2.1 Classical and Neo Classical Thought PDF

Criminology Today
AN INTEGRATIVE INTRODUCTION
SEVENTH EDITION
CHAPTER 3
Classical and
Neoclassical Thought
Criminology Today, 7th Edition Copyright © 2015 by Pearson Education, Inc.

Frank Schmalleger All Rights Reserved
Chapter Objectives
After reading this chapter, students should be able to answer the
following questions:
• What are the major principles of the Classical School of
criminology?
• What were some forerunners of classical thought in
criminology?
• Who were some important thinkers of the Classical School of
criminology, and what was their legacy?

Chapter Objectives Cont.
• What is neoclassical criminology, and how does it differ
from the classical perspective? How does it build on it?
• What is the role of punishment in neoclassical criminology?
• What are the policy implications of the Classical School and
of neoclassical thought?
• What are the criticisms of classical and neoclassical
perspectives on crime?

Introduction
• Majority of crimes are likely to be

planned, at least to some degree
• This chapter looks at perspectives
based on the believe that at least some
crime is the result of rational choices by
offenders

Figure 3-1 Key Principles of Classical and Neoclassical Criminology
Source: Schmalleger, Frank J., Criminology. Printed and Electronically reproduced by permission of Pearson
Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

Forerunners of Classical Thought
• All human societies had notions of right

and wrong
• William Graham Sumner - behavior is
governed by:
 Mores
• proscriptions covering potentially serious
violations of a group’s values (e.g.,
murder, rape, robbery)
continued on next slide

• William Graham Sumner - behavior is

governed by:
 Folkways
• customs whose violation is less likely to
threaten group survival of the group
(dress codes, social manners)
 Laws
• codified into formal structures for
enforcement purposes

• Mala in se
 Acts said to be fundamentally or inherently
wrong regardless of time or place. (Forcing
someone to have sex against their will or the
intentional killing of children.)
• Mala prohibita
 Acts said to be wrong only because they are
prohibited. (Prostitution, gambling, drug use,
and premarital sex)

The Demonic Era
• Humans always preoccupied with good

vs. evil
• Explanations for evil that appears
cosmically-based (plague) include
divine punishment, karma, fate,
vengeful activities of offended gods

The Demonic Era
• Explanations for evil due to individual

behavior (personal victimization, crime,
deviance) include demonic possession,
spiritual influences, temptation by
fallen angels

Early Sources of Criminal Law
• King Hammurabi ruled Babylon from 1792

to 1750 B.C. and created a legal code.
• Code of Hammurabi
 Emphasis on retribution
• Hammurabi’s law spoke to issues of:
 Theft
 Property ownership
 Sexual relationships and
 Interpersonal violence

• Early Roman Law
 Twelve Tables – A collection of basic rules
regulating family, religion and economic life.
 Based on common and fair practices
 Justinian Code included:
• The Institutes
• The Digest
• The Code
• It distinguished between public and private
laws

• Common Law
 Based on shared traditions supported by court
decisions
 Major source of modern criminal law
• Magna Carta (King John of England)
 Barons demanding respect of their traditions.
 Individual rights
 Due process

The Enlightenment
(Age of Reason)
• Social movement in the 17th & 18th
Centuries
 Thomas Hobbes
• Fear of violent death forces humans into social
contract.
• In exchange the state demands surrender of
certain natural rights and submission to the
absolute authority.

The Enlightenment
(Age of Reason)
• John Locke – Essay Concerning Human
Understanding
• Blank slate
 Expanded social contract concept
• Once government is formed, its obligated to
assume responsibilities toward its citizens.
• Protection, Welfare, Life, Health, Liberty and
Possessions
 Checks and balances

The Enlightenment
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau
 Humans intrinsically good
 Natural law - rights that individuals
retain in the face of government action
and interests
• Thomas Paine
 Natural rights –
 Thomas Jefferson - “life, liberty,
property”
The Classical School
• Enlightenment led to view of humans

as self-determining entities with
freedom of choice
• Led to Classical School of criminological
thought
 Explained crime as resulting from the
exercise of free will
 Moral wrongdoing fed by personal
choice

Cesare Beccaria
• Essay on Crimes and Punishments

(1764)
• Philosophy of punishment
 Purpose of punishment – deterrence,
prevention
 Swift, certain
 Only severe enough to outweigh personal
benefits derived from crime
• Opposed to capital punishment, torture
Jeremy Bentham
• Introduction to the Principles of Moral Legislation

