Crime, as different from social deviance, is the commission or omission of an act, prohibited by law and made punishable by the State. The study of what crime is, and the various types of crimes along with their punishments and procedure, thereof, is a subject-matter of criminal law. Criminology, on the other hand, is an academic discipline, which tends to study the phenomenon of crime in the society and embodies the possible reasons for the offender to commit crime. It has been regarded as a scientific study of the crime as well as the criminals, incorporating within its ambit, the study of making and breaking of criminal laws. From pre-classical school, classical school, neo-classical to the contemporary positive school of criminology, there has been a paradigm shift in the outlook towards the study of crime. A scientific approach has been adopted in the modern times to study crime and criminal behaviour. However, the fact that criminology is a science or not, is certainly not a well-settled issue. The paper discusses the meaning of criminology, and subsequently delves into its scope by viewing it from the lens of a multidisciplinary field with its wings spread across various disciplines of social sciences. The paper then looks into the possibility of criminology being a science, by explaining the application of scientific methods and tools in criminology, to examine the change in the nature of criminology from social science to natural science. The paper finally concludes by analysing the contemporary scientific approach to study criminal tendencies and highlights the problems arising out of such approach.

Crime, criminal law, criminology, science, scientific approach.