SOC assignment
chuckwamg94
ClassicalSchoolofCriminology.pptClassical School
Criminology
CLASSICAL SCHOOL
- BEGAN IN MIDDLE OF 18TH CENTURY
- ASSUMPTION: INDIVIDUALS CHOOSE TO COMMT CRIMES AFTER WEIGHING THE CONSEQUENCES OF THEIR ACTIONS
- INDIVIDUALS HAVE FREE WILL & CHOICE
- FEAR AS DETERENT
- SOCIETY CAN CONTROL BY MAKING PAIN OF PUNISHMENT GREATER THAN PLEASURE OF CRIMINAL GAINS
Historical Context
- Prior to the French Revolution of 1789, there was no discernable criminal justice system in Europe.
- Due process did not exist
- Many laws were not codified
- Punishments included branding, burning, flogging, mutilating, drowning, banishing, and beheading
- Public Punishments were popular events
The Classical Scholars
Modern criminology is the product of two main schools of thought: The classical school originating in the 18th century, and the positivist school originating in the 19th century.
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Pre-Classical Notions of Crime & Criminals
Prior to the eighteenth century, explanations
of a wide variety of phenomena tended to be
of a religious or spiritual nature.
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Pre-Classical Notions of Crime & Criminals
Demonological explanations of crime began to wane in the 18th century with the beginning of a period of historians call The Enlightenment, which was essentially a major shift in the way people began to view the world and their place.
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Pre-Classical Notions of Crime & Criminals
Enlightenment thinkers focused on the dignity and worth of the individual.
A view that would eventually find expression in the law & the treatment of criminal offenders.
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HISTORICAL CONTEXT
- The Classical School arose
- OUT OF REACTION TO BARBARIC SYTEM
- PRIOR TO THIS CRIMES AGAINST THE STATE, CHURCH, AND CROWN BUT NO REAL SYSTEM OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE
- SOME CRIMES SPECIFIED BUT JUDGES COULD CONVICT FOR AN ACT NOT EVEN LEGALLY DEFINED AS A CRIME
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
- LETTRE DE CACHET – ISSUED BY MONARCHS UNDER WHICH AN INDIVIDUAL COULD BE IMPRISONED FOR NO REASON AT ALL
- MANY LAWS UNWRITTEN
- DID NOT SPECIFY TIME OR TYPE OF PUNISHMENT
- CRUEL/ARBITRARY SENTENCES
- ENGLAND OVER 200 DEATH PENALTY LAWS INCLUDING PETTY THEFT
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
- PUBLIC PUNISHMENT POPULAR
- TORTURE TO ELICIT CONFESSIONS
- A MAN WOULD SUFFER TORTURE TILL DEATH TO AVOID TRAIL SO HIS FAMILY COULD RETAIN LANDS AND GOODS
- GAP BETWEEN HAVES AND HAVE NOTS GREW AS INDUSTRY GREW
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
- UPPER CLASS PROTECTED SELF VIA RUTHLESS OPPRESSION
- SOCIAL UNREST GREW
- AS CRIME RATES ROSE SO DID BRUTALITY OF PUNISHMENT
- VIOLENCE TO CONQUER VIOLENCE
- GROWING EDUCATED CLASS SAW INCONSISTENCY
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
- IF TERRIBLE TORTURE DESIGNED TO DETER CRIME WHY WAS CRIME INCREASING
- MID 18TH CENTURY SOCIAL REFORMERS SUGGEST MORE RATIONAL APPROACH
- CECARE BECCARIA LAID FOUNDATION FOR SCHOOL OF CRIMINOLOGY – CLASSICAL SCHOOL
Basics
- There are two basic schools of thought in early criminology
The Classical School
The positivist School
The Classical School
- Ruthless oppression of those beneath it became the norm.
- The growing educated classes began to see the inconsistency in these policies
Classical Criminology
Cesare Beccaria
- Founding Father of Modern Criminology
- Wrote On Crimes and Punishment
- Enlightened criminal justice system that would serve the people rather than the monarchy
Cesare Beccaria and Reform
The father of classical criminology is generally considered to be Cesare Bonesana, Marchese di Beccaria.
Dei Delitti e della Pene (On Crimes and Punishment) (1764): This book is an impassioned plea to humanize and rationalize the law and to make punishment more just and reasonable.
