Student guide Faculty of Law A.Y. 2007/08

The aim of a criminology course designed for the needs of future lawyers must be twofold. So this course firstly aims to give students an overall view of a subject very different from those ordinarily characterising a law course. Criminology is the study of criminal behaviour, the person so behaving, the victim, and the reactions of the community, and takes a multiplicity of very different scientific approaches (such as sociology, psychiatry and economics etc.) as a starting point. The approaches to the problem of criminality that the various schools of criminological thought have proposed over the space of some 250 years are also very different. Thus the first part of the syllabus covers the bases of criminology and positions the role of this discipline in the framework of the various criminal sciences. Secondly, criminological science, in particular considering its psychological and psychiatric approaches, has very practical applications. The second part of the course therefore specifically addresses the use of criminological techniques in criminal trials (from the investigation stage to that of judgment as to the capacity to form an intention and volition on the part of the accused), and also in civil trials.

Part I.
1. Definition of criminology.
2. Criminology and Criminal law: definition of a crime.
3. The main schools of thought and criminological theories (the classical school, the positive school, the "new" criminologies, "victimology", anomy theory, the theory of differential opportunities, "neutralisations" theory, "differential associations" theory, theories of social control).
Part II.
1. Psychology and forensic psychopathology in criminal trials.
2. Psychology and forensic psychopathology in civil trials.
3. Witness psychology.
4. Violent crimes (murder, sex crimes, violent attack, kidnapping, etc.).
5. Juvenile criminality (violent crime).
6. Drugs and criminality.
7. Criminal profiling – the psychological profiling of an unknown perpetrator of a violent crime.
8. Elements of victimology.


Attendance on the course is strongly recommended. The timetable and lecture programme for those attending will be decided on during the course.

A solely oral examination will be held at the end of the course.

For Part I:
Forti, G., L'immane concretezza: metamorfosi del crimine e controllo penale, Cortina, Milan, 2000 (pages 27-33 and 191-554).
For Part II:
Fornari, U., Trattato di psichiatria forense, UTET, Turin, 1997, 2nd ed. (second part: the psychiatric experience in criminal law – general part; third part: the psychiatric experience in civil law).
Picozzi, M., Zappalà, A., Criminal profiling, McGraw-Hill, Milano, 2001 (chapt. 1, 8, 9, 10, 11).
Picozzi, M., Maggi, M., Pedofilia. Non chiamatelo amore, Guerini, Milano, 2003