criminal Justice

HistoryofCriminology.pptx

Home >Law homework help >Criminal homework help >criminal Justice

Our Definition of Criminology

A social scientific discipline

Interdisciplinary in nature (ethnography, biology, sociology, political science, psychology, psychiatry, economics, ethology, medicine, law, philosophy, ethics, and cultural anthropology)

built around the scientific study of crime and criminal behavior, including manifestations, causes, legal aspects, and control.

Primary purpose of the criminology profession

Controlling crime through prevention, rehabilitation, and deterrence

Ensuring the criminal justice system reflects the high aspiration of “justice for all”

Paradigms within criminology

Demonic Era

The Classical School

Positivism

Victimology

Convict Criminology

Environmental Criminology (

Radical Criminology (Marxist)

The Demonic Era

Preoccupation with the conflict between GOOD and EVIL.

Early explanations of criminal and deviant behavior during this era included demonic possession, spiritual influences, temptation by fallen angels, and relationships between humans and supernatural entities such as ghosts, vampires, werewolves, and demons.

Hard determinism - you were born evil or criminal or became that way through some supernatural event.

Some proof for this exists from archaeological digs which have uncovered skulls showing signs of early cranial surgery, known as trephination, apparently intended to release evil spirits thought to be residing in the heads of offenders.

Other crime control measures included trial by ordeal, torture, banishment, and capital punishment.

Classical School

The Enlightenment (“The Age of Reason”)

A social and cultural renaissance that occurred during the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Proved to be a highly liberating force in the Western world. Enlightenment thinkers established many of the democratic principles that formed the conceptual foundations of democratic societies.

Built upon ideas by philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes, Francis Bacon, John Locke, Rene Descartes, Rousseau, and Spinoza. Their thinking advanced the notions of social responsibility and individual rights.

Provided many of the intellectual underpinnings of the U.S. Constitution

Superstitious beliefs (from the Demonic era) were discarded - Men and women became perceived as self-determining entities possessing a fundamental freedom of choice

Crime and deviance, previously explained by reference to mythological influences and spiritual shortcomings, was now explained as the product of the exercise of free will. Crime came to be explained as an individualized form of evil or moral wrongdoing that was a product of personal choice.

Major Principles of Classical Thinking

1. Human beings are fundamentally rational and most human behavior is the result of free will coupled with rational choice.

2. Pain and pleasure are the two central determinants of human behavior.

3. Punishment, a necessary evil, is sometimes required to deter law violators and to serve as an example to others who would also violate the law (specific and general deterrence)

Key Classical Thinkers

Cesare Beccaria (wrote “On Crime and Punishment” in 1764)

Primary focus was developing a philosophy of punishment that included the following notions:

Criminals should be punished according to the degree of injury they cause rather than on the basis of their criminal intent.

The purpose of punishment should be deterrence rather than retribution. Punishment should accomplish something (preventing future crimes).

Adjudication and punishment should be swift and certain

Punishment should be only severe enough to outweigh the personal benefits to be derived from crime commission.

Punishment must fit the crime. Theft should be punished by fines, personal injury through corporal punishment, and serious crimes against the state through application of the death penalty (advocate for jury trials)

Key Classical Thinkers (continued)

Jeremy Bentham

In 1789 wrote “Introduction to the Principals of Morals and Legislation” in which he argued that mankind is governed by two principles: pain and pleasure

Argued that to reduce crime, the pain of crime commission must outweigh the pleasure to be derived from criminal activity (known as “hedonistic calculus” or “utilitarianism”)

Focused on the potential of punishment to prevent crime and to act as a deterrent for those considering criminal activity.

Bentham

Advocated that every citizen have their first and last names tattooed on their wrists for the purposes of facilitating police identification.

Recommended the creation of a centralized police force focused on crime prevention and control – this idea led to the English Metropolitan Police Act of 1829 establishing London’s New Police under the direction of Sir Robert Peel

Advocated that prisons be designed along the lines of what he called a “Panopticon House” – a circular building with cells along the circumference, each clearly visible from a central location staffed by guards.

Also advocated that prisons should be managed by contractors who would profit from the labor of prisoners

Elements of the Classical School Found in Modern-Day Perspectives on Crime

1. Rationality – Human beings have free will and the actions they undertake are the result of choice

2. Hedonism – Pleasure and pain or reward and punishment are the major determinants of choice

3. Punishment – criminal punishment is a deterrent to unlawful behavior and deterrence is the best justification for punishment

4. Human Rights – Society owes to its citizens respect for their rights in the face of government action and for their autonomy as long as it doesn’t hurt the social order

5. Due Process – An accused should be presumed innocent until proved otherwise and an accused should not be subject to punishment before guilt is lawfully established

Criticisms of the Classical School

1. Viewed as more of a philosophy of justice than a theory of crime causation.

2. Lacks explanatory power over criminal motivation (why criminals commit crime) other than to advance the relatively simplistic notion that crime is the result of free will and individual choice.