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CESARE LOMBROSO
- MEDICAL DOCTOR/PROFESSOR OF PSYCHIATRY
- LATER PROFESSOR OF CRIMINAL ANTHROPOLOGY
- THEORY – “BORN CRIMINAL” – LOWER FROM OF LIFE NEARER APE-LIKE ANCESTORS
- ATATVISTIC STIGMATA – PHYSICAL FEATURES OF CREATURES AT AN EARLIER STAGE OF DEVELOPMENT, BEFORE FULLY HUMAN
LOMBROSO
- STIGMATA – HUGE JAWS, STRONG CANINE TEETH, GREATER ARM SPAN, ETC.
- ANY FIVE STIGMATA IS “BORN CRIMINAL”
- PROSTITUTE “BORN CRIMINAL” IN WOMAN
- INSANE CRIMINALS – BECOME SO DUE TO CHANGE IN BRAIN UNCTIONING LIMITING ABILITY TO DISTINGUISH RIGHT FROM WRONG
- CRIMINOLOIDS – HABITUAL, PASSIONATE, ETC.
LOMBROSO
- MOST SCIENTISTS WHO FOLLOWED LOMBROSO DID NOT SHARE HIS VIEWPOINT
- WORK KEPT ALIVE MORE BY CRITICISM THAN AGREEMENT
- HIS THEORIES DO NOT STAND UP TO SCIENTIFIC SCRUTINY
- HIS THOUSANDS OF MEASUREMENTS ON LIVE AND DEAD CRIMINALS DID CHANGE THE NATURE OF QUESTIONING
Beccaria did not question the need for punishment, but he believed that laws should be designed to preserve public safety and order, not to avenge crime.
To ensure a rational and fair penal structure, punishments for specific crimes must be decreed by written criminal codes, and the discretionary powers of judges severely curtailed.
The Classical School:
Cesare Beccaria and Reform
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“Crime Problem”
- According to Beccaria the crime problem could be traced to bad laws, not bad people.
- Beccaria assumed that crime is a rational choice and individuals are responsible for the consequences of their behavior
- His plan included the following elements:
Beccaria’s Principles
Laws should be used to maintain the social contract
Only legislators should create laws
Judges should impose punishment only in accordance with the law
Judges should not interpret the laws
Punishment should be based on the pleasure/pain principle
Punishment should be based on the act, not on the actor
Beccaria’s Principles Continued
The punishment should be determined by the crime
Punishment should be prompt and effective
All people should be treated equally
Capital punishment should be abolished
The use of torture to fain confessions should be abolished
It is better to prevent crimes than to punish them
Influential!
- Beccaria’s book had a huge impact in the field of criminology.
- Beccaria’s plan was used as the foundation for many penal codes in Europe, Russia and the United States
- Beccaria’s work influenced the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution (the Bill of Rights).
Jeremy Bentham’s Utilitarianism
- Bentham’s work was governed by the utilitarian principles
- Utilitarianism assumes all human actions are calculated in accordance with their likelihood of bringing happiness (pleasure) or unhappiness (pain)
Jeremy Bentham and Human Nature
Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789) is a philosophy of social control based on the principle of utility, which prescribed “the greatest happiness for the greatest number.”
Any human action at all should be judged moral or immoral by its effect on the happiness of the community.
Hedonism: A doctrine with the central tenet that the achievement of pleasure or happiness is the main goal of life.
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Rational behavior is behavior that is consistent with logic.
Hedonism and rationality are combined in concept of the hedonistic calculus, a method by which individuals are assumed to logically weigh the anticipated benefits of a given course of action against its possible costs.
Jeremy Bentham and Human Nature
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Free will enables human beings to purposely and deliberately choose to follow a calculated course of action.
If crime is to be deterred, punishment (pain) must exceed the pleasures gained from the fruits of crime.
Jeremy Bentham and Human Nature
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Calculation…
- Bentham proposed the “felicific calculus”
- According to this reasoning, individuals are “human calculators” who put all the factors into an equation in order to decide whether or not a particular crime is worth committing.
- Bentham hypothesized that the certainty of punishment outweighs severity as a deterrent against crime.
Classical School is reform focused
- Both Beccaria and Bentham advocated a new philosophy and a new system of legal and penal reform.
- They believed the punishment should not be inflicted for vengeance; rather, punishment should be for the reduction or deterrence of crime.
The Legacy of the Classical School
All modern criminal justice systems in the world assume the classical position that persons are free agents who deserve to be punished when they transgress the law.
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The Legacy of the Classical School
Many of the ideas championed by Beccaria in such rights as freedom from cruel and unusual punishment, the right to a speedy trial, as freedom from cruel and unusual punishment, the right to a speedy trial, the prohibition of ex post facto laws, the right to confront one’s accusers, and equality under law, contained in the Bill of Rights and other documents at the heart of Western legal systems today.
