Theories Advance Criminology:
Beccaria Classical school
- Individual sovereignty individual rights have priority over the interests of society or state.
Consisting of the following assumptions
(1.) Humans are born as free, equal, and rational individuals having both natural rights (like
privately owning property) as well as natural qualities (like freedom to reason + choosing
actions that are in their best interests)
(2.) Government was created through a social contract in which free, rational individuals
sacrificed part of their freedom to the state, to maintain peace and security on behalf of
the common good the government would use this power to protect individuals
against those who would choose to put their own interests above others.
- Lawmaking should be the exclusive domain of elected legislators who represent the people.
- Crimes are not offenses against the powerful, but are wrongdoings against fellow humans
(thus against society)
- Law/courts/judges have the responsibility to protect the innocent from conviction and to
convict the guilty based on the facts of the case and regardless of their status/wealth/power
led to the principle of “the presumption of innocence”
- Laws and punishments should be only as restrictive as necessary to just deter those who
would break them by calculating that it would not be in their interest to do so.
- In order for deterrence to work 3 things must occur:
(1.) Certainty a high chance the apprehension and punishment will follow a crime
(2.) Severity the level of punishment must be appropriate to the crime (too severe =
counterproductive, too lenient = will not serve as deterrent)
(3.) Celerity punishment must occur swiftly after apprehension so it appears as a
deterrent to potential offenders
Jeremy Bentham classical school
- Expanded on Beccaria by offering the notion of “hedonistic, or felicity, calculus” stating
that people act to increase positive results through their pursuit of pleasure and to reduce
negative outcomes through the avoidance of pain.
- For individuals to be able to rationally calculate, laws should ban harmful behavior, provided
there is a victim involved (crimes without victims should not be subject to criminal law).
- Laws should set specific punishments for specific crimes in order to motivate people to act
one way rather than another
- Although punishment itself is ‘evil mischief’, the utility principle (greatest good should sought
for the greatest number) justifies using them only to exclude greater evil + in sufficient
measure to outweigh the profit of crime and bring the offender into conformity with law
- For repeat offenders it might be necessary to increase the punishment
- He rejected the death penalty
“Just deserts” model
- The just deserts model arose from skepticism against rehabilitation
, - The model contains 4 key elements
(1.) Limited discretion at all procedural stages of the criminal justice system
(2.) Greater openness and accountability
(3.) Punishment justified by the last crime or series of crime
(4.) Punishment commensurate with the seriousness of the crime, based on actual harm
done and the offender’s culpability
Ronald Clarke and Derik Cornish Rational choice theory (classical theory)
- Theory is a more sophisticated understanding of how people make rational choices about
whether to act and about whether to commit crimes looking at situational factors
- Offenders use free will and consciously/rationally weigh the perceived costs against the
potential benefits = “choice structuring”
- Circumstances, situation and opportunities affect their decision, since these factors are to be
considered when calculating the cost-benefit estimation of risk.
- Contemporary rational-choice theory differs from classical ideas claiming that offenders
exercise “limited rationality” and criminal decisions are neither fully rational nor thoroughly
considered + offenders’ readiness to commit crime varies based on current needs/desires
and experience with consequences of committing particular acts
Cohen and Felson Routine-activities theory
- Similar ideas as the rational-choice theory
- Considers how everyday life brings together potential offenders, crime targets and
vulnerability at a particular place and moment
- Focused on how daily patterns of behavior create/inhibit the opportunities for offender to
commit crimes
- “Target hardening” = crime-prevention strategy decreasing the chance that someone or
something will be a victim of crime
(1.) Like increasing the presence of capable, caring, intimate guardians of potential victims
(2.) Or potential victims changing or varying their routine activities, behavior and lifestyle
Limitations of the rational-choice and routine-activities theories
- criminologist call the claim that ‘benefits of one type of crime are not equally available from
another or from the same crime in another place’, “crime displacement”
- the readiness to substitute one offence for another depends on whether “alternative offences
share characteristics which the offender consider salient to his or her goals and abilities”
- central issue in rational-choice theory whether potential offenders use a rational thought
process in their decision to commit crime + assuming “pure” rationality has virtually no
empirical validity
- critique on routine-activities theory it blames the victim, suggesting that potential victims
should change behavior, lifestyle or even appearance + can lead to a siege mentality
(constantly believe to be under attack in the face of the negative intentions of the world)
, Positivist method biological theory
- social relations and events (including crime) can be studied scientifically using methods
derived from the natural sciences
- the aim is to search for, explain and predict future patterns of social behavior
Cesare Lombroso (Italian school) Atavism (biological determinism)
- Based on evolutionary ideas by Charles Darwin humanity’s “worst dispositions” and
atavism is a “condition in which characteristics that have previously disappeared in the
course of evolution suddenly recur”
- Criminals are hereditary throwbacks to less developed evolutionary forms
- Criminals could be identified by physical stigmata, or visible physical abnormalities =
“atavistic features” like asymmetry of the face, excess toes or fingers, acute sight, etc.
- Not all criminals fell into the atavistic category so Lombroso recognized 4 main classes of
criminals:
(1.) Born criminals atavistic, responsible for the most serious offenses and recidivist +
incorrigible
(2.) Criminals in passion commits crime to correct the emotional pain of an injustice
(3.) Insane criminal could be an imbecile or have an affected brain and is unable to
distinguish right from wrong
(4.) Occasional criminal 4 subtypes: (a) ‘criminaloid’ = of weak nature and easily swayed
by others, (b) ‘epileptoid’ = suffering from epilepsy, (c) habitual criminal = whose
occupation is crime, (d) pseudocriminal = committing crime by accident
- Eventually Lombroso conceded that social-environmental factors influence crime shifting
from a biological theorist to environmental theorist
Ferri Italian school
- Student of Lombroso
- Causes of crime were:
(1.) Physical race, climate, geographic location, etc.
(2.) Anthropological age, gender, psychology, etc.
(3.) Social population density, religion, economic conditions, etc.
- Because causes needed scientific discovery, juries of laypeople were irrelevant and should be
replaced by panels of scientific experts
- Rejected the idea that crime = free choice retributively punishing offenders is pointless
- Suggesting “hygienic measures” such as social and environmental changes, “therapeutic
remedies” designed to be both reparative and repressive, and “surgical operations” (inc.
death)
Raffeale Garofalo Italian school
- Students of Lombroso
- Presented a principle called “adaptation” based on Darwin
- Criminals who are unable to adapt to society and who thereby felt morally free to offend,
should be eliminated, consistent with nature’s evolutionary process