3. Fails to take into account the role of “human” factors such as biological, psychological, and genetic makeup that might contribute to criminal behavior.

4. Fails to take into account the role of “social” processes and other environmental factors that might contribute to criminal behavior.

5. There is little empirical support for the hedonistic approach (pain vs. pleasure) – punishments, even severe ones such as death, fail to deter individuals from committing crime. However, there may be support for idea of “constrained free will” (from neoclassical school).

Policies from Classical School

Determinate Sentencing – A strategy that mandates a specified and fixed amount of time to be served for every offense category. This strategy builds upon two notions central to classical thought: 1) the pleasure of a given crime can be somewhat accurately assessed and 2) a fixed amount of punishment necessary

Truth-in-sentencing – A strategy that requires judges to assess and make public the actual time an offender is likely to serve once sentencing to prison. Many recently enacted truth-in-sentencing policies require an offender to serve a minimum of 80% of their actual sentence prior to being released.

Parole Abolition

Application of the Death Penalty – Advocated on the belief that if applied with certainty and swiftly, if will deter other would-be murderers and that it is a suitable (equitable) punishment for the crime of murder

Enhanced Penalties for Criminal Offenses – A strategy that supports the notion that criminals choose to commit crime and accordingly, should be held responsible for their actions

The Positive School of Criminology

What is it?

The application of the scientific method to the study of the criminal and his environment in an effort to determine the CAUSES of crime.

Principles of Positivism

A complete acceptance of social determinism, or belief that human behavior is determined not by the exercise of free choice but by causative factors beyond the control of the individual.

Application of scientific techniques to the study of crime and criminology. Positivism holds that social phenomena are observable, explainable, and measurable in quantitative terms.

By searching for the causes of crime, as opposed to the causes of human behavior in general, it is assumed that the causes of crime differ from the causes of other behavior. The search then takes the form of looking for differences between criminals and non-criminals.

The causes of crime may be biological, psychological, social, physical, or a combination of any of these. Early emphasis was on biological (physical) causes but later more emphasis placed on social and psychological precursors to criminality. Today, the emphasis is on combinations of causes (interactive approach).

The application of the scientific method can lead us to understand the underlying causes of crime.

By understanding the causes of crime, we can then explain and predict crime, and thereby control crime.

Forerunners of Positivism

Charles Darwin – Evolutionary theory and survival of the fittest

Intellectual Revolution – application of scientific methods to the study of life and natural sciences

Work of Guerry (1802-1866) and Quetelet (1796-1874) - Both focused on identifying the causes of crime, although they examined the social rather than biological conditions.

Forerunners (continued)

Physiognomy – the “science” of reading personality characteristics from facial features. Developed by Johan Lavater who published his 4-volume “Phsyiognomical Fragments” in 1775. Bearded women and unbearded men and people with other suspicious physical traits were suspect. Such facial features as “shifty” eyes, “weak” chins, or “arrogant” noses were thought to be indicative of criminality.

Phrenology -Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828)

The theory of “phrenology” (“craniology”) set forth by Gall hypothesized that the shape of the human skull was indicative of the personality of criminals and could be used to predict criminality.

One of the first Western writers to firmly locate the roots of personality in the brain (prior to this, aspects of personality were thought to reside in various organs throughout the body)

Early Positivists

Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909)

Borrowing from physiognomy and phrenology, he published “The Criminal Man” in 1876 and proposed that the criminal was a biological throwback to an earlier evolutionary stage – a man more primitive and savage than his non-criminal counterpart (“atavism”)

Considered to be the “father” of criminology

Maintained that there are 3 different types of criminals:

Born criminals – atavistic reversions to a lower or more primitive evolutionary form of development and thought to make up about one-third of the total number of offenders

Insane criminals – idiots, imbeciles, paranoiacs, those afflicted with general paralysis, dementia, alcoholism, epilepsy, or hysteria

Criminaloids – a large general class of people without physical stigma, not afflicted with mental illness, but whose mental and emotional makeup are such that under certain circumstances they indulge in vicious and criminal behavior

Lombroso’s scientific work

His work consisted of postmortem studies of the bodies of executed offenders and deceased criminals, measuring the body in many ways. One well-known offender named “Vilella” provided Lombroso with many of his findings.

Besides “Vilella”, Lombroso conducted autopsies on 65 executed offenders and examined 832 living prison inmates, comparing physical measurements of their body parts to measurements taken from 390 soldiers (control group).

As a result of this work, he claimed to have found a variety of bodily features predictive of criminal behavior.

