Brief History of Criminology

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Brief History of Criminology

• 1. Criminology
• 2. Brief History of Criminology
• 3. Quiz 1

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Social Science

• Not too long ago, criminology separated from its
  mother discipline, sociology
• It has since developed habits and methods of
  thinking about crime and criminal behavior that
  are uniquely its own

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Criminology is

• The scientific approach to studying criminal
  behavior
• Interdisciplinary discipline political science,
  psychology, economics, natural sciences, and
  biology

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Edwin Sutherland and Donald Gressey

• Scope of criminology includes
• Processes of making laws
• Processes of breaking laws
• Processes of reacting toward the breaking the
  laws

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The main question
CAUSE
CRIME
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Brief History of Criminology

• Demonic Perspective (Middle Ages, 1200-1600)
• Classical School (the late 1700s and the early
  1800s )
• Neo-classical school (emerged between 1880 and
  1920 and is still with us today)
• Positivism (the mid 1800s and early 1900s)
• Sociological Criminology (mid 1800s till now)

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Demonic Perspective

• It is not surprising that any discussion of the
  existence of evil behavior in the world would
  begin with religious explanations

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Demonic Perspective

• Temptation Model
• Possession Model

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Temptation Model

• Mat 2641 (NIV) "Watch and pray so that you will
  not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing,
  but the body is weak."

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Temptation Model

• People are weak
• temptations to sin are impossible to avoid.
  (Matt. 187)
• No matter how tempting the devil's offers might
  be, the individual always retains the ability to
  refuse to sin
• "good force" offers rewards and frequently
  promises spiritual aid to help the beleaguered
  individual resist the devil's temptations

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Temptation Model

• This model has a deterrent
• component
• The threat of hellfire or other eternal
  punishment for those who chose to do evil

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Temptation Model-how to treat criminals? Other
Punishment

• Public humiliation and banishment were frequently
  used by religious societies as ways of
  controlling their deviant populations
• For serious deviants, capital punishment
  wouldbe a final solution

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Possession Model

• Once possessed by an evil spirit the person is no
  longer responsible for his/her actions
• The devil now has taken control of the
  individual's mind and body resulting in evil
  behavior

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Possession Model-how to treat criminals?

• One way of "curing" the individual is through
  exorcism-a religious ritual aimed at jettisoning
  the unclean spirit from the body

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Exorcism today

• Mario Garcia ended up in jail on charges of
  puncturing his mother-in-law's esophagus with a
  pair of crucifixes
• Prior prior to the incident, the mother-in-law
  display of erratic behavior. The hospital had
  suggested psychiatric treatment for her

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Exorcism today

• Garcia had the woman lie down on a bed, while the
  woman's son, her husband, Garcia's wife, and
  three young children contributed prayers for
  support Garcia shoved not one but two 8-inch
  steel crucifixes into his mother-in-law's mouth
• The crosses went deep enough down her throat to
  pierce her esophagus
• Police who were called to the scene found the
  woman bleeding profusely from the mouth on
  Garcia's front porch, with Garcia shouting, "The
  devil is inside her!"
• Garcia was arrested for assault with a dangerous
  weapon and taken under psychiatric observation.
• Police are in agreement with Garcia's family that
  he did not act with intent to harm I've seen
  suspects who thought they had psychic powers, but
  never one that had a family who believed it,
  too.

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Is There a Place for a Demonic Perspective in
Contemporary Criminology?

• Surprisingly religious models are adhered to by
  many
• Criminal justice officials in the U.S. have paid
  satanism little mind until the mid-1980s
• This was the case in the 1980s and 1990s as a
  satanic panic swept the US

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Satanists

• At that point the country was swept by an
  epidemic of allegations that murders, sexual or
  ritual abuse of children, and ritual sacrifice of
  animals were commonplace activities among
  satanists

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The origin of classical school

• Started in Europe (the late 1700s and the early
  1800s)
• Criminal justice needed to be updated
• Throughout Europe the use of torture to secure
  confessions and force self-incriminating
  testimony had been widespread
• Classical school was against tortures

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Physical Torture

• Infliction of bodily pain to extort evidence or
  confession
• Torture employed devices such as the rack (to
  stretch the victim's joints to breaking point),
  the thumbscrew, the boot (which crushed the
  foot), heavy weights that crushed the whole body,
  the iron maiden (cage shaped like a human being
  with interior spikes to spear the occupant)

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Classical School

• The Classical School was not interested in
  studying criminals, but rather law-making and
  legal processing
• Crime, they believed, was activity engaged in out
  of total free will and that individuals weighed
  the consequences of their actions. Punishment is
  made in order to deter people from committing
  crime and it should be greater than the pleasure
  of criminal gains.

