Residential Burglary Criminology

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This essay aims to identify the epistemological positions of the study on ethnographic insights into residential burglary, carried out by George Rengelt and John Wasilchick. First, the field of Criminology is briefly described; second, spatial dimensions of residential burglary, which is an important research topic in criminology, is outlined. Third, the key notions of ethnography, a qualitative approach used in criminology, is explained. Lastly, the essay attempts to identify the epistemological stance of the study.
Criminology, the study of crime, is consisted of two Latin terms; crimin -guilt- and ology -study-. Miller (2009). This term was first used in 1885 by an Italian criminologist Raffaele Garofalo. Criminology not only examines the scope of crime and delinquency in terms of its extent, cause and nature but also scrutinizes the reactions to criminal behaviour. (Lanier and Henry, 2004). Criminology is related to various disciplines such as biology, anthropology, psychology, law and notably sociology. Today, criminology is regarded to have two realms; sociological criminology focusing on the causes of crime and applied criminology emphasizing the prevention and treatment. Miller (2009). Criminology can be thought as a branch …show more content…

This crime is common and people fear both being murdered and losing their property. So, criminologists strive to analyse the spatial and temporal dimensions of this crime in addition to the decision-making process of criminals. Rengert, Wasilchick (1989) argue that spatial and temporal aspects of residential burglary vary between cultures, countries and even within the different regions in a country, so both aspects should be evaluated in their own context. In order to have a deep understanding of this crime and outline the methods of offenders, they used ethnographic approach and explicitly stated this in the heading of their

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