legitimacy of queer criminology:
The value of pursuing criminology from a queer theorist perspective is contested; some believe that it is not worth researching and not relevant to the field as a whole, and as a result, it is a subject that lacks a wide range of research available. On the other hand, it could be argued that this subject is highly valuable in highlighting how LGBT individuals are affected by the criminal justice system. This research also has the opportunity to "queer" the curriculum of criminology in educational institutions by shifting the focus from controlling and monitoring LGBT communities to liberating and protecting them.
As more and more people identify as something other than heterosexual, queer criminology continues to grow in relevance. At the same time, in jurisdictions such as Russia, Uganda, and Ghana, governments have become even more punitive through laws that expand the criminalization of LGBTQ+ conduct, relationships, and organizing. 'Digiqueer criminology' has emerged as a sub-discipline of queer criminology and aims to deepen understanding of the relationship between digital technology, LGBTQ+ identity, and justice.