Week 3: Classical and Positivist Criminology

Question 1

The Execution of Jean Calas

Answer 1

Executed for the murder of his son
Allegedly killed him because he had converted to Catholicism
Was tortured to death
Later discovered that his son had committed suicide due to gambling debt
Critics and reformers called for an end to such cruel and barbaric ways of delivering justice

Question 2

Pre-enlightenment systems of Punishment: Demonic Perspective

Answer 2

1) Crime is the product of evil
2) Crime is equated with sin: transgressions against the will of god(s)
3) Criminals are either tempted or possessed by the devil

Question 3

Pre-enlightenment systems of Punishment: Justice System

Answer 3

1) no such things as individual rights
2) torture used punishment and as a means of securing a confession
3) punishment was arbitrary, bloody, and cruel

Question 4

Enlightenment Political Philosophy: Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651)

Answer 4

-Sought to legitimize the power of government
-State of nature: solitaire, poor, nasty, brutish, and short
-Social contract: citizens consent to surrender some of their rights to their sovereign in exchange for protection of their remaining rights

Question 5

Enlightenment Political Philosophy: John Locke, Two Treatises on Government (1689)

Answer 5

Three central rights: Life, Liberty, and Estate/property
-it’s the government’s job to protect these rights

Question 6

Enlightenment Political Philosophy: Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws (1748)

Answer 6

Distribution of political power in 3 branches
1) Legislative: passes laws
2) Executive: enforces the law
3) Judicial: deals with violations of the law

Question 7

Enlightenment Political Philosophy: Voltaire, Idees Republicaines (1765)

Answer 7

removal of church authority from matters of politics and personal thought
–“I’d disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it”

Question 8

Cesare Bacarria: Essay on Crimes and Punishments (1764) was published how many years after the death of Jean Calais

Answer 8

2 years

Question 9

Cesare Bacarria: Essay on Crimes and Punishments (1764), three key assumptions

Answer 9

1) the criminal is someone exercising free will and rationality
2) the aim of punishment is deterrence
3) the problem of crime is bad or inadequate laws

Question 10

Cesare Bacarria: Essay on Crimes and Punishments (1764), summarized in 3 ideas

Answer 10

1) Certainty: how likely punishment is to occur
2) Celerity: how quickly punishment is inflicted
3) Severity: how much pain is inflicted

Question 11

Jeremy Bentham: The Principles of Morals and Legislation, Key Assumptions (3)

Answer 11

1) Pleasure-Pain principle: human behavior is directed at maximizing pleasure and avoiding pain
2) People break the law in order to gain excitement, money, sex, or something else that is valued
3) The trick for criminal justice is to ensure that any pleasure derived by crime is outweighed by the pin that would be inflicted by way of punishment

Question 12

Jeremy Bentham: The Principles of Morals and Legislation, Panopticon

Answer 12

• model prison, circular building with a central guard tower
  should be built near the center of cities
• prison regime to include segregation of inmates, the teaching of trades, regular religious instruction

Question 13

Critiques of Classicism - Incapacity (4)

Answer 13

1) Views everyone as equally rational
2) Mitigating circumstance
3) Judicial discretion in sentencing
4)Structural inequalities

Question 14

Impact of Classicism: Criminal Justice Practice

Answer 14

1) legal principles like due process, equality before the law, right of the accused
2) decline of torture, corporal punishment, and the death penalty
3) growth of the prison as a form of punishment
4) idea that the aim of punishment is deterrence

Question 15

Impacts of Classicism: Criminological Thought

Answer 15

1) Contemporary “neo-classical” theories that view offenders as rational actors:
—Rational Choice Theory
—Routine Activities Theory
2) Crime can be best reduced by managing, designing, or manipulating the immediate environment so as to reduce the opportunities for crime and increase its perceived risks

Question 16

3 Challenges of Classicism in Practice

Answer 16

1) how to make such ideas serve the interests of justice and equality when faced with a particular defendant in court.
2) the possibility that growing efficiency may not always be compatible with an emphasis on equal justice.
3 ) the rationalization of the legal system potentially meant some reduction in the power of the elites, they may not like this

Question 17

What is the mission of Positivist Criminology?

Answer 17

the reaction of a better society through the application of scientific principles:

Question 18

Definition of Positivism (Bottoms): Main Assumptions (5)

Answer 18

1) The methods of the natural sciences should be applied and could be applied, to the social world.
2) The foundation of our knowledge of the world (our epistemology ) is data derived from observation. The basis of scientific knowledge is ‘ facts ’ collected dispassionately by the scientist.
3) Facts must be distinguished from values.
4) The core method involved the collection of data, the development of hypotheses, and the testing of these fro verification or falsification
5) The combination of natural scientific methods and deductive reasoning led to a ‘powerful preference ’ for quantitative over qualitative data.

