Biological and Classical School

The way individuals learn to interact with society as children tends to predict how they will interact with society and respond to its environments as adults. There are social theories that help the understanding of why individuals choose deviant behaviors and how they progress through life. Social process theories view criminal and deviant criminal behaviors as evolving mechanisms learned through societal interaction. Social development theories view deviant and criminal behaviors as part of a maturation process. Social theories are conclusions that have come about based on the response of individuals to

However, Classical school also emphasize new principles of criminal justice, including social system of penalty, legitimacy and legality of crimes. In this sense, no punishment without laws, individualization of punishments, legislative criminalization of acts, and fixed punishments graded in proportion to the gravity of crime. Many arguments were made on crimes and punishment, concerning

They believed that each one of us is a potential criminal, and that crime provides a short cut way to getting what we need. Responsibility- the classical school believed that if we do something wrong or do something at the expence of someone we should be able to own up and take responsibilty for our own actions. Also they believed that punishment was a good way to show potential offenders what would happen to them if they behaved in a criminal way. They believed that anyone who breaks the law should be punished to pay the price.

Everyone has a free will to do whatever they want. People can choose or not to commit a crime. Classicalism developed its ideas from John Locke. He states that all men are created equal. Classicalism requires certainty and promptness. Fear requires certainty, where promptness is essential to make a lasting impression. Classicalism started in the eighteenth century. Cesare Beccaria argued for justice based on equality. When law enforcement was unjust and punishment was brutal, the people demanded justice for equality and punishment that was civilized. The whole idea for equality influenced the American Revolution, which its declaration explained that all men are created equal. I support this theory because it gives out an equal amount of punishment based on the crime; basically the crime is proportional with the punishment. Secondly classicalism removes criminals off the street by placing them in jail or prison for public safety. By reducing crimes the system is tough on the smaller crimes to prevent bigger crimes from happening. Plus having unequal approaches to punishment does not serve justice at all. I say this because

This theory has a different focus than typical theories; in this theory, conformity is emphasized, specifically, with the focus being on the reasoning behind why people conform and obey society’s rules, instead of why people deviate from norms. This theory operates under the basic assumption that delinquent behavior occurs because of a person’s bond or tie to society being weak or non-existent. There are four elements that make up this bond: attachment to others, commitment, involvement, and belief. Thus, the stronger the bond’s element, the less likely a person is going to engage in crime; likewise, the weaker the element of the bond is, the more likely a person is going to commit crime. Also, all four identified elements are said to be connected and interdependent, so a weakness in one element will more than likely lead to weaknesses in the other elements. In other words, these elements control a person’s level of conformity; crime control stems from one’s ties to conventional society. This theory also assumes that people are born naturally selfish; however, this is not a born tendency or trait. Rather, this means that the motivation for crime in society is evenly spread out since everyone has the same inclination for crime. Similarly, under this theory, the way people are controlled by society through these bonds is

The classical school of criminology was discussed in my Crim 2 class by Dr. Timothy Kams and the fundamental points that it covers are “Crime is caused by the independent exercise of free will, pain and pleasure are the two central determinants of human Behavior, and crime erodes the bond between individual and society”. In this critique classical criminology theories are applied in this critique in the areas it claims to blame for the cause of crime like social interactions and free will of rational

Trait theories posit that crime is caused by certain traits, biological or psychological, among individuals which predispose them to crime. These traits control the individual's coping strategies and ultimately result in criminal behavior. Social philosopher Cesare Lombroso, working in the early 1900's, theorized that there were common physical traits shared by criminals. (Glaser, 205-6). These included distinct characteristics in the jaw line, teeth, and nose as cranium of offenders. As a result, public law enforcement viewed offenders as either incapable of reason or as unable to control their animal impulses. (Glaser, 206).