(1789)
• Two sovereign masters:
 Pain and pleasure
• Hedonistic calculus/utilitarianism
 People act to maximize pleasure, minimize pain
 Therefore, pain from punishment must exceed pleasure
from crime
• Panopticon – model prison

Neoclassical Criminology
• Positivism began to dominate in 20th

century
 Use of scientific method to study crime
 Based on hard determinism - belief
that crime results from forces beyond
individual’s control

• Assumptions undermined in 1970s

 Studies suggesting failure of
rehabilitation
 Fear of crime  “get tough on crime”
policies
 Reaffirmation of belief in rationality

• Resurgence of classical ideals in 1970s

– middle ground between total free will
and hard determinism
• Key influences
 Robert Martinson’s survey of
rehabilitation programs leading to
“nothing-works doctrine”

• Key influences
 James Q. Wilson – crime is not a result
of social conditions and cannot be
affected by social programs
 David Fogel’s justice model – criminals
deserve punishment because of their
choices

Rational Choice Theory (RCT)
• Criminals make a conscious, rational

choice to commit crime
• Cost-benefit analysis
 Behavior result of personal choices
made after weighing costs and benefits
 Crime will decrease when opportunities,
limited, benefits reduced, costs
increased

Rational Choice Theory (RCT)
• Two main varieties

 Routine activities theory
 Situational choice theory

Routine Activities Theory
• Lawrence Cohen and Marcus Felson

 Lifestyle and changes in society
contribute to volume, type of crime
• Elements needed for crime:
 Motivated offender
 Suitable target
 Absence of capable guardians

Routine Activities Theory
• Lifestyles that contribute to criminal

opportunities likely to result in crime
because increase risk of potential
victimization

Situational Choice Theory
• Ronald V. Clarke and Derek Cornish

• Soft determinism
 Crime is a function of choices and
decisions made within a context of
situational constraints and opportunities
 Crime requires motivation and
opportunity
• Reduce crime by changing the
environment
Situational Crime Control
Objectives
• Increase the effort involved in crime
• Increase the risks associated with crime
• Reduce the rewards of crime
• Reduce the provocations for crime
• Remove the excuses that facilitate
crime

The Seductions of Crime
• Jack Katz explains crime as the result

of positive attractions of the experience
of criminality
 Crime is often pleasurable for offenders,
which is a major motivation behind
crime
 Crime is sensually compelling

The Seductions of Crime
• Suggests criminology be redirected to

situational factors that directly
precipitate crime and reflect crimes’
sensuality

Situational Crime-
Crime-Control Policy
• Situational crime prevention shifts the

focus away from the offender and onto
the context in which crime occurs
• Begins with opportunity structure of
crime – reduce opportunities to reduce
crime
• Focus on context of crime as alternative
to traditional offender-based crime
prevention policies
Critique of Rational Choice Theory
• Overemphasis on individual choice,

relative disregard for the role of social
factors in crime causation
• Assumes everyone is equally capable of
making rational decisions
• Displacement may occur as a result of
situational crime prevention strategies

Punishment and Neoclassical
Thought
• Classical School emphasizes deterrence
as purpose of punishment
• Neoclassical view adds retribution
 Someone who chooses to violate the law
deserve to be punished
 Criminals must be punished to curtail
future crime

Just Deserts
• Just deserts model of sentencing -

offenders deserve the punishment they
receive and punishments should be
appropriate to type/severity of crime
• Justice is what the individual deserves
when all circumstances are considered

Deterrence
• Types of deterrence
 Specific – goal of sentencing seeking to
prevent a particular offender from
engaging in repeat criminality
 General – seeks to prevent others from
committing similar crimes

Deterrence
• For punishment to deter, it must be

swift, certain, and sufficiently severe
• High recidivism rates suggest specific
deterrence does not prevent repeat
crime

Figure 3-5 The Crime Funnel
Note: Includes drug crimes.
Source: Statistics derived from Kathleen Maquire, ed., Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics,
http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook (accessed May 12, 2013).

