Schools of Criminology

Criminology is the scientific study of crime as a social phenomenon, of lawbreakers i.e

criminals, and of penal treatment.❑[ 1] Many scholars have also defined the term, some of them
are - Edwin Sutherland said, “Criminology is the body of knowledge regarding crime as a
social phenomenon” and Donald Taft said, “Criminology in a general sense is the study of
crime and criminals. In a specific sense it seeks to study criminal behavior, its goal being to
reform the criminal behavior or conduct of the individual which society condemns”. Criminology
derived from the words “crīmin” and “logos” which means “crime/accusation” and “study”
respectively and it was first defined in 1872. Criminology incorporates the investigation of all
parts of wrongdoing and law requirements—criminal psychology, the social setting of
wrongdoing, denial and anticipation, examination and location, catch and discipline. In this
manner, a significant number of individuals included—lawmakers, social specialists, probation
officers, judges, and so on—might be viewed as criminologists, however the word normally
alludes just to researchers and scholars.

Criminology deals mainly with: -

● The Acts of Crime

● The Person Committing the Crime i.e Criminal
● Victims
● Crime causation theory
● Detention and Prevention of crimes from guilty parties
● Efficiency of judicial system against crime

When criminology gained popularity as a subject, then many schools of thought came into
existence mainly in the 18th and the 19th century. Some of them are listed below:-

● Pre-Classical School
● Classical School
● Neo-Classical School
● Positivist School
● Cartographic School

1. Pre-Classical School of Criminology

This school is also called demonological school. During the seventeenth century, the
demonological theory succeeded in Europe with the strength of the church and religion. The
principle of divine intervention especially through ordeals was in vogue in ancient India. The
common belief was that, “man by nature is simple and his actions are controlled by some super
power”. It was additionally for the most part accepted that a man carries out wrongdoing because
of the impact of some outer soul called ‘demon’ or ‘devil’, so according to this thinking
offenders commit a wrongful act not because of his free will but due to the influence of some
super power. According to the pre-classical school thoughts, crime and criminals are the proof of
the way that the individual was possessed by some evil power.❑[ 2]
As the world of scientific knowledge was yet to be scratched by the majority of society, the
concept of crime was rather vague.
However, the system fell into disuse with the advent of British rule in India and subsequent
rationalization of the Penal Law.
Pre-classical school span means the span of the 17th and 18th century when the dominance of
religion in the state activities was the chief characteristic of that time.
Earlier sinful acts which were similar to that of crimes were prevented due to the fear of
punishment by the hands of the king. God’s rage was considered to offer discipline to the guilty
parties. The path of the wrongdoers was through fights, pelting of stones and was accepted that
no damage would be caused if the guilty party was innocent.

2. Classical School of Criminology

Criminal law has its origin in torts, wrong to individuals. All the wrongs produced efforts at self
redress to the injured parties and they were eventually treated as injuries to particular individuals
and after the group took charge of the treatment they were regarded as injuries to the group or
state.❑[ 3]
Secondly there is a hypothesis according to which criminal law started in the rational process of
unified society. When wrongs occurred the society took thought and made rules so that these
wrongs don’t get repeated i.e. the classical school of thought.
Cesare Beccaria, Jeremy Bentham and Romilly are some of the founders of the classical school
of criminology. According to this school all men are selfish and subsequently they entice to
submit the offense also as per this school, men have unrestrained choice and go about according
to their pleasure and torment (hedonism). The hypothesis of demonism; demonstration of men
affected by soul is dismissed by this school.
Italian criminologist Cesare Bonesana di Beccaria, who is widely considered as the most talented
jurist and one of the greatest thinkers of the Age of Enlightenment, suggested that discipline of
wrongdoing ought to be proportionate to its reality. Beccaria's idea was with the end goal that
torment was improper and in this way permitted frail to implicate and the solid would be
discovered blameless before the mediation. The philosophy of Beccaria is trailed by the
classicalists, who center around wrongdoing, rather the criminal. The classical school focuses on
the principle of prevention in place of punishment.

The classical school of criminal law and criminology had three important principles: -
 ➢ The rights and liberties of the individual must be conserved (equality)
➢ Crime is judicial abstraction (definite penalty for each crime)
➢ Punishment should be limited by the social need.

Gradually modifications crept into the practices of the classical school as it became clear that
exceptions had to be made in the application of its principles. Children and lunatics were
exempted from key punishment; this modified approach is sometimes called “neoclassical”.
The classical school is based on hedonistic psychology and according to this psychology human
conduct is governed by the considerations of pleasure and pain. Beccaria applied it to penology,
its main propositions were: -❑[ 4 ]

➢ The actor has a freewill.

➢ He acts in accordance with the calculations of pleasure and pain.
➢ He is solely responsible for his actions.
➢ Failure means wrong and so society must teach him a lesson.

3. Neo-Classical School of Criminology

The neo-classical school rose, in large part, to cure a portion of the issues made by the classical
thought school. The basic doctrine of the classical era continued to be that man is a creature
guided by reason, whose will is free and who therefore is responsible for his acts and who can be
controlled by his fear of punishment. Thus the neo-classical school represents primarily the
modifications necessary in the administration of the criminal law based on classical theory. Need
of individualism and discriminating judgement to fit individual circumstances is the basic store
of this theory.
The practical difficulties in 1791 in the application of the neo-classical theory are as follows: -

➢ Total ignorance of individual differences and significance of particular situations.

➢ Treatment to first time offenders and repeaters exactly alike on the basis of criminal act
committed, not on the basis of what kind of individuals they might happen to be.
➢ Incompetents i.e. minors, insane are treated as incompetent in determining the guilt and
the punishment.

