Chapter 2 Essay questions

  1. Examine the claim that crime is a product of social and legal construction.
  2. Is ‘criminalization’ a useful framework for understanding how we define and respond to certain forms of conduct?
  3. What does it mean to say that crime is historically contingent and what can contemporary criminologists learn from studying the historical development of crime?
  4. Examine and explain the distinction between formal and substantive criminalization.
  5. What can criminologists learn from criminal law scholarship and what can criminal lawyers learn from criminology?
  6. What are the most important developments in criminalization over recent decades and how best can they be explained?
  7. What is meant by ‘over-criminalization’ and why does it matter?
  8. Discuss the claim that ‘criminology has largely failed to be self-reflective regarding the dominant, state defined notion of “crime”.’
  9. Evaluate the validity of criminological critiques of the liberal account of crime as a means of holding individuals to account for wrongful conduct.
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