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Classical School

• 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
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• Two famous writers during this classical period
  were Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794) and Jeremy
  Bentham (1748-1832)

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Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794)

• People should be presumed innocent until proven
  guilty (no torture)
• The law should be codified (written) with
  punishments prescribed in advance
• Punishment should be limited (less harsher) to
  only that necessary to deter people from ever
  committing it again (no capital punishment)

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Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794)

• Punishment should be severe, certain, and swift
• Severity is the least important, certainty the
  next in importance, and celerity, or swiftness,
  is about as equal in importance as certainty)
• The criminal justice system should be organized
  around crime prevention

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Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)

• Believed that individuals weigh the probabilities
  of present and future pleasures against those of
  present and future pain
• People act as human calculators, they put all
  factors into a sort of mathematical
• equation to decide whether or not
• to commit an illegal act

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Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)

• Punishment should be just a bit in excess of the
  pleasures derived from an act and not any higher
  than that
• Since punishment creates unhappiness it can be
  justified if it prevents greater
• evil than it produces

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Does punishment deter?

• What do you think?

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The Neo-classical School

• A form of revisionism
• Neo-classical criminologists recognized that the
  free will approach had a number of shortcomings
• Leading proponents were Gabriel Tarde (1843-1904)
  and his student Raymond Saleilles (1898)

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The Neo-classical School

• Some behaviors are very irrational
• Self-defense or mistake of fact
• So, not all persons were completely responsible
  for their own actions
• Positive treatment toward "mental illness" type
  explanations

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Categorization of Motives

• Understanding homicide
• The accurate determination of motive in any crime
  is highly subjective
• Social scientists have used several approaches to
  categorize motives
• One strategy is to distinguish b/w instrumental
  and expressive motivation

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Instrumental Motivation

• Violent acts with instrumental motivations are
  directed at some valued goal beyond the act
  itself (Menendez brothers may have killed their
  parents for the instrumental goal of protecting
  themselves or collecting the insurance payment)

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Instrumental Motivation

• Eric and Lyle Menendez were convicted of
  first-degree murder for the brutal shotgun
  slaying of their parents in Beverly Hills. Their
  defense was based on the abuse excuse
• The apparent motives ranged from the brothers
  fear of their fathers abuse to their desire to
  collect 11 million in insurance

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Expressive Motivation

• Expressive actions are those motivated
  exclusively by rage, anger, frustration, or more
  generally, the heat of passion (self-defense,
  accidental homicides)

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UCR Supplementary Homicide Reports classification
of motives

• Arguments (53)
• Participation in other felony crimes, especially
  robbery and drug offenses (32)
• Youth gang activity (8)
• Brawls under the influence of drugs or alcohol
  (4)
• Miscellaneous situations such as killings by
  babysitters, gangland slaying, and sniper attacks
  (1)

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The Victim-Offender Relationship

• Three types of relationships are often
  identified
• Familial (especially spouses and siblings)(22)
• Acquaintances (including friends, girlfriends,
  boyfriends, neighbors, and coworkers)(57)
• Strangers (21)

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Positivist School in Criminology

• The demand for facts, for scientific proof
  (determinism)
• There are body and mind differences between
  people
• Punishment should fit the individual criminal,
  not the crime (indeterminate sentencing,
  disparate sentencing, parole)
• Criminals can be treated, rehabilitated, or
  corrected (if not, then they are incurable and
  should be put to death)

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Fundamental assumptions

• The basic determinants of human behavior are
  genetically based
• Observed gender and racial differences in rates
  and types of criminality may be at least
  partially the result of biological differences
  b/w the sexes and racially distinct groups

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Positivist School in Criminology

• Most people believe the leading figure of
  positivist criminology (often called the father
  of criminology) was Lombroso (1835-1909). 
• On Criminal Man, was first put together in 1861,
  and made the following points

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The Underlying Logic
Atavism
Inability to Learn and Follow legal rules
Mental and Physical Inferiority
Criminal Behavior
Defective genes
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Sociological Theories of Crime

• Search for factors outside the individual -
  socialization, subcultural membership, social
  class
• Explains crime by reference to the institutional
  structure of society