Highlights of Chapter 1 Siegel

1
Highlights of Chapter 1(Siegel)

• Overview of Criminology
• Classical Criminology
• The Positivist School
• The Chicago School

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What is Criminology?

• In Middle Ages, learning was typically divided
  into four areas
  
• Law
• Medicine
• Theology
• Philosophy

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18th 19th Centuries.

• Natural and Social Sciences became full fledged
  disciplines
  
• Today, teaching and learning distributed over 20
  or 30 disciplines
  
• Criminology, as a sciencehas been known for a
  little more than a century.

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Raffeale Garofalo. . .

• Coined the term criminology (1885)
• Criminology is an empirical science
• It is one of the social, or behavioral sciences.

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But How is Criminology Defined?

• Criminology has been defined in various ways by
  scholars, but we will place emphasis on
  Sutherlands definition.

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Edwin H. Sutherland. . .

• Criminology is the body of knowledge regarding
  crime as a social phenomenon. It includes within
  its scope the process of making laws, of breaking
  laws, and of reacting toward the breaking of
  laws. . .The objective of criminology is the
  development of a body of general and verified
  principles and of other types of knowledge
  regarding this process of law, crime, and
  treatment.

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What does this definition mean?

• development of a body of general and verified
  principles
  
• This means that Sutherland mandated that
  criminologists, like other social scientist,
  collect information for study and analysis in
  accordance with the research methods of modern
  science.

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The Making of Laws. . .

• Deviance
• Norms vs. Laws (dogs supermarket)
• Criminologists are interested in all deviant
  behavior, but primary interest is in criminal
  behavior, that which violates the law.
  
• The Concept of Crime
• Who in a society decidesand when and under what
  circumstanceswhich acts already considered
  deviant in that society should be elevated to the
  level of gross deviance or crime, subject to
  punishment?

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Consensus View (or Model)

• ? criminal acts reflect public opinion
• Certain acts deemed so threatening to the
  societys survival that they are designated
  crimes
  
• Assumes that members of a society by and large
  agree on what is right and wrong
  
• Codification of social values becomes law.
  Durkheim, we can. . .say that an act is criminal
  when it offends strong and defined states of the
  collective conscience.
• Consensus theorist view society as a stable
  entity in which laws are created for the general
  good
  
• ?most common approach in criminology

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Conflict Model ( a different theoretical
perspective)

• Criminal law expresses the values of the ruling
  class in a society
  
• Criminal justice system is a means of controlling
  the classes that have no power.
  
• The struggle for power is a far more basic
  feature of human existence than is consensus
  
• Through power struggles various groups manage to
  control law making and law enforcement
  (regulation vs. incarceration)
  
• Appropriate object of criminological
  investigation is not the violation of laws but
  conflicts in a society.

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The Breaking of Laws. . .

• Simple if viewed from a purely legal perspective,
  but Sutherland had much more in mind than
  determining whether or not someone has violated
  the criminal law.
• Sutherland was referring to the process of
  breaking laws.
  
• Process encompasses a series of events, perhaps
  starting at birth or even earlier, which results
  in the commission of crime by some individuals
  and not by others.

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Societys Reaction to the Breaking of Laws. . .

• Research on societys reaction to crime is more
  recent than research on the causes of crime

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The Criminal Justice System

• Term criminal justice system is relatively new
• Became popular in 1967, with the publication of
  the report of the Presidents Commission on Law
  Enforcement and Administration of Justice, The
  Challenge of Crime in a Free Society.
• The United States has well over 50 criminal
  justice systems

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Criminology Criminal Justice System

• Criminology
• Focuses on scientific studies of crime and
  criminality
  
• Criminal Justice
• Focuses on scientific studies of decision-making
  processes, operations, and such justice related
  concerns as the efficiency of police, courts, and
  corrections

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Historical Context

• Classical criminology grew out a reaction against
  the barbaric system of law, punishment, and
  justice that existed before the French Revolution
  of 1789. Until that time there was no real system
  of criminal justice in Europe.

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Discretionary Power

• Judges had discretionary power to convict a
  person for an act not even legally defined as
  criminal.
  
• As individual could be imprisoned for almost any
  reason (disobedience to ones father, for
  example) or for no reason at all.

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Unwritten Laws

• Many criminal laws were unwritten, and those that
  had been drafted often did not specify the kind
  and amount of punishment associated with the
  crime.

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No Due Process

• Arbitrary and often cruel sentences were imposed
  by judges who had unbounded discretion to decide
  questions of guilt/innocence
  
• Punishments included branding, burning, flogging,
  mutilating, drowning, banishing, and beheading.

