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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) as compared with forms of treatment or rehabilitation. Although it is generally considered a subdivision of sociology, 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 and parole, psychiatric treatment, education in prison, and betterment of social conditions.
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