Classical Criminology (1750s-1850s) and Positivism:

o Pre-Modern Crime – prior to the modern age of crime/criminal behaviours in Europe had
been explained for over a thousand years by spiritualistic notions.
o St Thomas Aquinas (1225-74) argued there was a God-given natural law that he defined
through the eyes of faith by observing people’s natural tendency towards good or evil. So
criminals were also classified as ‘sinners’ and damaged offenders personal image with a lack
of ‘humanness’.
o Demonology was a central theory in spiritualist ideology. It proposed criminals were
possessed by demons that forced them into crime.
o Pre-Modern European legal systems were founded off of spiritualistic explanations of crime
and what little written law that existed was applied through judicial interpretation and
caprice.
o It often did not apply to anybody in aristocracy or above.
o Crime was identified with sin and demonology theory so the state had moral authority to
use torture as a punishment.
o The emphasis of punishment was moreover on the physical body of the accused.
o Pre-modern punishment frequently involved torture and in some cases there was a
jurisdictional possibility of being tortured to death as a penal option.
o The bulk of the population possessed little else on which the power to punish could be
usefully exercised.
o The Age of Enlightenment (mid 1600’s – early 1800’s?):
o Scientific Method
o Rejections of religious orthodoxy
o Realisation that knowledge is power
o Pre-enlightenment thinkers/events
o Enlightenment thinkers
o The Classical School of Criminology viewed crime as rational, self-interested, freely-chosen
behaviour. Moving away from pre-modern spiritualistic thinking. It was recommended that
reformers should focus on the motivational state of the offender.
o The basis of Classicism:
o Individuals determine what is in their own self-interest and act accordingly but this
can often impinge on the interest and rights of others.
o One of the features of a well ordered state was the construction of a criminal justice
system that persuaded people that law abiding behaviour was in their best interest.
o Death penalty scrutinized except for the most heinous of crimes.
o Beccaria and Bentham advocated for rationalist legal and penal reform. They premised their
beliefs upon the notion that human behaviour was shaped by:
o The pursuit of maximum advantage, pleasure and happiness.
o The avoidance/minimalization or prevention of pain, unhappiness and cost.
o Each individual rationally decides on ‘pain’ or ‘pleasure’.
o Beccaria (1738-1794), Deterrence:
o Punishment only justified when offenders impinge on other’s rights.
o Seriousness of the crime should be determined by the degree to which it impinges
on others.
o Penalties should be proportionate to the crime committed, as excessive punishment
is ineffective.
 o Punishment should be swift and linked to the crime while fresh in the offender’s
mind.
o Punishment should be free of corruption.
o Law should clearly advertise what is and is not forbidden.
o Laws should restrict individuals as little as possible.
o Bentham (1948-1832), concept of utilitarianism:
o Punishment and pain had to be for the greater good.
o Crime is a normal behaviour in that it encapsulates social norms and values.
o Offenders often break the law for excitement, money, or sex.
o Laws should be designed to preserve public safety and order.
o A well-ordered criminal justice system needs to ensure that the pain of the
punishment outweighs the pleasure of the crime.
o Humans aee selfish, rational calculating individuals and crime will therefore always
be with us – the intention is to keep levels of crime down.
o Following Rousseau (1762), individuals have to chose to sacrifice some of their
liberty to the state to prevent social chaos.
o A tendency to offend is in everyone but as rational beings we consider our actions.
o There should be a rational, fair and proportionate penal structure set by the
legislature and written in criminal codes which are proportionate based on harm
done to society.
o Punishment should be designed to deter people from offending and thus penal
codes should be well publicised, as prevention is better than punishment.
o Judges should apply the criminal code equality under law and have few discretionary
powers.
o The accused should have a right to a speedy trial and the right to confront accusers.
o Bentham’s Panoptican:
o Allowed all (pan) inmates of an institution to the observed (opticon) by a single
watchman without the inmates being able to tell whether or not they are being
watched.
o Segregation of inmates, teaching of trade, regular religious instruction,
discouragement of idleness.
o Circular prisons should be built close to major cities as a reminder to the general
public.
o The prison consists of cells around the outside with the warden sat in the middle.
o The fact that the inmates couldn’t know when they were being watched meant that
all inmates had to act as though they were being watched at all times, effectively
controlling their own behaviour constantly.
o Never built in the UK, but some were built in USA.
o ‘Scared straight’ and other programmes involve organised visits to prison facilities by
juvenile delinquents or at-risk kids to deter them from delinquency. Despite several research
studies/reviews questioning their effectiveness, they remain in use and have now been tried
in at least six nations. (From 2003)
o Some Criticisms of classical criminology’s tenets:
o Do we all have the same capacity/ability to make rational decisions.
o Biological facts will impact this, such as – age, class, mental health, and education.
o Classical criminology greatly impacted on criminal justice practice, capital punishment and
torture declined and there was a growth of prisons in the 18 th and 19th century. Deterrence
 was a key aspect and theory developed around growth in support of crime as a rational
choice through a decision making process.
o Positivism: looks at the relationship between criminal behaviour and the
psychological/sociological traits of an offender. E.g. linking a crime to a lack of parental care.
o Criminality is associated with abnormality or defectiveness.
o Positivism is historically approached in two ways:
o Individual positivism: links criminal behaviour to the psychological factors of the
individual offender. Criminologists believe psychiatric or personality conditions
present in an individual are at the root of crime. Therefore psychology could help
mitigate criminal behaviour.
o Sociological positivism: mainly focuses on how certain social factors of an
individual’s life can lead to a higher propensity from crime. These factors can include
economic, political, familial, and more. Criminologists lean towards mitigating crime
through social reform.
o Left wing’s legal policies tend to lean towards positivism theory whereas right wing typically
leans towards classical criminological theory.
o How the Enlightenment eventually lead to positivism:
o The methods of the natural sciences should be applied to the social sciences.
o Knowledge of the social world should be based on observation.
o Facts are separate from values.
o Quantitative not qualitative evidence matters.
o Effective methods of data collection paramount.
o In the late 19th century, classicism came under scrutiny by the shift towards
scientific, biological and physiological though. (Charles Darwin).
o Blame previously applied to causes beyond the individual actor.
o Increased collection of data and the development of statistics.
o Phrenology: the theory of brain and science of character reading or as it was called in the
19th century by phrenologists – the one true science of mind. The basic tenets layed out by
Fraz Joseph Gall (1758-1828) were:
o The brain is the organ of the mind.
o The mind is composed of multiple distinct, innate faculties.
o Because they are distinct, each faculty must have a separate seat or ‘organ’ in the
brain.
o The size of an organ, other things being equal, is a measure of it’s power.
o The shape of the brain is determined by the development of the various organs.
o As the skull takes its shape from the brain, the surface of the skull can be read as an
accurate index of psychological aptitudes and tendencies.