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In England. .

• A person might receive the death penalty for any
  of more than 200 offenses
  
• Can you imagine receiving the death penalty for
  petty theft running the red light

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Torture

• Torture to elicit confessions was common

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Classical Criminology The Rule of Man vs.
The rule of Law

• social movement that existed during the late
  1700s and the early 1800s. 
  
• idea that all crime resulted from a choice that
  could potentially be made anyone. 
  
• most crime could be explained through "human
  nature"
  
• Cesare Beccaria Jeremy Bentham

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Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794)

• In 1764, the unknown Cesare Beccaria wrote one
  short treatise called "On Crimes and Punishments"
  and the world is still using it to guide criminal
  justice. That short essay greatly impacted the
  United States Constitution, Bill of Rights and
  justice system. Many reforms that Beccaria called
  for were incorporated into our system, and his
  influence stretches from arrest, prosecution and
  punishment. He never wrote anything else or
  expanded on his thoughts about crime. Beccarias
  work "On Crimes and Punishments" has become the
  foundation in which many criminology theories use
  to build and expand.

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Cesare Beccaria

• Around the time that Beccaria was writing "On
  Crimes and Punishments", the United States was
  coming together as a nation. Our founding fathers
  were greatly influenced by Beccaria, Bentham and
  other classical criminologist. In our
  Constitution and Bill of Rights, many of the
  rights that we, as U.S. citizens, accept as
  fundamental come from the works of classical
  criminology. Some of our rights include rules
  against vagueness, right to public trial, right
  to be judged by peers, right to dismiss certain
  jurors, right against unusual punishments, right
  to speedy trial, right to examine witnesses,
  coerced or tortured confessions are considered
  invalid, right to be informed of accused acts and
  the right to bear arms. Our Constitution was
  greatly influenced by Beccaria, and many of the
  rights that he advocated were made the foundation
  of the United States.

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According to Beccaria. . .

• The crime problem could be traced not to bad
  people, but to bad laws.
  
• A modern criminal justice system should guarantee
  all people equal treatment before the law
  
• Based on the assumption that people freely choose
  what they do and are responsible for the
  consequences of their behavior (do the crime, do
  the time)
• Beccaria proposed the following principles

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Laws Should be Used to Maintain the Social
Contract

• Laws are the conditions under which men,
  naturally independent, united themselves in
  society. Weary of living in a continual state of
  war, and of enjoying a liberty, which became of
  little value, from the uncertainty of its
  duration, they sacrificed one part of it, to
  enjoy the rest in peace and security.

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Only Legislators Should Create Laws

• The authority of making penal laws can only
  reside with the legislator, who represents the
  whole society united by the social compact.

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Judges Should Impose Punishment Only In
Accordance With The Law

• No magistrate then (as he is one of the
  society), can, with justice inflict on any member
  of the same society punishment that is not
  ordained by the laws.

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Judges Should Not Interpret The Laws

• Judges in criminal cases, have no right to
  interpret the penal laws, because they are not
  legislators. . .Everyman hath his own particular
  point of view, and, at different times, sees the
  same objects in very different lights. The spirit
  of the laws will then be the result of the good
  or bad logic of the judge this will depend on
  his good or bad digestion.

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Punishment Should Be Based On The Pleasure/Pain
Principle

• Pleasure and pain are the only springs of
  actions in beings endowed with sensibility. . .If
  an equal punishment be ordained for two crimes
  that injure society in different degrees, there
  is nothing to deter men from committing the
  greater as often as it is attended with greater
  advantage.

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Punishment Should Be Based On An Act, Not On The
Actor

• Crimes are only measured by the injuries done to
  the society. They err, therefore, who imagine
  that a crime is greater or less according to the
  intention of the person by whom it is committed.

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The Punishment Should Be Determined By The Crime

• If mathematical calculation could be applied to
  the obscure and infinite combinations of human
  actions, there might be a corresponding scale of
  punishments descending from the greatest to the
  least.

32
Punishment Should be Prompt And Effective

• The more immediate after the commission of a
  crime a punishment is inflicted, the more just
  and useful it will be. . .An immediate punishment
  is more useful because the smaller the interval
  of time between the punishment and the crime, the
  stronger and more lasting will be the association
  of the two ideas of crime and punishment.

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All People Should Be Treated Equally

• I assert that the punishment of a nobleman
  should in no wise differ from that of the lowest
  member of society.

