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Classical Theory
Italian philosopher Cesare Beccaria published his work "On Crime and Punishment", which changed the way the Criminal Justice System (CJS) operated. he attacted the savage punishments that were based on local landowner's beleifs. He stated that crimes should be based on laws, not religion and supersition. At the time the CJS was designed to control the working class, created for the rich minorities in societies. The sanctions were extremely harsh. -
Classical Theory
For example, in the UK, over 200 crimes were punishable by the death penalty. Beccaria aruged: Human intelligence gives individuals the ability to distinguish right from wrong, therefore anyone can make the rational decision whether or not to commit a crime (this is known as human free will). This claim is known as Voluntarism. his second claim is in making decisions, an individual will look at the benefits and costs of their actions on whether or not to commit a crime. -
Classical Theory
He stated that criminal justice should be based on laws which apply equally to everyone in society i.e. the rich and poor. Beccaria believed that the punishment should fit the crime abd should be the least possible to deter criminal behaviour. Also, sanctions should be applied soon after the offence to deter criminal behaviour. This theory was considered a vast improvment to previous systems. He argued that if an individual had the intelligence to make a rational choice between offending or not. -
Classical Theory
it is appropriate for the state to punish the offender. With the contrast to earlier harsh and unreasonable punishments, Beccaria argued individuals would be detered by minimal but fair sanctions which were applied promtly. However, in a lot of societies the rich were not supportive and the arugment of equality of classes was not approved by all. Classical theory recieved criticism that the sentencing was too lenient and the law was too soft on crriminals (something that is still spoken of... -
Classical Theory
There was regualr reports of crime and disorder in the big cities with respectable citizens fearing being on the streets at night. This increased pressure on judges caused them to give harsher sentences to deter criminals. -
Classical Theory
in the press.) WIthin the first half of the 19th century, in the UK, the theories were accepted and applied, judges gave mininal sentences to deter offending behaviour. Also at the time there was a mass movement of the population from the countryside to the big cities, which was driven by the industrial revolution. This gave rise to concern amoung the ruling classes as large numbers of working class people were living in close proximity, this was thought to create risk of revolution. -
Positivism
In the 19th century, advances in medicine and the sciences (biology, chemistry and physics) based research on the method of careful observation and experimentation. Theorists argued these methods applied to criminal behaviour, it is known as Positivism. Unlike classical theory, the positivsts argued human nature was basically good and criminal behaviour is caused from factors outside of an individual's control - this claim rejects voluntarism. -
Positivism
Positivists rejected the idea of deterrence and instead said individuals must be given expert help to resolve the problem - this policy is called rehabilitation. This gave rise to the biologial theory of crime, brought forward by Italian physicain Lombroso. -
Positivism: Lombroso's Biological Theory
Lombroso studied body shapes and sizes of convicted murderers to prove this group was physically different from law-abiding citizens. Not that 200 years on from Lombroso's arugment that crinimals look physically different from law-abiding citizens , people still make judgements on physical stereotypes. -
Positivism
If these factors discovered from the new research method , criminals could be cured in some way similar to how illness and disease has been. It is a structual approach that looks for factors outside of an individual's control that causes criminal behaviour, in order to cure them. This is called determinism. The argument lead to conclusions that if an individual has no choice in committing a crime, it is wrong to punish actions outside of the individual's control. -
Right Realism
James Q. Wilson, who was US President Ronald Reagan's adviser, aruged crime exists because wicked people exist and most crimes are commited because the deviant believes the benefits of the crime outweighs the costs. In order to control crime, punishments should be tough and swift - the difference to the classical approach of minimal sentences. Criminals would be locked up to prevent them from reoffending, the policy is known as selective incapacitation. Both the public and policy makers... -
Right Realism
Wilson aruged that it is important to repair damage from vandalism and improve rundown areas, because if it was not done then a message is sent out that no one cares and the problem will only get worse. Therefore, maintaining a good environment in a community will contribute to crime control. He aruged that individual responsibilty must be taken to reduce crime, campaigns encouraged households to lock car doors and secure your home. This shifts responsibilty from the goverment to the vicitim. -
Right Realism
The phrase "taking crime seriously" was coined from the theorists of realism to attack the way in which they saw crime being excused by the positivists criminologists, this gained massive public acceptance. -
Right Realism
enthusiastic about these simple but direct measure to cut crime. In order to gain appectance of their theory, right realists attacted the positivist theory: that research in the UK and USA shown that rehab did not work and the costs were unacceptable; there is so many potenial factors causing criminal behaviour that it is impossible to cure them all; individuals commit crime through choice (voluntairism) a lack of self control and responsibilty leads to crime. -
Positivism: Genetic Explanations of Crime
In the 20th century research on biological factors focused on the transmission of characteristics by genes. Research found indentical twins shown similar tastes, talents and patterns of behaviour - including criminal behaviour. Professor Sarnoff Mednick and his colleagues continued the genetic argument by discovering a pattern of inherited autonomic nervous system charateristics amoung known offenders, meaning they didn't have the same constraints against anti-social behaviour present.... -
Positivism: Genetic Explanations of Crime
Present in non-offenders. The common factor between these biological explanations of crime is criminals have no choice but to commit crimes due to genetic factor(s), which have been indicated by their research. The scientific research has had a considerable impact on the general public and policy makers and some of these ideas have credibility today. -
Left Realism
A reason to why this was the case is that lower classes would be unable to obtain luxuries like expensive sports cars because of their working class status and therefore would steal from the higher classes. -
Left Realism
The UK former Prime Minister, Tony Blair (then leader of Labour Party) used the left realsit theories of criminologist Jock Young to base his crime and justice policy, the same way Ronald Reagan used Wilsons theories on right realism. They aruged that majority of criminal behaviour was carried out by memebers of the workiong class against other memebers of the working class. From a survey conducted by the then goverment party found that right realist imprisionment policies were not working to.. -
Left Realism
Left Realism is a theory to explain crime, which rejects deterance and didn't believe it was a result of poverty, but that it was down to family values and a lack of discipline. This was viewed as a more realist view of crime, hence "Realism". The theory calls for higher co-operation levels between the police and public. It outlines the difference in classes and how they were treated. For example, the upper classes has a higher crime rate of fraud and the lower classes had higher cases of theft. -
Left Realism
cut down crime. A key claim stated that it was the deprivation of these working class individuals, where their expectations of people where not by real opportunities, which was a reason for criminal behaviour. To combact this, the labour party's aim was to biuld a more equal society.