DIVINE WORD COLLEGE OF VIGAN

COLLEGE OF CRIMINOLOGY
Vigan City, Ilocos Sur

MODULE 3
CRIMINOLOGICAL SCHOOL OF THOUGHTS

At the end of the unit, you should be able to;

1. Discuss the basic concepts of the different criminological school of thoughts
2. Identify and Distinguish the key points of the different criminological school of
thoughts

WHAT I KNOW?

In your opinion, what does “school of thought” mean?

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EXPLORE!
With what you know so far about crimes, do you agree that a crime is
product of one’s choice? Meaning that the person had thought and decided to
commit crime or had willingly committed a crime. Justify you answer.
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CRIMINAL ETIOLOGY
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 DIVINE WORD COLLEGE OF VIGAN
COLLEGE OF CRIMINOLOGY
Vigan City, Ilocos Sur

CRIMINOLOGICAL SCHOOL OF THOUGHTS

What is “school of thought”?

• It is otherwise known as intellectual tradition

• A specific way of thinking
• The perspective of a group of people who share common characteristics
of opinion or outlook of a philosophy, discipline, belief, social
movement, economics, cultural movement, or art movement.

Therefore, a criminological school of thought is a body of ideas or perspective or a way

of thinking regarding crime, criminology and criminal justice

The Demonological School/Theory

 The most ancient theory to crime that dates back to pre-scientific age.
 This theory maintains that criminal behavior was believed to be the result of
evil spirits and demons something of natural force that controls an individual’s
behavior.

Criticisms to Demonological School/Theory:

 Unscientific Theory – the demonological theory is clearly irrational and

unscientific. No evidence, which may be scientifically admissible, can be
adduced to support this theory. Clearly the belief in demons, devils and goblins
may have some psychological justifications but it has no basis in facts. The
various tales and stories about possessions and demons etc.. are largely
fictional and unconfirmed.

 Irrational – being an unscientific theory it is not based on any rational facts

and is by and large projection of inner fear, sense of insecurity coupled with
superstition.

 Cruel and Barbaric Penal Code – as the theory of punishment of this school
is based on false belief that if a body of man is subjected to burns, cuts, or
acidic substances inflict severe beating and pain, the demon will feel compelled
to quit the body. This system of punishment is cruel; and barbaric and
meaningless. There can be nothing crueler than causing interminable itch in
the private organs by sprinkling a bitter and acidic substances on these.

THREE BROAD SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT ABOUT THE CAUSES OF CRIME

Beginning the age of enlightenment (middle decades of 17 th century through the

18 century), science, politics, philosophy and society are dramatically revolutionized.
This sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance
knowledge. This in turn swept away the dark medieval world-view. One of the
revolutionized concepts in this period is the view on crimes. Different schools of
thoughts emerged discussing the occurrence of crimes.

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 DIVINE WORD COLLEGE OF VIGAN
COLLEGE OF CRIMINOLOGY
Vigan City, Ilocos Sur

CLASSICAL SCHOOL OF CRIMINOLOGY

This “school” state that criminal behavior could be understood and controlled
as an outcome of a “human nature”. Human beings were believed to be hedonistic,
acting in terms of their own self-interest, but rational, capable of considering which
course of action was really in their self-interest.

Cesare Beccaria (Cesare Bonesara Marchese de Beccaria 1738-1794) with Jeremy

Bentham (1748-1823) became the main advocate of the Classical School of
Criminology through their proposed “Utilitarian Hedonism”.

The concept of FREEWILL

Freewill is the ability to make choices. According to Beccaria — and most

classical theorists — free will enables people to make choices. He believed that people
have a rational manner and apply it toward making choices that will help them
achieve their own personal gratification (Biography, 2020). In his “ESSAY on Crimes
an Punishment” Beccaria presented his key ideas on the abolition of torture as a
legitimate means of extracting confessions. This book founded the CLASSICAL
THEORY OF CRIMINOLOGY that maintains that man is essentially a moral creature
with absolute FREEWILL to choose between good and evil therefore stress is placed
upon the criminal himself; that every man is responsible for his act.

The concept of UTILITARIANISM

This is founded by Jeremy Bentham in his “Greatest Pleasure Principle”. He

stated "Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters,
pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to
determine what we shall do." Utilitarianism holds that an action is right if it tends to
promote happiness and wrong if it tends to produce sadness, or the reverse of
happiness—not just the happiness of the actor but that of everyone affected by it. This
is often embodied by the maxim “The greatest good for the greatest numbers”.

