Criminology Resource Guide

Includes streaming videos on criminal investigation, criminal justice system, criminology, and legal studies.

This 11-part series, filmed inside Indiana's Lake County Juvenile Justice Complex, explores where juvenile crime begins, how it evolves, and what’s at stake for kids, families and professionals in the system. Each episode follows individual teens through their experience in the juvenile justice system. For some, this means months in detention and numerous court hearings; for others, detention is no longer an option—juvenile prison is the final destination.

The forms of punishment a society chooses, and what exactly it deems a crime, tell a great deal about that society's values. How is justice pursued and punishment meted out? This program looks at the history of punishment, beginning with early compensatory forms of justice, Hammurabi's Code, and the Law of Moses. Socrates' execution and Roman and medieval forms of justice are analyzed in a historical context, underscoring the fact that punishment was often intended as a deterrent rather than as a reformatory measure. Contemporary forms of punishment, including the death penalty, are discussed, along with the ways in which these sentences reflect what society values.

This six-part series spotlights renowned investigative psychologist David Canter—the U.K.’s leading pioneer in criminal profiling and director of the Centre for Investigative Psychology at the University of Liverpool—as he analyzes some of the most notorious crimes on record in the U.K. and abroad. Combining psychology and technology with geography, he examines contemporary as well as select historical crimes. Canter is also the author of the book Mapping Murder: The Secrets of Geographical Profiling.

Taking into account the dramatic shift in the focus of research in recent years from theories about criminal activity to applications of crime prevention, this multi-section program compares and contrasts the concepts of social causation, social construction, and social control as they relate to the sociology of crime and deviance. Topics include the influence of wider social forces on theories about crime, the reevaluation of criminals as victims or rebels, and three examples of the movement toward a greater pragmatism concerning crime: socio-environmental control, situational crime prevention, and Braithwaite's restorative justice.