Approaches in Crime

Causation and the

Foundational Theories
CS 102 (PRELIM)
Approaches in Crime Causation

• There are three approaches in Criminology

when it comes to Crime Causation, they are:
• Subjective Approach
• Objective Approach
• Contemporary Approach
SUBJECTIVE APPROACHES
• It deals mainly on the biological explanation of
crimes, focused on the forms of abnormalities that
exist in the individual criminal before, during and
after the commission of the crime (Tradio, 1999).
• Under it are the following:
• Anthropological
• Medical
• Biological
• Physiological
• Psychological
• Psychiatric
• Psychoanalytical
SUBJECTIVE
APPROACHES
• Anthropological Approach – the
study on the physical characteristics
of an individual offender with non-
offenders in the attempt to discover
differences covering criminal
behavior (Hooton).
• Medical Approach - the application
of medical examinations on the
individual criminal explain the
mental and physical condition of the
individual prior and after the
commission of the crime (Positivist).
• Biological Approach –the
evaluation of genetic influences
to criminal behavior. It is noted
that heredity is one force pushing
the criminal to crime (Positivist).
• Physiological Approach – It is an
approach to criminology made by
endocrinologists who found that
glandular malfunctioning caused
the delinquent behavior.
• It explains that the deprivation of
the physical body on the basic
needs is an important
determinant in the commission
of crime (Maslow).
• Psychological Approach – it is concerned
about the deprivation of the
psychological needs of man, which
constitute the development of deviations
of normal behavior resulting to
unpleasant emotions (Freud, Maslow).
• Psychiatric Approach – the explanation
of crime through diagnosis of mental
diseases as a cause of the criminal
behavior (Positivist).
• Psychoanalytical Approach – the
explanation of crimes based on the
Freudian Theory, which traces behavior
as the deviation of the repression of the
basic drives (Freud).
OBJECTIVE
APPROACHES
• The objective approaches deal on the
study of groups, social processes and
institutions as influences to behavior.
They are primarily derived from social
sciences (Tradio, 1999).
• Under Objective Approaches are the
following:
• Geographic
• Ecological
• Economic
• Socio-cultural
OBJECTIVE
APPROACHES
• Geographic Approach – this approach
considers topography, natural
resources, geographical location, and
climate lead an individual to commit
crime (Quetelet).
• Ecological Approach – it is concerned
with the biotic grouping of men
resulting to migration, competition,
social discrimination, division of labor
and social conflict as factors of crime
(Park).
• Economic Approach – it deals with
the explanation of crime concerning
financial security of inadequacy and
other necessities to support life as
factors to criminality (Merton).
• Socio – Cultural Approach – those
that focus on institutions, economic,
financial, education, political, and
religious influences to crime
(Cohen).
CONTEMPORARY
APPROACHES
• Modern days put emphasis on scientific
modes of explaining crime and criminal
behavior. This approach is focused on the
psychoanalytical, psychiatric and
sociological explanations of crime in an
integrated theory – an explanatory
perspective that merges concepts drawn
from different sources (Schmalleger,
1997).
THE SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT
IN CRIMINOLOGY
• In the eighteenth century,
criminological literature, whether
psychological, sociological, or
psychiatric in bent, has traditionally
been divided into four broad schools

JBDavid
of thought about the causes of
crime:
• Classical School of Thought
• Positivist School of Thought
• Neo-Classical
• Chicago Schools of Criminology
The Classical School of
Criminology
• Is a broad label for a group of thinkers of crime
and punishment in the 18th and early 19th
centuries. 
• Its most prominent members, Cesare Beccaria
and Jeremy Bentham, shared the idea that
criminal behavior could be understood and
controlled as an outcome of a "human nature"
shared by all of us. 
• 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. 
 • A well-ordered state, therefore,
would construct laws and
The Classical punishments in such a way that
people would understand peaceful
School of and non-criminal actions to be in
Criminology their self-interest - through
strategies of punishment based on
deterrence.
The Classical School of Criminology
• Cesare Beccaria (Cesare Bonesara Marchese de
Beccaria) with Jeremy Bentham (1823) who
proposed “Utilitarian Hedonism”, the theory, which
explains that a person always acts in such a way as
to seek pleasure and avoid pain, became the main
advocates of the Classical School of Criminology.
• Essay on Crimes and Punishment – Cesare
Beccaria’s book which presented his key ideas on
the abolition of torture as a legitimate means of
extracting confessions.
• This book founded the Classical theory of
Criminology
JBDavid

