Criminal Justice

The Criminal Type

What do you think of when someone talks to you about the 'criminal type'? Is there a specific 'type' of person that can be construed 'criminal?' According to Jessica Mitford, "Americans are preoccupied with crimes of the poor and as such the 'criminal type' has surfaced in American consciousness as a social creation." This paper is going to examine the concept of 'criminal types' and argues that anybody has the potential to be a criminal under certain definitions. We will also examine the concept of 'American Bias' towards certain racial and socio-economic groups within the American justice system.

The word 'criminal' according to the Oxford Modern English Dictionary (1996) is "a person who has committed a crime." A crime, in the same dictionary is defined as, "a serious offence punishable by law" (Oxford, 1996). So it would be safe to assume from these definitions that...
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