A Timeline of Criminological Thought

Introduction

Crime is a negative aspect of the society that every civilised society struggle to eliminate. The desire to eliminate crime in society triggered earlier scholars to propose various theoretical perspectives for understanding crime and how such understandings can be used to address the issue. Consequently, various scholars came up with various theories including the classical school of thought and the positivist school of thought. In this essay, we explore those two schools of thoughts concerning the contexts within which they emerged, the key thinkers behind their emergence, their benefits, their drawbacks and how they apply to modern times.

The classical school of thought

The classical emerged in the 18th Century alongside the uprising of utilitarian philosophers such as Cesare Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham. Their main suggestions were that the nature of humans as constantly calculating being is the main source of their criminal behaviour (Deflem, 2006). Furthermore, believers in the classical school of thought assumed that humans have a free will in decision-making and that punishment can be used to deter crime as long as it fits the crime, is delivered on time, and is proportional to the crime. According to Braithwaite (2000), the school of thought emerged during the emergence of utilitarianism, which was a belief that humans act based on their calculations about what brings pleasure or pain.

Cesare Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham were the two major contributors to the classical school of thought. For instance, Beccaria proposed the need to reform the criminal justice system by focusing on the harm caused to society as opposed to the harm caused by the victim (Raufa, 2019). Therefore the scholar highlighted the need faster detection, arguing that a swifter and more certain punishment would be more effective in deterring crime. Besides, according to Cesare (1964), that crime would be reduced if there were proportionality within the criminal justice, whereby the system is clear and easier to understand and is supported by the population.

On the other hand, Bentham believed in scientific approaches to understanding crime. With the same objective as Beccaria, he aimed to achieve the greatest happiness to the higher number of individuals, with most of his propositions based on utilitarian principles. Consequently, according to Bonomy et al (2017), Bentham came up with a mathematical approach to an understanding crime called ‘felicific calculus,’ which proposed that humans are calculating individuals who weigh the pleasure or pain that might emerge from crime before deciding whether it is worth committing. Ultimately, Bentham concluded that if the main purpose of punishment is to prevent crime, and if punishment created more harm than good by being too costly, then punishments to offences must be designed to be slightly excess of the pleasure one derives from crime and not excessively higher. This argument led to the development of the ‘felicitation principle,’ which means that any response to crime should bring the highest happiness to society (Siegel, 2003).

This school of thought is considered to be of great benefit in understanding crime because it is one of the first attempts to understand criminology through a theoretical perspective. Besides, its propositions enhanced the accessibility of the law to the public besides defining the difference between legality and morality (McLennan et al, 1980). However, the theory has several limitations including the fact that it might be difficult to develop a proportionate punishment for offenders, and because it fails to acknowledge the socio-economic factors that may motivate crime. Furthermore, according to Beime (1987), the theory fails to address the individual differences between offenders that may cause a variation to offence levels. Nonetheless, some of the elements of the classical school of thought that are still applicable to date include the fact that punishment is still practised as a common remedy to crime, and that most types of crime deterrence techniques such as hugging are still used to date.

Positivist school of thought

Believers in the positivist school of thought suggested that people engage in crime as a result of internal and external factors that are out of their control (Goring, 1913). Hence according to Garland (2002), the key belief of positivist school of thought is that people are born criminals and not made criminals. Furthermore, they insist that criminal behaviour is innate, a belief which emanates from scientific methods of studying human behaviour. Ideally, according to Suthland (1939), the application of scientific methods of studying human behaviour led to the development of three major approaches under this school of thought, namely the biological positivism, the psychological positivism and the social positivism.

Garland (2002) defines biological positivism as criminal behaviour originates from certain abnormalities or chemical imbalances within the brain. Some of the key thinkers who proposed this school of thought were Cesare Lombroso, Franz Gall and Johann Lavater and were all interested in how medicine could solve the problem of crime (Marshall et al, 1990). Hence, according to the biological positivist school of thought, criminality is a biological issue that occurs due to human biological defects.

Psychological positivism is the belief that people are internally motivated to engage in crime. It is based on the scientific reasoning of popular psychologists such as Sigmund Freud, who proposed that criminal behaviour is either as a result of weak conscience or mental illness (Suthland, 1939). Apart from Freud, John Bowlby also contributed to this theory by proposing that delinquency might be as a result of maternal deprivation. The main difference between biological positivism and psychological positivism is that whereas the former claims that criminals are born criminals, the latter holds that criminality emanates from internal factors influenced by external factors such as poor parenting drugs and abusive relationships (Hester & Eglin, 1992). Continue your journey with our comprehensive guide to A Sociological Examination of Labelling Theory in the Globalized Age.

Lastly, social positivism holds that criminality and criminal behaviour is produced by society. Ideally, believers in this school of thought argue that people become criminals in response to poverty, poor education, low income and unemployment (Bursik & Robert, 1988). A key proponent of this theory was Auguste Comte, and emerged within the context of positivists trying to reject classical theorists’ belief that free will and positive motives as reasons for criminal behaviour. Nonetheless, one advantage of positivism school thought was its attempt to find a scientific reasoning behind human criminal behaviour. Contrariwise, a significant drawback of positivism school is that it views criminality as a product of irrational behaviour that perhaps emanates from a psychological, biological or physical problem, therefore criminals may get a partial relief from the crimes they commit. However, the positivism school is still applied in today’s criminal justice system by taking criminals to psychiatric tests to evaluate their fitness for trial.

References

Braithwaite, J. (1 March 2000). "The New Regulatory State and the Transformation of Criminology". British Journal of Criminology. 40 (2): 222–238.

Bonomi, M., Rochira, V., Pasquali, D., Balercia, G,; Jannini A., Ferlin, A. (2017). "Klinefelter syndrome (KS): genetics, clinical phenotype and hypogonadism". Journal of Endocrinological Investigation. 40 (2): 123–134.

Beirne, P. (March 1987). "Adolphe Quetelet and the Origins of Positivist Criminology". American Journal of Sociology. 92 (5): 1140–1169.

Bursik J. & Robert J. (1988). "Social Disorganization and Theories of Crime and Delinquency: Problems and Prospects". Criminology. 26 (4): 519–539.

Cesare B. (1764). On Crimes and Punishments, and Other Writings. Translated by Richard Davies. Cambridge University Press. p. 64.

Deflem, M. (2006). Sociological Theory and Criminological Research: Views from Europe and the United States. Elsevier. p. 279.

Garland, D. (2002). "Of Crimes and Criminals". In Maguire, Mike; Rod Morgan; Robert Reiner (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Criminology, 3rd edition. Oxford University Press. p. 21.

Goring, C. (1913). The English Convict: A Statistical Study. London: HMSO.

Hester, S., Eglin, P. (1992), A Sociology of Crime, London, Routledge.

McLennan, G., Jennie P., Mike F. (1980). Crime and Society: Readings in History and Theory. Routledge. p. 311.

Marshall, L., Laws, D. & Barbaree, E. (eds.), (1990). Handbook of Sexual Assault: Issues, Theories, and Treatment of the Offender, New York, NY: Plenum Press

Roufa, T. (2019) "Criminology, the Study of Crime, Causes, and Consequences". The Balance Careers. Retrieved 30 April 2019.

Siegel J. (2003). Criminology, 8th edition. Thomson-Wadsworth. p. 7.

Sutherland, H. (1939). Principles of Criminology (3rd Edition). Chicago: J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. pp. 4–8. ISBN 0-930390-69-5.

Seidman, T., Marshall, L., Hudson, S., & Robertson, J. (1994). "An examination of intimacy and loneliness in sex offenders". Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 9, 518-534.