As long as society existed, crimes accompanied it. The response to crime has changed over time, from revenge or “an eye for an eye” concept to various sanctions and treatment approaches. Today criminal justice alienates from “one sanction fits all” approach and attempts to understand the motives of the crime. The important issue is dividing crimes or criminals into groups and developing a response for every group.
This process is called crime typology. In other words, it is a research on the connection between types of crime and criminals. Some researchers focus on the criminals; for instance amateur, professional, occasional and so on. Others categorize crimes, for example, property crimes, sex crimes, homicide (Siegel, 2007).
For homicide, criminal typology identifies three types: first degree, second degree and manslaughter. They differ in motives, methods and sometimes in the offender’s behavior after crime. The criminalists are able to develop the psychological portrait, behavioral model and characterize the crime scene for the crime of a certain type. Thus, crime typology assists the criminal justice in the investigation. Siegel presents a research on correlation between the methamphetamine use by young adults and violence (2007).
If a correlation existed, crime typology could categorize violent acts as drug invoked. However, the research did not show any relation. The crime typology categorizes terrorists as crusaders, criminals and crazies. When the police recognize the type of the terrorist, they know if they need to start negotiations or to take immediate actions against the offender.
Crime typology delivers information on motives, means, crime scene patterns and after crime behavior. This gives an opportunity to make appropriate decisions, impose sanctions and choose treatment approaches.
