SOC 2087 - Criminology and Criminal Behavior

Credits: 3
Hours/Week: Lecture None Lab None
Course Description: Why do people break the law, and how do societies respond to criminal behavior?  This course presents sociological understandings of criminally deviant behavior. Topics include theories of crime, trends in criminal behavior, and methods of criminological investigation.  U.S. and international public policy implications are considered. The global focus of this course draws from cross-cultural, transnational, and international examples, such as the drug trade, human trafficking, or terrorism. This course meets the requirements for Elective A: Organizations and Institutions for the MN State Sociology Transfer Pathway AA.
MnTC Goals
5 History/Social/Behavioral Science, 8 Global Perspective

Prerequisite(s): ENGL 1020  with a grade of C or higher OR ENGL 1021  with a grade of C or higher.
Corequisite(s): None
Recommendation: None

Major Content

1. Criminology and sociological perspective
2. Methodology and measurement: criminology and global perspective
3. Media representation of crime in societies nationally and globally
4. Social psychological criminal personality using international comparison
5. Social structure, theoretical explanation of crime and global change
6. Social process, theories of crime and international deviant behavior
7. Critical perspectives of global crime trends and global legal issues
8. Violent crime: homicide, assault, and robbery trends in global perspective
9. Victim patterns, to include gender patterns and crimes against children
10. Property crime patterns compared cross-nationally
11. White collar crimes within global relationships and corporate culture
12. Organized crime within traditional families and new international groups
13. Public order crime as defined in communities across the globe
14. Controlling and preventing crime - policing, prosecution, and punishment
15. Future issues for crime prediction and crime reduction in world society

1. Explain results related to the utilization of behavior analysis and the sociological method used to study criminal deviance globally.
2. Review programs and policies within the criminal justice system.
3. Apply comparative methodology to study concepts of crime and criminal justice policy internationally.
4. Examine assumptions, philosophies, and major concepts in criminological and sociological theories relating to crime and criminal behavior.
5. Demonstrate awareness of ethical issues for global criminal justice research.
6. Analyze the relationship between social policy and social behavior cross-culturally.
7. Apply critical thinking using cross-national analyses of the international nature of crime.
8. Evaluate historical changes in crime trends.
9. Sociological Perspective:
   1. articulate the processes by which social forces affect individuals through organizations or institutions, and vice versa.
   2. apply founding theoretical traditions and concepts in sociology to specific organizations or institutions.
10. Social Structure:
    1. explain how social structure affects human action and social life at the micro, meso, and macro levels.
    2. articulate the processes through which groups, formal organizations, and social networks influence human thought and action.
    3. explain how hierarchy, power and authority operate across specific organizations or institutions.
11. Socialization:
    1. explain the relationship between the self and society.
    2. articulate how the self is socially constructed, maintained and transformed at multiple levels through specific organizations or institutions.

05. 02. Examine social institutions and processes across a range of historical periods and cultures.

05. 03. Use and critique alternative explanatory systems or theories.
Competency 2 (7-10)
08. 01. Describe and analyze political, economic, and cultural elements which influence relations of states and societies in their historical and contemporary dimensions.

08. 02. Demonstrate knowledge of cultural, social, religious and linguistic differences.

08. 03. Analyze specific international problems, illustrating the cultural, economic, and political differences that affect their solution.

Courses and Registration