Criminology and Public Policy

Criminological theories are constituted by answers to the following questions—one, why or how certain people or behaviors are considered as criminal and dealt with as such; two, why legal or social rules and regulations are broken or violated. Theories to the former are called Theories of Making and Enforcing Criminal Law, while theories to the latter are called Theories of Criminal or Deviant Behavior (Akers, 2013).

In theories of Making and Enforcing Criminal Law, to explain further, information is not just provided for the question of why some people or behaviors are considered criminal. More is given. How is the act to be decided? Who makes the call? Which resources of the state and public are used in such an instance?—all these are questions answered adequately (Akers, 2013). As such, in sum, criminological theories are constituted by well-elaborated responses to questions of what is criminal and why it is criminal.

Public policy can generally be defined as a set of regulatory measures, a system of law, or courses of actions promulgated by the government for the common good (Kilpatrick, 2000). It can be characterized as an interactive, dynamic, and complex process through which public problems—either nationally, internationally, or locally—are identified and resolved by developing new policies or refining existing ones. Furthermore, these general problems can either be political, economic, or social.

There are four prominent types of public policy—constituent, distributive, regulative, and redistributive. A constituent policy yields a regulatory law and decides how the public will finance the law; distributive policies respond to particular issues affecting a select group; regulative policies regulate the operations of businesses and corporations; redistributive policies affect most people in the state—all this work in harmony to ensure the prosperity of the nation (What Are Some Examples of Public Policies? 2020).

Always, after the enactment of public policies, no government official or person can violate its principles with impunity. These policies are meant to secure public safety, welfare, and health; as such, often, strict conformity to their requirements is demanded—not request in the least.

Criminological theories and public policies are related and, in a high degree, influence one another. As explained above, public policies are regulatory measures or systems of laws, while criminological theories explain what is criminal and why it is thus. From these two definitions, it is evident that public policies are related to criminological theories in the fact that the latter explains and gives force to the former. In other words, the theories educate why the policies are there and why it is criminal to violate them. As such, from this relationship, it is clear that, to a higher degree, public policies influence criminological theories.