Long arms; An index finger as long as the middle finger; Fleshy pouches in the cheeks like those in rodents; Eyes that were abnormally close together or too far apart; Large teeth; Ears which lacked lobes; Prominent cheekbones; A crooked nose; A large amount of body hair; Protruding chin; Large lips; A nonstandard number of ribs; Eyes of differing colors or hues

For example, Lombroso described murderers as having “cold, glassy eyes, immobile and sometimes sanguine and inflamed; the nose, always large, is frequently aquiline or hooked; the jaws are strong, the cheekbones large, the hair curly, dark, and abundant; the beard is frequently thin, the canine teeth well-developed and the lips delicate.”

Evaluations of atavism

Charles Buckman Goring (1870-1919) – conducted a well-controlled statistical study of Lombroso’s thesis of atavism.

Goring examined nearly 3,000 inmates at Turin prison in 1901 and compared them with students at Oxford and Cambridge universities, British soldiers, and non-criminal hospital patients.

Goring was able to disprove that criminals showed physical anomalies when compared to the general population. The only difference Goring could document had to do with stature and body weight. He found criminals were on average 2 inches shorter than noncriminals and weighed 3 to 7 pounds less.

Goring believed these differences were due to hereditary not atavism.

Earnest A. Hooten – conducted a study between 1927 and 1939

Hooten examined 13,873 inmates from 10 states, comparing them with 3,203 nonincarcerated individuals who formed a control group. His entire sample was composed of 10,953 prison inmates, 2,004 county jail prisoners, 743 criminally insane, 173 “defective delinquents”, 1,227 “insane civilians”, and 1,976 “sane civilians.” He evaluated everyone along 107 physiological dimensions.

He reported some support for Lombroso’s theory and found physiological features characteristic of specific criminal types in specific states. For instance, he identified a “Massachusetts criminal” as being notable for thick beards, red-brown hair, dark brown, green-brown, and blue-gray eyes; whites of eyes discolored with yellow or brown pigment flecks . . . .etc.

He found that first-degree murderers were more square-shouldered than other criminals and had larger ear lobes.

Body Types (Sheldon)

He argued that there were four basic body builds:

Endomorphic (fat and soft, love comfort, food, and being around people; even-tempered, easy to get along with (non-deviant))

Mesomorphic (muscular and hard, seek vigorous physical activity, risk-taking, adventure; more likely to be indifferent to pain and aggressive, callous, even ruthless in relationships with others (pose the greatest risk of being delinquents and later criminals)

Ectomorphic (thin and fragile, usually inhibited, reserved, self-conscious and afraid of people)

The balanced type (a person of average build, being neither overweight, thin, nor exceedingly muscular)

Sheldon ranked individuals along each of the three major dimensions (excluding balanced type) using a 7-point scale and linked certain personality traits to each of the body types. For instance, a score of 1-1-7 would indicate a person exhibited few characteristics of endomorphology or mesomorphology but was predominantly ectomorphic.

This work was supported by a study of juvenile delinquents conducted by Sheldon Glueck and Eleanor Glueck and reported in 1950. The Gluecks compared 500 known delinquents with 500 nondelinquent youth and matched both groups on age, general intelligence, ethnic/racial background, and place of residence. Like Sheldon, the Gluecks concluded that mesomorphy was associated with delinquency.

Today

Genetics (is there a criminal gene?)

Concept of “Body Burden” and toxins

Psychological traits (sociopathy) and other forms of mental illness

IQ (mental deficiencies)

Other environmental causes (social)

Critique of positivism

Too deterministic in nature

Policy implications seen as “Orwellian” (abortion of defective fetuses, capital punishment in lieu of rehabilitation, enforced sterilization)

Policy implications seen as dangerous to certain ethnic and racial groups

Difficult to test empirically

Crime Control Strategies Applying Positivism

Pre- and post-natal care for pregnant women and their infants to monitor and address potentially detrimental developmental conditions which could lead to heightened aggression and crime in later life

Monitoring of children through the early stages of their development to identify early symptoms of behavioral disorder

Neurological examinations, including CAT, PET, and MRI scans, given when the need is evident

Biological research conducted in our prisons and treatment facilities which might better identify the root causes of aggression and violence. Laws that prevent the experimental use of prison subjects, the analysis of the bodies of executed prisoners, and other similar types of biological investigations must change.

Summary of Schools of Thought

Demonic era The devil made me do it

Classical school I did it because I wanted to (choice)

Positivism I did it because it’s in my blood (cause)

Marxist criminology I did it because I’m poor and the system, owned by the rich, is punishing me unfairly

Environmental criminology I did it because the environment made it easy

The Debates

Within positivism, is crime the result of nature or nurture?

Many criminologists accept the notion that there are identifiable “causes” of crime yet our current criminal justice system is based on the principles of the classical school, including the notion of “free will” and “deterrence”. How can the current system be effective if crime is caused rather than the product of “free will”? How do we overcome this dilemma?