May 20, 2013 7:29 PM

So you are studying this ?

criminology, the study of crime, society's response to it, and its prevention, including examination of the environmental, hereditary, or psychological causes of crime, modes of criminal investigation and conviction, and the efficacy of punishment or correction (see prison prison, place of confinement for the punishment and rehabilitation of criminals. By the end of the 18th cent. imprisonment was the chief mode of punishment for all but capital crimes. ..... Click the link for more information. ) as compared with forms of treatment or rehabilitation. Although it is generally considered a subdivision of sociology sociology, scientific study of human social behavior. As the study of humans in their collective aspect, sociology is concerned with all group activities—economic, social, political, and religious. ..... Click the link for more information. , criminology also draws on the findings of psychology, economics, and other disciplines that investigate humans and their environment. In examining the evolution and definition of crime, criminology often aims to remove from this category acts that no longer conflict with society's norms and acts that violate the norms without imperiling society, although decriminalization of certain acts may be accompanied by attempts to enforce codes of morality (as, for example, in the response to pornography). Criminologists are nearly unanimous in advocating that acts involving the consumption of narcotics or alcohol, as well as nonstandard but consensual sexual acts (known among criminologists as crimes without victims) be removed from the category of crime. In dealing with crime in general, the emphasis has gradually shifted from punishment to rehabilitation. Criminologists have worked to increase the use of probation probation, method by which the punishment of a convicted offender is conditionally suspended. The offender must remain in the community and under the supervision of a probation officer, who is usually a court-appointed official. ..... Click the link for more information. and parole parole , in criminal law, release from prison of a convict before the expiration of his term on condition that his activities be restricted and that he report regularly to an officer. ..... Click the link for more information. , psychiatric treatment, education in prison, and betterment of social conditions.