34
Capital Punishment Should Be Abolished

• The punishment of death is not authorized by any
  right for. . . no such right exists. . .The
  terrors of death make so slight an impression,
  that it has not force enough to withstand the
  forgetfulness natural to mankind.

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The Use Of Torture Should Be Abolished

• It is confounding all relations to expect. .
  .that pain should be the test of truth, as if
  truth resided in the muscles and fibres of a
  wretch of torture. By this method the robust will
  escape, and the feeble be condemned.

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It Is Better to Prevent Crimes Than To Punish Them

• Would you prevent crimes? Let the laws be clear
  and simple, let the entire force of the nation be
  united in their defence, let them be intended
  rather to favour every individual than any
  particular classes.. .Finally, the most certain
  method of preventing crime is to perfect the
  system of education.

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The Bill Of Rights Amendments 1-10 of the
Constitution

• The Conventions of a number of the States having,
  at the time of adopting the Constitution,
  expressed a desire, in order to prevent
  misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that
  further declaratory and restrictive clauses
  should be added, and as extending the ground of
  public confidence in the Government will best
  insure the beneficent ends of its institution
• Resolved, by the Senate and House of
  Representatives of the United States of America,
  in Congress assembled, two-thirds of both Houses
  concurring, that the following articles be
  proposed to the Legislatures of the several
  States, as amendments to the Constitution of the
  United States all or any of which articles, when
  ratified by three-fourths of the said
  Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and
  purposes as part of the said Constitution,
  namely

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Amendment I

• Congress shall make no law respecting an
  establishment of religion, or prohibiting the
  free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom
  of speech, or of the press or the right of the
  people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the
  government for a redress of grievances.

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Amendment II

• A well regulated militia, being necessary to the
  security of a free state, the right of the people
  to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

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Amendment III

• No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered
  in any house, without the consent of the owner,
  nor in time of war, but in a manner to be
  prescribed by law.

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Amendment IV

• The right of the people to be secure in their
  persons, houses, papers, and effects, against
  unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be
  violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon
  probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation,
  and particularly describing the place to be
  searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

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Amendment V

• No person shall be held to answer for a capital,
  or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a
  presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except
  in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or
  in the militia, when in actual service in time of
  war or public danger nor shall any person be
  subject for the same offense to be twice put in
  jeopardy of life or limb nor shall be compelled
  in any criminal case to be a witness against
  himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or
  property, without due process of law nor shall
  private property be taken for public use, without
  just compensation.

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Amendment VI

• In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall
  enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by
  an impartial jury of the state and district
  wherein the crime shall have been committed,
  which district shall have been previously
  ascertained by law, and to be informed of the
  nature and cause of the accusation to be
  confronted with the witnesses against him to
  have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses
  in his favor, and to have the assistance of
  counsel for his defense.

44
Amendment VII

• In suits at common law, where the value in
  controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the
  right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no
  fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise
  reexamined in any court of the United States,
  than according to the rules of the common law.

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Amendment VIII

• Excessive bail shall not be required, nor
  excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual
  punishments inflicted.

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Amendment IX

• The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain
  rights, shall not be construed to deny or
  disparage others retained by the people.

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Amendment X

• The powers not delegated to the United States by
  the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the
  states, are reserved to the states respectively,
  or to the people.

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Jeremy Benthams Utilitarianism

• All human actions are calculated in accordance
  with their likelihood of bringing happiness
  (pleasure) or unhappiness (pain)
  
• People weigh the probabilities of present and
  future pleasures against those of present and
  future pain.

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THE POSITIVIST SCHOOL

• a social movement that existed during the mid
  1800s and early 1900s.

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Some of the defining features of the classical
school in criminology include

• All people are guided by free will
• All behavior is guided by hedonism (pleasure/pain
  calculation)
  
• All crime is the result of free will and hedonism
  
  
• All punishment should fit the offense (equal
  treatment under law)
  
• Bad people are nothing more than the result of
  bad laws

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What is Positivism?

• The term "positivism" refers to a method of
  analysis based on the collection of observable
  scientific facts.  Its aim is to explain and
  (most importantly) predict the way facts occur in
  uniform patterns.  Positivism is the basis of
  most natural sciences, and positivist criminology
  is the application of positivist methods to the
  study of people.

