"the science of crime," 1890, from Latin stem of criminal + -ology. Criminologist "one who studies crime" is recorded from 1857. Criminalist "authority on criminal law" is from 1630s.
Entries linking to criminology
criminal adj.
c. 1400, "sinful, wicked;" mid-15c., "of or pertaining to a legally punishable offense, of the nature of a crime;" late 15c., "guilty of crime," from Old French criminel,criminal "criminal, despicable, wicked" (11c.) and directly from Late Latin criminalis "pertaining to crime," from Latin crimen (genitive criminis); see crime. It preserves the Latin -n-. Other adjectives include criminous (mid-15c.), criminative. Criminal law (or criminal justice) has been distinguished from civil in English at least since late 15c.
-ology
word-forming element indicating "branch of knowledge, science," now the usual form of -logy. Originally used c. 1800 in nonce formations (commonsensology, etc.), it gained legitimacy by influence of the proper formation in geology, mythology, etc., where the -o- is a stem vowel in the previous element.
The second element is prop[erly] -logy (-logue, etc.), the -o- belonging to the preceding element; but the accent makes the apparent element in E[nglish] to be -ology, which is hence often used as an independent word. [Century Dictionary]