• Man is essentially a moral

Foundatio creature with absolute
n of free will to choose
between good and evil
Classical therefore stress is placed
School upon the criminal himself;
that every man is
responsible for his act.
The Classical School of
Criminology
• Freewill (Beccaria) – a philosophy
advocating punishment severe enough
for people to choose, to avoid criminal
acts. It includes the belief that a certain
criminal act warrants a certain
punishment without any punishment
without any variation.
• Hedonism (Bentham) – the belief that
people choose pleasure and avoid pain.
• determinism see the cause of behavior
as being outside the individual, such as
parental influence, the media, or school.
The Positivist/Italian School of
Criminology
• The school that composed of Italians who agreed that in
the study of crime the emphasis should be on scientific
treatment of the criminal, not on the penalties to be
imposed after conviction.
• It maintained that crime as any other act is a natural
phenomenon and is comparable to disaster or calamity.
That crime as a social and moral phenomenon which
cannot be treated and checked by the imposition of
punishment but rather rehabilitation or the enforcement
of individual measures.
 The Positivist/Italian School of
Criminology
• The Positivist School of Criminology rejected the Classical
School's idea that all crime resulted from a choice that
could potentially be made anyone. 
• Argued that the most serious crimes were committed by
individuals who were "primitive" or "atavistic"--that is,
who failed to evolve to a fully human and civilized state. 
• Crime therefore resulted not from what criminals had in
common with others in society, but from their distinctive
physical or mental defects. 
 • The positivists understood themselves as
The scientists: they were concerned with scientifically
Positivist/Italian isolating and identifying the determining causes of
School of criminal behavior in individual offenders.
• Cesare Lombroso and his two students, Enrico Ferri
Criminology and Raffaele Garofalo were the primary
personalities in this school of thought..
The Positivist/Italian School
of Criminology
 Cesare Lombroso (1836 – 1909) – The Italian
leader of the positivist school of criminology,
was criticized for his methodology and his
attention to the biological characteristics of
offenders, but his emphasis on the need to
study offenders scientifically earned him the
“Father of Modern Criminology.”
 His major contribution is the development of a
scientific approach to the study of criminal
behavior and to reform the criminal law. He
wrote the essay entitled “CRIME: Its Causes and
Remedies” that contains his key ideas and the
classifications of criminals.
Classifications of
Criminals by Lombroso

 Born Criminals – there are born

criminals according to Lombroso,
the belief that being criminal
behavior is inherited.
 Criminal by Passion – are individuals
who are easily influenced by great
emotions like fit of anger.
 Insane Criminals – are those who
commit crime due to abnormalities
or psychological disorders. They
should be exempted from criminal
liability.
JBDavid

• Criminoloid – a person who

commits crime due to less
physical stamina/ self-control.
• Occasional Criminal – are those
who commit crime due to
insignificant reasons that
pushed them to do at a given
occasion.
• Pseudo-criminals – are those
who kill in self-defense.
• Enrico Ferri (1856 – 1929) – He was
the best-known Lombroso’s associate,
parliamentarian, accomplished public
lecturer, brilliant lawyer, editor, and
scholar.
• Although he agreed with Lombroso
on the biological bases of criminal
behavior, his interest in socialism led
him to recognize the importance of
social, economic, and political
determinants.
His greatest contribution was his attack on the classical
doctrine of free will, which argued that criminals should be
held morally responsible for their crimes because they must
have made a rational decision to commit the crime.
He believed that criminals could not be held morally
responsible for their crimes because they did not choose to
commit crimes but, rather, were 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 (Adler, 1995).
 Raffaele Garofalo (1852 – 1934) – Another
follower of Lombroso, an Italian nobleman,
magistrate, senator, and professor of law.
 Like Lombroso and Ferri, he rejected the
doctrine of free will and supported the
position that the only way to understand
crime was to study it by scientific methods.
 Influenced on Lombroso’s theory of atavistic
stigmata (man’s inferior/ animalistic
behavior), he 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 Garofalo, are those that
offend the basic moral sentiments of probity (respect
for property of others) and piety (revulsion against the
infliction of suffering on others) (Adler, 1995).
 • Murderers – those who are
satisfied from vengeance/revenge.
Types of • Violent Criminals – those who
Criminals commit very serious crimes.
JBDavid