Some remittance was given for a guilty party's previous record. A court needs to consider a
guilty party's criminal history and life conditions when settling on a choice about somebody's
sentence. Thought ought to be given for factors like inadequacy, pathology, craziness and
imprudent conduct. Likewise, certain people, for example, youngsters and the intellectually sick,
are commonly less fit for practicing their explanation.
Neo-classical style school intensely underscores choice and human discernment; it essentially
refined these thoughts marginally so they would work in everyday tasks of the criminal equity
framework. This model gave a gander at potential impacts that could sabotage volition.
Organizations of social control in totally progressed mechanical social orders have received this
model of human conduct.

4. Positivist School of Criminology

The positivist school was formed in Italy in 1878 and it was formed due to some peculiar
conditions of the country with its great and strange contrast between the theoretical doctrines and
the painful fact of an ever increasing criminality.❑[ 5]
The positivist school is famously called the Lombrosian School. Cesare Lombroso in 1876
insisted the atavistic root of the born criminals and proposed a strong connection between crime,
epilepsy, insanity and degeneracy in general as such, a sort of man more primitive and savage
than his civilised counterpart. 〖 ^([6]) 〗 . The originators of this theory are Cesare Lombroso,
Enrico Ferri, Raffaello, and Garofalo. Positivists center around lawbreakers as opposed to
wrongdoing. The positivists restrict the classical style school's comprehension of wrongdoing.
According to the positivists, each individual is unique so is their comprehension of good and bad
consequently, the individual and not the wrongdoing ought to be punished.
This school was begun by thinking about wrongdoing as a result of heredity and ecological
variables. The positivist school of criminology is connected with natural, mental and sociological
theory to criminal conduct.
Positivism considered itself to be the methodical disposal of the unrestrained choice mysticism
of the classical school and its substitution by a study of society, taking on for itself the
undertaking of the annihilation of wrongdoing, Ian Taylor, Paul Walton and Jock Young wrote in
“The New Criminology: For a Social Theory of Deviance”. This new, deterministic development
was solidified by Enrico Ferri, who supported the methodology at that point being utilized by an
Italian military doctor, Cesare Lombroso.

The positive technique comprised of carefully viewing the characteristics of culprits to get
understanding into the explanations behind their reserved behaviour. Ferri didn't agree with all
Lombroso's decisions, for instance, that a couple of individuals are considered gangsters and that
some actual features, like the condition of a person's head or the position of one's cheekbones,
can envision criminal lead. Regardless, Ferri took the inductive technique and set out to make a
science that would explain the reasons behind bad behavior inside society and the individual
guilty party.
The emphasis of positivism on the individual may have been the best promise to criminology and
the criminal value system. It incited groupings of guilty parties, for instance, constant criminals,
just as classes among madness and rational soundness. It moreover incited the use of brain
science in thinking about transgressors, opening the course for different kinds of sentences and
medicines that fit the criminal and not the bad behavior.

5. Cartographic School of Criminology

The cartographic school of criminology has its origin in the year 1830 and it has explanation
through ecology, culture with maps and statistical methods. Qaetelt and Guarry were the leaders
of this school. This school is called a ‘geographic school’.
The school primarily considered “Crime to be the necessary expression of the environment”. In
other words “crime is the expression of the environmental influences as there exists functional
relationship between criminality and environment”.
According to Adolf Quelter “Crimes against persons were more prevalent in warm climates and
crimes against property were more numerous in cold ones”.
The great Russian anarchist by name Prince Kropotkin went to the extent of prescribing a
formula for predicting homicides on the basis of climate i.e. Number of homicides committed
during the month = (Average temperature of the month*7)+(Average of humidity*2).
Climatologist have also evolved biological sex periodicity. Incidence of sex crimes are
maximum in May and June. However this is falsified by medical science. Following criticisms
are leveled against this approach: -

➢ It ignores other factors, Exam - heredity.

➢ Even in an ideal environment crimes are committed. Example - Two sons born in the
same family, one may turn out to be a criminal another may be a saint.
➢ Some of the conclusions are ridiculous.
➢ It prevents investigations into real causes of crime.

However, one has to appreciate that this school indicates season as one of the causes of crime,
some crimes show a striking dependence on the season and it has stimulated some imperial
research in this direction.

Conclusion

The possibility of social harm can be used to open up the possible results of new records in
essential criminology, for example, Green Criminology and eco crime, human opportunities and
human security. It makes the open door for new examinations of how to direct overall social
relations and elective strategies for envisioning value. Inside a social harm and supranational
framework, a grouping of social and criminological concerns can be considered in an unexpected
way.
Basic criminological perspectives all widely insinuate a strain of criminology that considers
wrongdoings to be the aftereffect of social conflict; conflicting power and social relations; and
patterns of checking and significance making. Accordingly, essential criminologies have invited
a progressive reconfiguring of our fixation from criminal value to social value.

Fundamental criminological approachs left from the positivist sources of standard criminology
that had focused in primarily on the mission for the purposes behind bad behavior, rather than
investigating the basic order of bad behavior.These fundamental techniques began to focus in
rather on the cycles by which the law is made, and by which, individuals and gatherings become
condemned.

The rise of basic criminology spoke to an obvious move in criminological reasoning. In this
course you have been made familiar with different key thoughts and lots of hypotheses that
dimissed thoughts of individual and social pathology in tendency to structures that take a look at
bad behavior and anomaly through cycles by which certain practices are described, named and
policed by the state.

Citation

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/criminology(last visited on October 28, 2020)

[2] N.V. Paranjape, Criminology and Penology
[3] Prof. B.K. Goswami, A Critical Study Of Criminology and Penology
[4] V.S. Chitnis, Lectures on Criminology
[5] Prof. B.K. Goswami, A Critical Study Of Criminology and Penology
[6] Lambrasso, Criminal Man