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Weaknesses in the Classical School
- There was no need to ask why people behave as they do, to seek a motive, or to ask about the specific circumstances surrounding criminal acts.
- Factors beyond their control were not taken into account when explaining criminal behavior.
Neoclassicism: Rational Choice Theory
Rational choice theorists believe that factors such as poverty, IQ, impulsiveness, or broken homes are not required to explain crime.
The choice is made in context of personal and situational constraints and the availability of opportunities.
Criminal acts are specific examples of the general principle that all human behavior reflects the rational pursuit of maximizing utility, which is the modern economists version of Bentham’s principle of maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain.
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Neoclassicism: Rational Choice Theory
Rational choice theory assumes a criminally motivated offender and focuses on the process of the choice to offend.
Choice structuring: The constellation of opportunities, costs, and benefits attaching to particular kinds of crimes.
Explanations of criminal events must be crime specific because offenses have properties of their own.
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Deterrence and Choice: Pain versus Gain
Deterrence: The prevention of criminal acts by the use or threat of punishment.
Specific deterrence refers to the effect of punishment on the future behavior of the person who experiences the punishment.
Recidivism: Committing another crime after previously being punished for one.
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There must be a relatively high degree of certainty that punishment will follow a criminal act, the punishment will be administered very soon after the act, and it must be quite harsh.
The affect of punishment on future behavior depends on the contrast effect, which is the distinction between the circumstances of punishment and the usual life experience of the person being punished.
Deterrence and Choice: Pain versus Gain
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General deterrence: the preventive effect of the threat of punishment on the general population; it is aimed at potential offenders.
Deterrence theorists tend to assume a more rational human being than rational choice theorists, their models being full of complicated mathematical models defining cost/benefit ratios.
Deterrence and Choice: Pain versus Gain
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Figure 3.1
Summary and Comparisons of the Classical and Positivist Schools Pertaining to Certain Issues
| Classical | Positivist | |
| Historical Period | 18th-century Enlightenment, early period of Industrial Revolution | 19th-century Age of Reason, mid–Industrial Revolution |
| Leading Figures | Cesare Becarria, Jeremy Bentham | Cesare Lombroso, Raffael Garofalo, Enrico Ferri |
| Purpose of School | To reform and humanize the legal and penal systems | To apply the scientific method to the study of crime and criminality |
| Image of Human Nature | Humans are hedonistic, rational, and have free will. Our behavior is motivated by maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain. | Human behavior is determined by psychological, biological, or social forces that constrain our rationality and free will. |
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Figure 3.1
Summary and Comparisons of the Classical and Positivist Schools Pertaining to Certain Issues
| Image of Criminals | Criminals are essentially the same as noncriminals. They commit crimes after calculating costs and benefits. | Criminals are different from noncriminals. They commit crimes because they are inferior in some way. |
| Definition of Crime | Strictly legal; crime is whatever the law says that it is. | Based on universal human abhorance; crime should be limited to inherently evil (mala in se) acts. |
| Purpose of Punishment | To deter. Punishment is to be applied equally to all offenders committing the same crime. Judicial discretion to be limited. | Social defense. Punishment to be applied differently to different offenders based on relevant differences and should be rehabilitative. |
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Connecting Criminological Theory & Social Policy
Theories of crime causation imply that changing the conditions the theory holds responsible for causing crime can reduce it and even prevent it.
Policy: A course of action designed to solve some problem that has been selected from among alternative courses of action.
Every theory has policy implications deducible from its primary assumptions and propositions
A good theory should offer useful practical recommendations.
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Policy and Prevention:
Implications of Neoclassical Theories
Rational choice and routine activities theories shift the policy focus from large and costly social programs to target hardening and environmental designs that might dissuade a motivated offender from offending.
The policy recommendations of deterrence theory increase the costs of committing crimes and there will be less of it.
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Policy and Prevention:
Implications of Neoclassical Theories
Lombroso believed that punishment should be only determined after a thorough assessment of offenders and their needs.
As a social defense, Lombroso recommended death or life imprisonment for congenital offenders.
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Classical and Neoclassical Perspectives
- From theology to science
- Causes of crime and deviance: gods and demons
- Age of reason
- Classical school of criminology
- Rise of positivism
- Neoclassical Perspectives:
- Rational Choice Theory
- Deterrence Theory
- Types of Deterrence
- Routine Activities theory
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