by • Deficient Criminals – those who

commit crime against property.
Garofalo
• Lascivious Criminals – those who
commit crime against chastity.
Other Advocates of
Positivist Criminology
 Gabriel Tarde (1843 – 1904) – he formulated one
of the earliest sociological theories of criminal
behavior, who served fifteen years as provincial
judge and then placed in charge of Frances’
National Statistics.
 He rejected the Lombrosian theory of biological
abnormality, which was popular in his time,
arguing that criminals were normal people who
learned crime just as others learned legitimate
trades.
 He formulated his theory in terms of laws of
imitation – principles that governed the process by
which people became criminals.
In his thesis, individuals emulate behavior patterns in much
the same way that they copy styles of dress.
Accordingly, patterns for emulation takes place:
 Individuals imitate others in proportion to the intensity and
frequency of their contacts;
 Inferiors imitate superiors;
 When two behaviors clash, one may take place of the other, as
when gun largely replaced knives as murder weapons.
Tarde’s work served ad basis for Edwin Sutherland’s theory
of differential associating.
• Emile Durkheim (1858 – 1917) -
He advocated the “Anomie
Theory”, the theory that focused
on the sociological point of the
positivist school which explains
that the absence of norms in a
society provides a setting
conductive to crimes and other
anti-social acts.
• According to him, the explanation
of human conduct lies not in the
individual but in the group and
the social organization.
 The Neo-Classical School of Criminology

The criticisms against the classical school led to the foundation

of the Neo-classical school of criminology. Under the neo-
classical doctrine, there are situations or circumstances that
made it impossible to exercise freewill are reasons to exempt
the accused from conviction.
The Classicist maintained that human are totally responsible for
their actions. The Neoclassicist said “not always”. They argue
that freewill can be mitigated by pathology, incompetence,
mental disorder.
The Neoclassical school does not represent any
break with the classical view of human nature. It
merely challenges the classical position of absolute
freewill. Because of this, it led 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.
 The Chicago School

• The Chicago School arose in the early 20th century through the
work of Robert Ezra Park, Erness Burgess, and other urban
sociologists at the University of Chicago.
• In the 1920’s, Park and Burgess identified five concentric zones
that often exists as cities grow, including the “zone in
transition”, which was identified as most volatile and subject to
disorder.
• In the 1940’s, Henry McKay and Clifford R. Shaw focused on
Juvenile Delinquents, finding that they were concentrated in
the zone of transition.
Concentric Zone Model
• It was created by Ernest Burgess in 1925.
• The Chicago school urban land use model based off the 1925
Metropolis.
• Analyzed crime in the industrial city.
• Central business central district
• Five rings called concentric zones or place for each individual city these
rings will vary depending on the physical and urban geography of the
city.
• Urban areas are characterized in terms of ethnic groupings, income
levels, types of commerce or industry.
• The Loop, is a business and commerce heavy area that is commuted to by inhabitants of
the other four zones.
• Central business district. (Skyscrapers, high rises, tenement buildings there is varying violent crime).
• Zone in Transition, is known as “the least desirable area to live in the city” (Lersch, 2011).
This area can be described as the melting pot of poor, immigrant, destitute, and criminal
(Burgess, 1928). (Factories, warehouses wholesaling deteriorating homes, high crime,
tenement buildings) It supports the growth of zone 1.
• Workmen’s Homes Burgess describes Zone III as being close enough to the inner zones as
workers can reach workplaces by foot (1928).
• (Low class residential, working class homes there is medium crime. There’s less crime a nicer houses
were people able to escape out of zone 2 and move into zone 3.
• the Residential Zone, was described to be inhabited by well-educated, middle class
families. (residential homes newer homes being built, and has lower crime )
• Working from the outer zone inward, the Commuters Zone. This zone was described by
Burgess as being inhabited by those that could afford the more expensive “bungalows”
common to this zone as well as transportation to the inner city for entertainment and
work (Burgess, 1928).