What are the 4 major criminological theory paradigms?
Asked by: Katelynn Schiller | Last update: February 13, 2026Score: 4.3/5 (27 votes)
The four major criminological theory paradigms, often viewed as broad perspectives, are generally categorized as Classical/Rational Choice, Positivist, Social Structure (or Strain/Functionalism/Conflict), and Social Process/Control, with some frameworks also highlighting Critical or specific sociological lenses like Conflict Theory, Functionalism, and Symbolic Interactionism as key groupings. These paradigms explain crime through different lenses: free will vs. determinism, individual traits, societal conditions, and social bonds/interactions.
What are the 4 theories of crime?
While there are many different sociological theories about crime, there are four primary perspectives about deviance: Structural Functionalism, Social Strain Typology, Conflict Theory, and Labeling Theory.
What are the main criminological theories?
Finding Theories on Crime & Deviance
- Biology: exposure to lead or other toxins that affect behavior and impulse control.
- Psychology: unable to handle emotions of anger and stress; personality traits - low self-control, impulsivity,aggression, mental Illness: psychopathy.
What are the 4 types of criminology?
Criminology is the study of crime from four different perspectives. These include legal, political, sociological, and psychological. Initially, criminology examines crime from a legal point of view.
What is a paradigm in criminology?
The definitional paradigm is based on the assumption that crime should be seen as a legal definition, label, or status. The conflict theory and radical theory emanate from this paradigm. Studies based on the definitional paradigm focus on the processes whereby behaviors are classified as criminal.
Research paradigms explained: positivism, interpretivism & critical realism
What are the 4 social paradigms?
Social theory can usefully be conceived in terms of four key paradigms: functionalist, interpretive, radical humanist, and radical structuralist. The four paradigms are founded upon different assumptions about the nature of social science and the nature of society.
What are the 4 theories of victimology?
The four theories are Deviant Place Theory, Lifestyle Theory, Victim Precipitation Theory, and Routine Activities Theory. Studying these different theories of victimization can be helpful in explaining why certain people have a higher likelihood of becoming victims.
What are the four perspectives of criminology?
CJC 112-0901 Chapter 1 1. Four definitional perspectives in contemporary criminology consist of sociological, legalistic, political, and psychological.
What are the 5 principles of criminology?
The five main principles of criminology and penology include retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation, and restoration.
What is Lombroso's theory of criminology?
Cesare Lombroso was the founder of the Italian school of positivist criminology, which argued that a criminal mind was inherited and could be identified by physical features and defects. Lombroso, while not aware of Gregor Johann Mendel's work on heredity, was inspired by Franz Joseph Gall's phrenological theories.
What are critical theories in criminology?
Critical theories try to explain group differences in crime rates while looking at social variables such as race, gender, and social class. Simply put, critical theories explain crime in terms of group differences in social power and control.
What are the 4 theories of punishment?
It begins by considering the four most common theories of punishment: retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, and incapacitation.
What are criminological theories?
Criminology is the scientific study of the nature, extent, causes, and control of criminal behavior. Two theories — deterrence and labeling — are widely used by criminologists to explain the influence of criminal law on behavior.
What are the 4 C's of the criminal justice system?
The Four C's: Cops, Courts, Corrections – and Citizens – Introduction to the U.S. Criminal Justice System.
What are the 4 parts of a theory?
By definition, theory must have four basic criteria: conceptual definitions, domain limitations, relationship-building, and predictions.
What are the four major theoretical perspectives?
There are four major sociological perspectives in sociology to explain human behavior within societies, communities, and individuals: symbolic interactionism theory, social conflict theory, structural-functional theory, and feminist theory.
What are the 4 approaches to crime?
The Descriptive approach observes and records crime patterns, the Causal approach investigates the factors leading to criminal behavior, the Normative approach examines legal and moral implications, and the Non-Normative approach studies crime objectively without moral judgments.
What are the 4 classifications of crime?
Crimes are generally graded into four categories: felonies, misdemeanors, felony-misdemeanors, and infractions. Often the criminal intent element affects a crime's grading.
What are the key paradigms in victimology?
According to Karmen, the three major victimological paradigms are what he refers to as the conservative tendency, the liberal tendency and the radical-critical tendency.
What are the primary theories of crime and victimization?
The theories of crime and delinquency that are examined are strain theory, differential association theory, conflict theory, social bonding theory, rational choice theory, social structure theory, social disorganization theory, cultural deviance theory differential association theory, differential reinforcement theory, ...
What are the five theoretical approaches to crime?
Crime theories are also categorized based on their levels and scopes, and evaluated as five levels from large scale to individual factors; (i) societal macro level theories, (ii) community or locality level theories, (iii) group and socialization influence theories, (iv) crime events and routine activities, and (v) ...
What are the four paradigms?
Instead, we will focus upon the four paradigms most commonly used within general medical education [3]: positivism, post-positivism, constructivism/interpretivism, and critical theory.
What are the main paradigms?
What are the four paradigms? The four sociological paradigms include Positivism, Social Constructivism, Critical Theories, and Postmodernism. Each varies slightly in its approach to how the individual within a group manages to put together knowledge from observations or interactions with reality.
What are the 4 principles of sociology?
Pricipal of Anticipation, simulation, individualization, balance .