The biological theories are essential to the criminal justice profession so that they won't assume that a person's genetic characteristics cause a person to commit a crime. However, there are born criminals and “these types of criminals are the most dangerous, and can be identified through his or her stigmata or identifying characteristics” (Akers, Sellers, See, & Kieser, 2013, p. 10). Biological theories are the bases for severe criminal behavior mostly found among people who are born with an innate impulse to commit a

First, psychological theory suggests that a person’s environment and past can influence their ability and desire to commit crime while biological theory suggest a person’s DNA makeup could influence their ability to commit crime. “Biological theories within the field of criminology attempt to explain behaviors contrary to societal expectations through examination of

Criminology earliest development traces back to the early 1700s, however did not fully bloom until the 1800s when criminal laws were being made and enforced (Altrichter, 2015). With this in mind, the first school to be developed through criminology was the classical school. The classical school was founded upon the thoughts and ideas of Cesare Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham (Altrichter, 2015). Cesare Beccaria implicated the idea that a crime is to be punished depending on its severity and rather not the criminal (Altrichter, 2015). Jeremy Bentham contributed to the classical school by stating that through a series of weighing the pleasure and pains of their results, this would increase or decrease the chances that a criminal would create a crime (Altrichter, 2015). The most notable idea that developed through the classical school is that criminals have a free will and can thinking

All the biological theories are based on the notion that biological markers foreordain criminal behavior. The core of all these theories is that genetic factors or any abnormalities which are inherited or acquired throughout the life, predispose individuals to the criminal behavior. Lombroso’s theory gave life to probably almost every single biological theory that appeared afterward.

Lifestyle Theory is a theory in Criminology created by Glenn Walters in 1990. Unsurprisingly this theory is just as the name would suggest, a lifestyle choice to be a criminal. This theory focuses heavily on the biological factors that influence a person’s ability to commit crime. Walters wrote three concepts to his theory: conditions, choice, and cognition. To start, I will address conditions. In Walters’s theory, he discusses the environmental and biological conditions that are involved in entering the criminal lifestyle. The environmental condition is based around your environment like the name suggests. What that means is that the decision to commit crime is due in part by your living situations and needs. This

The Positivist Theory has struggled to find scientific fairness for the measurement and quantification of criminal behaviors (Ellingworth, 2008). It believed that criminals are significantly different from noncriminal either biologically, psychologically, sociological or all three (Bohm and Vogel, 2011). As the scientific method became the major model in the search for knowledge, the Classical Theory’s social philosophy was substituted for the convention of scientific laws (Ellingworth, 2008). This theory was developed during a time when social changes were occurring. It was based on the idea that science had no major purpose than the establishment of intellectual order (Bohm and Vogel, 2011). This assumption clarified that positivism was based on the relationship between causes and effects, not free will (Bohm and Vogel, 2011). As a result, this reasoning could be established when three to five conditions were met. On the other hand, this theory suggested that human being always have choices. These choices were the product of social status. The problem at hand is how limited those choices are. Positivist believed that individuals have the choice to act or not to act in certain circumstances (Bohm and Vogel, 2011). This allowed the freedom of choice to execute rational decision making.

Classical Criminology first emerged in the 18th century when individuals started to rebel against the harsh punishments given across Europe and America. Punishments rarely fit the crime and were severe and excessive as a tool to scare individuals from committing crime. Before this, was considered the enlightenment period, which was an era of thinking crime, was solely the product of evil and deserved to be punished severely. Religious views dominated the criminal justice system suggesting criminality was the result of the devil. Punishments were often barbaric and ruthless. Then the feudal system started to develop and individuals were employed as police and judges to maintain social order. However the courts were unjust and usually lenient to those of the upper class. Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794) is probably most well known as the founding father of the school of classical criminology. He protested against the current legal system and pushed for those in power to see that individuals are rational beings and deserve rational repercussions. In his most popular work; Essay on Crimes and Punishments, he protested against the cruel punishments and suggested that they must only be equal to that of the crime itself and revolutionised the criminal justice system with his ideals on how to make the most effective punishment, without maximum damage of the individual. He believed that “Punishment is only justified to the extent that the offender has infringed the rights of others or

The social policies the theory suggests are not as helpful as one would hope. We can run from everything but our DNA. A downfall of the biosocial theory is that it suggests that criminal behavior is inherited (Rocque, 2014). Unsurprisingly this is constantly criticized. There is no true proof that a person can inherit criminal behavior but there is evidence that suggests it might. It has not always proven true. The biosocial theory primarily focuses on parents passing down traits onto their children. People that have parents who engage in criminal activity have grown up to be upstanding citizens. People who consider taking a pen from someone is wrong could have a child that has no problem with stealing a car.