One of his important contributions was the “hedonistic calculus” – the weighing
of pleasure versus pain that individuals potentially undertake when they think about
committing a crime.

Utilitarian Hedonism/Hedonistic Utilitarianism – this theory explains that a person

always acts in such a way as to seek pleasure and avoid pain.

Philosophy of the Classical School:

 Man is a free moral agent and that man acts in accordance with his own free
will
 That every man is therefore responsible for his acts
 Crime can be corrected only by punishments
 The law or the judge should determine the punishment to be attached to a
criminal act and should provide a scale of punishment to all persons
committing the same crime.

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 DIVINE WORD COLLEGE OF VIGAN
COLLEGE OF CRIMINOLOGY
Vigan City, Ilocos Sur

Concept of Deterrence

Deterrence simply mean the crime prevention effect of the threat of punishment.
Beccaria emphasized that for punishment to be truly effective, it must have a
deterrent effect on people who might decide to commit a crime. He developed two
different concepts to elaborate the concept of deterrence: specific deterrence and
general deterrence:

Specific deterrence refers to punishments given to an individual that are

meant to prevent/deter the individual from committing the crime again in the
future.

General deterrence refers to punishments given to an individual that are

meant to prevent/deter other potential offenders in the society at large from
committing the crime in the future.

For Punishment to be effective, Beccaria believes that it should be:

 Swift - refers to how quickly an individual is punished after committing a
crime.
 Certain - refers to how likely it is that an individual will be caught and
punished for a crime that he or she has committed (the most important of the
three elements).
 Severe - Severity refers to how harsh the punishment for a crime will be.

Arguments against the Classical Theory:

 Unfair – it treats all men as if they were robot without regard to the individual
differences and the surrounding circumstances when the crime is committed.
 Unjust – having the same punishment for first time offenders and recidivist
 The nature and definition of punishment is not individualized
 It was the magna carta of the professional criminal (he knows what was coming
to him and could calculate the risk thereby knowing the penalty to be imposed)

Criticisms as to the theory of classical School:

 Lunatics and imbecile cannot calculate pleasure from pain.

 Not applicable to crimes committed at the spun of the moment
 Criminal habits in normal persons may make them impervious to the latent of
punishment
 The risk of punishment maybe comparatively slight
 Among youths they commit crimes for adventure
 It considers only the injury caused not the state of the mind and nature of the
criminal (mental condition of the offender).

THE NEO-CLASSICAL SCHOOL OF CRIMINOLOGY

Under this neo-classical doctrine, there are situations or circumstances that

made it impossible to exercise freewill and these are the reasons to exempt the
accused from conviction. This school insist that individuals are “not always”
responsible for their actions for they believed that there is no “absolute freewill”.

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 DIVINE WORD COLLEGE OF VIGAN
COLLEGE OF CRIMINOLOGY
Vigan City, Ilocos Sur

Because of this, it leads also to the proposition that while the classical doctrine is
correct in general, it should be modified in certain details:

 That children and lunatics should not be regarded as criminals and free from
punishment.
 It must take into account certain mitigating circumstances.
 Punishment is imposed to some law breakers but not on others by recognition
of the exception
 Individual responsibilities were taken into accounts, considering the psychology
and sociology of crimes.

The neo-classical agreement became the basic principles of the judicial and legal
systems of western civilization during the late century

THE POSITIVIST/ITALIAN SCHOOL OF CRIMINOLOGY (1838 – 1909)

Cesare Lombroso and his two students, Enrico Ferri and Rafaele Garofalo – the
primary personalities/proponents of this school

 It maintained that crime as any other act is a natural phenomenon and is

comparable to disaster or calamity.
 The positivists believed that imposition of punishment couldn’t deter and treat
crimes but rather rehabilitation or the enforcement of individual measures.
 This school rejected the classical schools idea that all crime resulted from a
choice that could potentially be made anyone. Though they did not disagree
with the classical school that most crime could be explained through “human
nature”, they argued that individuals who were “PRIMITIVE” or “ATAVISTIC”
committed the most serious crimes – that is, who failed to evolve to a fully
human and civilized state.
 The positivists understood themselves as scientist while the classical thinkers
were concerned with legal reform, constructing an environment in which crime
was seen to be not in an individual’s self interest, the positivists were concerned
with scientifically isolating and identifying the determining causes of criminal
behavior in individual offenders (Determinism).

Doctrine of Determinism
• Determinism, in philosophy, theory that all events, including moral choices, are
completely determined by previously existing causes. It is usually understood to
preclude free will because it entails that humans cannot act otherwise than
they do (Britannica, 2020).

