Classicism & Contemporary Classicism Flashcards
What was the pre classicism period?
- Spiritual explanations and response to crime
- Punishment was arbitrary and torture was routinely used
- A criminal justice system which was highly punitive, punishments poorly regulated & high rates of banishment by transportation
- Court officials were determined by rank and wealth
- Power was in the hands of the gentry & clergy
What was classical criminology?
- Proceeded from the assumption of free will and consequently assumed that criminal activity was the result of free will and the hedonistic (pursuit of pleasure) impulses of the individual
- Focus of crime was on deterrence
- Two most influential writers of classical criminology were Beccaria & Bentham
What did Beccaria propose?
- All people are born free, equal and rational
- Aim of punishment is to prevent crime
- Did not believe in capital punishment or transportation - preferred long prison sentences
- Punishment only justified to the extent that the offender has infringed the rights of others or injured the public good
- Punishment should be proportionate to the crime committed and no more than what is necessary to deter
- Excessive punishment fails to deter and is more likely to increase crime
According to Beccaria what did successful deference require?
- Certainty (how likely punishment is to occur)
- Celerity (how quickly punishment is inflicted)
- Severity (how much pain is inflicted)
What did Bentham propose?
- Utilitarian philosophy “the greatest happiness for the greatest number”
- Pleasure-pain principle: human behaviour is directed at maximising pleasure and avoiding pain
- Aim of punishment was deterrence -> always had to be be justified in terms of some greater good
- Punishment should be proportionate to the crime
- Rejected death penalty but could be used in cases of murder
- Punishment viewed as negative - must be restricted to produce desired outcome, if it doesn’t achieve any good why are we doing it
What was Panopticon? and who proposed it?
- Proposed by utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham
- A circular prison arrangement with a central inspection tower in which cells would be arranged so that prisoners could be viewed at all times without knowing whether they were being watched
What types of punishment was Bentham critical of?
- Capital punishment -> believed in deterrents, once your dead you can’t be deterred from doing it again - no hope of rehabilitation
- Transportation -> punishment could not be measured -> possibility of death
Bentham believed there was no ground for punishment where..
- Its limited in efficiency: offender is mentally incapacitated
- Unprofitable: its ‘evil’ outweighs that of the offence
- Unnecessary: the ends it seeks to bring about can be achieved more easily by other means such as education or instruction
What are some strengths of the classicism approach?
- Decrease in capital punishment, decline in cruel forms of punishment
- Establishment and growth of prisons
- Jurisprudence (theory of law): punishment being appropriate to the nature of the crime -> foundation of the criminal justice system
What are some criticisms of the classicism approach?
- Problem of fairness and equality: inequality characterises society more than equality thus inequality of choice
- Overlooks problems of incapacity e.g. those suffering from mental illness’, learning difficulties
- Ignores maturity: children treated the same as adults
What is contemporary classicism?
Greater emphasis placed on understanding the choices made by offenders in different circumstances or location
- Concerned with criminal events and the circumstances in which those events occur
What is rational choice theory?
- Assumes individuals proceed on the basis of maximising profits and minimising losses (cost-benefit analysis)
- Individuals will commit offences when the benefits outweigh the risks or losses
What does bounded rationality mean?
A term used to indicate that even though individuals make poor decisions often based on incomplete or inadequate information they are noneless rational actors it is just bounded rationally
Define crime script?
- Step by step accounts of the procedures and decision making processes involved in particular events
- Stories using offenders accounts to identify both the decisions and situational context in which particular crimes occur
What is routine activity theory?
- Argues that attention should be focused on the situation in which offending takes place, rather than on the offender
- Universally applied to provide insight for crime prevention
