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CHAPTER 6: TRADITIONAL THEORETICAL EXPLANATIONS FOR YOUTH
MISBEHAVIOUR:
-Two main schools of thought: Classical School & Positivist School.
CLASSICAL SCHOOL OF CRIMINOLOGY: 18TH CENTURY BELIEFS ABOUT THE
CAUSES OF CRIME:
Study Guide: Provide and exposition of the classical school’s view regarding the causes of crime
and apply it to a case study.
-Before the 18th century, the causes of crime were attributed to supernatural powers such as
devils, demons, evil spirits and witches.
-The ways in which the condemned were executed up to the 18th century included drowning,
being buried alive, decapitation, stoning and the breaking of the body on a wheel.
-The classical school, giving the first naturalistic explanation for the occurrence of crime,
replaced the age-old explanation that crime is a supernatural phenomenon.
-Current concepts such as civil rights, testimony, due process, sentencing and deterrence were
incubated in this period.
-2 Mainstream classicists (Beccaria and Bentham), say human nature is characterized by 3
central features.
1. Freedom of choice (people choose all their behaviour, including criminal behaviour)
2. Rationality (people are rational and can use their reason to govern their lives)
3. People are motivated to pursue their own self-interests at the expense of others.
-A key premise of the classical theory is that humans are rational creatures, endowed with a
free will.
-This argument implies that all criminal acts are willful – that is, people commit crimes
because they choose to do so.
Choices are made by comparing the pleasure that can be derived from the offence with
the possibility of punishment (pain vs. pleasure principle)
Fear of punishment determined by certainty, swiftness and severity of punishment
The behaviour of individuals, including criminal behaviour, is a rational choice
,Study Guide: Outline the 3 principles of punishment as formulated by Cesare Beccaria.
-According to these, crime is dependent on the certainty, swiftness and severity of punishment:
1. Certainty Principle: if the observed certainty of punishment increases, the probability
that laws will be broken decreases.
2. Celerity (swiftness) Principle: When the rate of punishment reaction accelerates, the
extent to which rules are broken diminishes.
-If, on the other hand, the enforcement of punishment is slow, the probability is
high that laws will be broken.
3. Severity Principle: the severity of punishment has deterrence value if it does not exceed
a certain level.
-If the punishment for one crime is 40 years and for another 50 years, a person
will not be deterred from committing the crime for which a longer sentence may
be imposed in view of both sentences being unreasonably long.
, THE GROWTH OF SCIENCE: POSITIVIST SCHOOL OF CRIMINOLOGY:
-The assumptions of the classical on the rationality and free will of human nature were
questioned, and a new school of criminology – the positive (or positivist) school – began to take
shape.
-Positivism can be defined as an attempt to use the scientific methods of sampling, control and
analysis to study social phenomena.
Study Guide: Outline the 3 basic assumptions of positivism.
Positivism is based on three basic assumptions, as set out by Batrollas:
1. The character and personal backgrounds of individuals explain youth misbehaviour.
Positivists look for the cause of misbehaviour within the young person.
2. The existence of scientific determinism is a critical assumption of positivism.
-Youth misbehavior, like any other phenomenon, is seen as being determined by
prior causes – it does not just happen – thus positivists reject the view that the
young person exercises freedom, possesses reason and is capable of choice.
3. The young offender is seen as fundamentally different from the non-offender.
-The task then is to identify those factors that have made this young offender a
different kind of person.
-Positivists have concluded that offending youths are driven into crime by
something in their physical makeup, by psychological impulses or by harshness
of their social environment.
Study Guide: Give a detailed exposition of the two sub-divisions of positivism.
The theoretical input of the positivist school can be divided into 2 major groupings:
1. Individual Positivism: Theories of biological and psychodynamic.
2. Sociological Positivism: Theories of social nature.
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