Cesare Lombroso (1836 – 1909)

He is regarded as the “Father of Modern Criminology”. His modern contribution is

the development of scientific approach to the study of criminal behavior and to reform
the criminal law. His main work is on Criminal Anthropology or the physiological
investigation of the causes of crimes. He wrote the essay entitled “CRIME: Its Causes
and Remedies” that contains his key ideas and the classification of criminals.
Significantly discussed in his work is the facial feature and physical abnormalities
(atavistic stigmata) of criminals separating them from non-criminals. These are:

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 DIVINE WORD COLLEGE OF VIGAN
COLLEGE OF CRIMINOLOGY
Vigan City, Ilocos Sur

 Deviation in head size and shape from type common to race and region from
which the criminal came.
 Asymmetry of the face.
 Eye defects and peculiarities.
 Excessive dimensions of the jaw and cheek bones.
 Ears of unusual size, or occasionally very small, or standing out from the head
as to those of a chimpanzee.
 Nose twisted, upturned, or flattened in thieves, or aquiline or breaks like in
murderers, or with a tip rising like a peak from swollen nostrils.
 Lips fleshy, swollen, and protruding.
 Pouch in the cheek like those of some animals.
 Chin preceding, or excessively long, or short and flat, as in apes.
 Abnormal dentition.
 Abundance, variety, and precocity of wrinkles.
 Anomalies of the hair, marked by characteristics of the opposite sex.
 Defects of the thorax, such as too many or too few ribs, or supernumerary
nipples.
 Inversion of sex characters in the pelvic organs.
 Excessive length of arms.
 Supernumerary fingers and toes.
 Imbalance of the hemisphere of the brain (asymmetry of the cranium).

Classifications of Criminals by Lombroso

 Born Criminals – criminals whose criminal behavior was believed to have been
inherited.
 Criminal by Passion – those who are easily influenced by great emotions like fit
of anger.
 Insane Criminals – those who are suffering from mental or psychological
disorders. They should be exempted from criminal liability.
 Criminaloid – a person commits crime due to less physical stamina/self control
 Pseudo-criminals – those who kill in self-defense.
 Habitual criminal – poor childhood education/career offenders (interacted with
criminals)

Enrico Ferri (1856 – 1929)

The best known Lombroso’s associate. While Lombroso researched the

purported physiological factors that motivated criminals, Ferri investigated social and
economic aspects. His greatest contribution was his attack on the classical doctrine of
freewill. He believed that criminals could not be held responsible for their crimes
because they did not choose to commit crimes but, rather, was driven to commit them
by conditions in their lives. He also claimed that strict adherence to preventive
measures based on scientific methods would eventually reduce crime and allow people
to live together in society with less dependent on penal system.

Raffaele Garofalo (1852 – 1934)

Like Lombroso and Ferri, he rejected the doctrine of freewill and supported the
position that the only way to understand crime is to study it by scientific methods. He

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 DIVINE WORD COLLEGE OF VIGAN
COLLEGE OF CRIMINOLOGY
Vigan City, Ilocos Sur

traced the roots of criminal behavior not to physical features but to their psychological
equivalents, which he called “moral anomalies”.
According to his theory, natural crimes are found in all human societies,
regardless of the views of the lawmakers, and no civilized society can afford to
disregard them. Natural crimes, according to him, are those that offend the basic
sentiments of probity (respect for property of others) and piety (avoidance against the
suffering on others).

Types of Criminals by Garofalo:

Murderers – those who are satisfied from vengeance /revenge

Violent Criminals – those who commit very serious crimes
Deficient criminals – those who commits crime against property
Lascivious criminals – those who commit crimes against chastity

NOTE: Although Lombroso, Ferri and Garofalo did not always agree on the causes of
criminal behavior or on the way society should respond to it, their combined efforts marked
a turning point in the development of the scientific study of crime. These were responsible
for developing the positivist approach to criminality that influences criminology to the
present day.

COMPARISON OF CLASSICAL AND POSITIVIST SCHOOL

Classical School Positivist School

 Object of the study is the Crime
 Punishment should fit the crime
 Doctrine of freewill
 Definite sentence
 No empirical research
 Object of the study is the Offender
 punishment fit the criminal
 doctrine of determinism
 indeterminate sentence
 empirical

ELABORATE! Use separate Sheet of bond paper. -

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With the forgoing discussions, in a graphic organizer, identify the key concepts
(if applicable) and proponents of the following:

1. Demonological School
2. Classical School
3. Neo-Classical School
4. Positivist School

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