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Some of the common, defining features of the
positivist school in criminology include

• The demand for facts, for scientific proof
  (determinism)
  
• There are body and mind differences between
  people (of these, the mens rea, or reasons for
  committing crime are important)
  
• Punishment should fit the individual criminal,
  not the crime (indeterminate sentencing,
  disparate sentencing, parole)
  
• The criminal justice system should be guided by
  scientific experts (rule by scientific elite,
  technocracy)
  
• Criminals can be treated, rehabilitated, or
  corrected (if not, then they are incurable and
  should be put to death)

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Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909)

• Father of Criminology
• Claimed to have discovered the cause of crime
• Physiognomists/atavism

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Definition

• Atavism
• Atavism means a real or supposed evolutionary
  throwback (degeneracy), the unexpected appearance
  of primitive traits a reversion, the
  reappearance of a trait that had been present in
  a lineage in the past, but which had been absent
  in intervening generations.
• The concept was much more widely used in the
  pre-genetic Darwinism of Ernst Häckel, who
  proposed a recapitulation theory commonly summed
  up in the phrase that ontogeny recapitulates
  phylogeny the notion that a developing embryo
  revisits the previous evolutionary stages of the
  organism in the course of its development, and
  resembles the successively more complex organisms
  out of which it had evolved.
• The notion of atavism was used frequently by
  social darwinists, who liked to claim that
  inferior races displayed atavistic traits, and
  represented more primitive traits than their own
  race. Both the notion of atavism, and Häckel's
  recapitulation theory, are saturated with bogus
  notions of evolution as progress, as a march
  towards greater complexity and superior ability,
  which we now know to be untenable.

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The Chicago School

• Social Ecology
• Robert Park
• Ernest Burgess
• Louis Wirth

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Assumptions of the Chicago School

• 1.Crime and delinquency are caused primarily by
  social factors (environmental determinism)
  
• 2. The facts speak imperfectly for themselves,
  but better if fitted into theory (positivism)
  
• 3. Official statistics are OK, but fieldwork is
  better (acceptance of official arrest data)
  
• 4. The city is a perfect natural laboratory
  (cities like Chicago reflect society as a
  whole)
  
• 5. Components of social structure are unstable
  (conflict, anomie, social disorganization
  conflict or anomie if talking about political
  economy or society social disorganization if
  talking about cities and neighborhoods)
• 6. Instabilities and their effects are worse for
  the lower classes (lower class crime focus)

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Social Disorganization Theory

• By comparing the rates from three different time
  periods, Shaw McKay believed they could show
  whether delinquency was caused by particular
  immigrant groups or by the environment in which
  immigrants lived.

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If

• high delinquency rates for particular immigrant
  groups remained high during their migration
  through the citys different ecological
  environments, then delinquency could be
  associated with their
• distinctive constitutional or cultural features

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If

• if delinquency rates decreased as immigrants
  moved through different
  
• ecological environments, then delinquency could
  not be associated with the particular
  constitution of the immigrants, but must somehow
  be connected with their environment.

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Shaw McKay recognized that the pattern of
delinquency rates not only remained constant over
time, but also corresponded to the "natural urban
areas" of Park Burgess Concentric Zone Model.
They came to the important conclusion that del
inquency rates always remained high for a certain
region of the city (ecological zone 2), no matter
what immigrant group lived there.
Therefore, delinquency was not "constitutional"
as Lombroso and his followers had argued but
must somehow be correlated with the particular
ecological environment in which
it occurs. Shaw McKays eventual explanation
of this correlation is their "social disorganiza
tion theory."
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What is a Theory?

• A set of statements that seeks to explain
  problems, actions, or behavior (Schaefer, 2006)
  
• A general statement about how some parts of the
  world fit together and how they work (Henslin,
  2005)
  
• a series of interrelated propositions that
  attempt to describe, explain, predict, and
  ultimately to control some class of events. A
  theory gains explanatory power from inherent
  logical consistency, and is "tested" by how well
  it describes and predicts reality (Oxford
  dictionary)

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Research Theory

• According to sociologist C. Wright Mills, without
  theory, research is of little value it is simply
  a collection of meaningless facts.
  
• All research must be based on theory
• Theory is the foundation of criminology/criminal
  justice

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What makes a Theory Scientific?

• Focus on causal relationships between variables.

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Defining Crime

• What is crime? (After all, you all know crime
  when you see it, right?)
  
• Why is it so difficult to define crime?
• How do Criminologist View Crime?

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The Conflict View

• ? definition of crime controlled by those who
  possess wealth, power, and
  
• position.
• ? critical of the norms and values in capitalist
  society
  
• ?argues that emphasis on working class deviance
  is wrong

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• What types of issues do conflict theorist view as
  real crimes?

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Interactionist View

• No objective reality