Capital Punishment
• Brings together notions of deterrence,

retribution and just deserts
 Considerable disagreement over the
efficacy of death as a criminal sanction
 Much research into efficacy, fairness of
capital punishment

Capital Punishment
• Capital punishment and race

 Opponents cite research suggesting it
has been imposed disproportionately on
racial minorities
 Advocates more concerned with whether
penalty is fairly imposed

Policy Implications of Classical
and Neoclassical Thought
• Determinate sentencing
 Mandates a specific and fixed amount of
time to be served for each offense
category
• Truth in sentencing
 Requires judges to assess and make
public the actual time an offender is
likely to serve

Policy Implications of Classical
and Neoclassical Thought
• Incapacitation
 The use of imprisonment to reduce the
likelihood that an offender will be able
to commit future crimes

A Critique of Classical Theories
• Represents more a philosophy of justice

than a theory of crime causation
• Lacks explanatory power over criminal
motivation – does not really explain
how choices for/against crime are made
• Little empirical scientific basis for
claims of Classical School


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Criminology Today

Criminology Today, 7th Edition Copyright © 2015 by Pearson Education, Inc.

Criminology Today, 7th Edition Copyright © 2015 by Pearson Education, Inc.

Criminology Today, 7th Edition Copyright © 2015 by Pearson Education, Inc.

• Majority of crimes are likely to be

Criminology Today, 7th Edition Copyright © 2015 by Pearson Education, Inc.

Criminology Today, 7th Edition Copyright © 2015 by Pearson Education, Inc.

• All human societies had notions of right

continued on next slide

Criminology Today, 7th Edition Copyright © 2015 by Pearson Education, Inc.

• William Graham Sumner - behavior is

continued on next slide

Criminology Today, 7th Edition Copyright © 2015 by Pearson Education, Inc.

Criminology Today, 7th Edition Copyright © 2015 by Pearson Education, Inc.

• Humans always preoccupied with good

continued on next slide

Criminology Today, 7th Edition Copyright © 2015 by Pearson Education, Inc.

• Explanations for evil due to individual

Criminology Today, 7th Edition Copyright © 2015 by Pearson Education, Inc.

• King Hammurabi ruled Babylon from 1792

continued on next slide

Criminology Today, 7th Edition Copyright © 2015 by Pearson Education, Inc.

Criminology Today, 7th Edition Copyright © 2015 by Pearson Education, Inc.

Criminology Today, 7th Edition Copyright © 2015 by Pearson Education, Inc.

continued on next slide

Criminology Today, 7th Edition Copyright © 2015 by Pearson Education, Inc.

Criminology Today, 7th Edition Copyright © 2015 by Pearson Education, Inc.

• Enlightenment led to view of humans

Criminology Today, 7th Edition Copyright © 2015 by Pearson Education, Inc.

• Essay on Crimes and Punishments

• Introduction to the Principles of Moral Legislation

Criminology Today, 7th Edition Copyright © 2015 by Pearson Education, Inc.

• Positivism began to dominate in 20th

continued on next slide

Criminology Today, 7th Edition Copyright © 2015 by Pearson Education, Inc.

• Assumptions undermined in 1970s

continued on next slide

Criminology Today, 7th Edition Copyright © 2015 by Pearson Education, Inc.

• Resurgence of classical ideals in 1970s

continued on next slide

Criminology Today, 7th Edition Copyright © 2015 by Pearson Education, Inc.

Criminology Today, 7th Edition Copyright © 2015 by Pearson Education, Inc.

• Criminals make a conscious, rational

continued on next slide

Criminology Today, 7th Edition Copyright © 2015 by Pearson Education, Inc.

• Two main varieties

Criminology Today, 7th Edition Copyright © 2015 by Pearson Education, Inc.

• Lawrence Cohen and Marcus Felson

continued on next slide

Criminology Today, 7th Edition Copyright © 2015 by Pearson Education, Inc.

• Lifestyles that contribute to criminal

Criminology Today, 7th Edition Copyright © 2015 by Pearson Education, Inc.

• Ronald V. Clarke and Derek Cornish

Criminology Today, 7th Edition Copyright © 2015 by Pearson Education, Inc.

• Jack Katz explains crime as the result

continued on next slide

Criminology Today, 7th Edition Copyright © 2015 by Pearson Education, Inc.

• Suggests criminology be redirected to

Criminology Today, 7th Edition Copyright © 2015 by Pearson Education, Inc.

• Situational crime prevention shifts the

• Overemphasis on individual choice,

Criminology Today, 7th Edition Copyright © 2015 by Pearson Education, Inc.

Criminology Today, 7th Edition Copyright © 2015 by Pearson Education, Inc.