Question 19

3 Major differences between Positivism and Classicism
–1) Object of Study

Answer 19

Classicism: the offense
Positivism: the offender

Question 20

3 Major Differences between Positivism and Classicism
—2) Nature of the Offender

Answer 20

Classicism: free-willed, rational thinking, calculating, normal
Positivism: determined, driven by biological, psychological, or other influence, pathological

Question 21

3 Major Differences between Classicism and Positivism
—3) Response to Crime

Answer 21

Classicism: punishment, proportionate to the offense
Positivism: treatment, indeterminate, depending on individual circumstances

Question 22

Who can early positivism be derived from?

Answer 22

An Italian physician, Giambattista Della Porta, who studied human physiognomy and argued that physical features men that some people were predisposed to crime

Question 23

Cesare Lombroso: viewed humans as ____

Answer 23

throwbacks to a more primitive stage of human development

Question 24

Cesare Lombroso: The criminal was almost a separate species because they exhibited

Answer 24

a variety of mental and physical characteristics

Question 25

Cesare Lombroso: 3 Types of Criminals

Answer 25

1) The epileptic criminal,
2) The insane criminal
3) The born criminal

Question 26

Cesare Lombroso: 3 Sub-types of criminals

Answer 26

1) Pseudo-criminals, who commit crimes involuntarily through passion or some other emotion
2) Criminaloids, for whom opportunity to commit crime plays a greater part than for other criminal types
3) Habitual criminals, who have few, if any, serious anomalies but, rather, fall into primitive tendencies because of factors such as poor education and training

Question 27

Wxhich two people continued Lombroso’s work?

Answer 27

Ferri and Garafalo

Question 28

Who was Ferri (3)?

Answer 28

1) A criminal lawyer, member of parliament, editor of a socialist newspaper and university professor
2) Later gives up socialism to support Mussolini’s fascist regime
3)Broadened that search for causes of crime

Question 29

Who was Garafalo (2)?

Answer 29

1) Convinced of the importance of scientific methodology to the study of crimes
2) Book, Criminology

Question 30

What is Social Darwinsim?

Answer 30

belief on the inevitability of social progress and an assumption of the essentially benign nature of political power

Question 31

Garafalo: the notion of natural crime, 2 essential characteristics

Answer 31

1) Offending the moral sentiment of pity (revulsion against the voluntary infliction of suffering against others)
2) Probity (respect for others’ rights)

Question 32

Garafalo: 4 Classes of Criminal

Answer 32

1) the murderer (in whom altruism is wholly lacking);
2) the violent criminal (characterized by a lack of pity)
3) thieves (characterized by a lack of probity)
4) lascivious criminals such as some sexual offenders (characterized by a low level of moral energy and deficient moral perception)

Question 33

What is Somatotyping

Answer 33

the structure or build of a person, especially to the extent to which it exhibits the characteristics of an ectomorph, an endomorph, or a mesomorph

Question 34

Ernest Kretschmer, 3 major physical types all related to particular psycho disorders

Answer 34

1) The asthenic (lean and lightly built)
2) The athletic (medium to tall in height, and strong)
3) The pyknic (rounded, large neck and broad face)

Question 35

William Sheldon: study of 200 men in Boston, 3 body types

Answer 35

1) Endomorph – Soft and round, short tapering limbs, velvety skin
2) Mesomorph – Muscular, large trunk, heavy chest, large wrists and hands.
3) Ectomorph – Lean, fragile, delicate body, droopy shoulders, little body mass

Question 36

William Sheldon: study of 200 men in Boston, 3 personality/temperament types

Answer 36

1) Viscerotonic – A comfortable person, likes luxury, extrovert.
2) Somotonic – Active, dynamic, aggressive.
3) Cerebrotonic – Introverted, characterized by skin complaints, fatigue, suffering from insomnia.

Question 37

Eleanor and Sheldon Glueck: Compared….

Answer 37

male delinquents and non delinquents finding a number of physical differences between the two

Question 38

Impact of Positivism: critics of individual positivism argue that it draws on 3 problematic sets of assumptions

Answer 38

1) Determinism
2) Differentiation
3) Pathology

Question 39

Impact of Positivism: What is Determinism

Answer 39

Determinism – The assumption that there are things beyond the individual that impel or constrain people in ways that lead to crime. These factors may be biological, psychological, or social. The problem with such views is that they fail to take into account human decision making, rationality, and choice. In policy terms, it tends to lead to an emphasis on treatment and to avoid consideration of individual responsibility.

Question 40

Impact of Positivism: Differentiation

Answer 40

The assumption that offenders can be separated from non-offenders; that they have some characteristic(s) that will help identify them as criminal or noncriminal (much positivist criminology has focused

Question 41

Impact of Positivism: Pathology

Answer 41

The assumption is that the difference between offenders and non-offenders is the result of something having gone wrong in the lives or circumstances of the former.

Question 42

Historical Context: Scientific Evolution (16-18th century Europe) - 3 events/discoveries

Answer 42

1) Copernician revolution
2) Galileo’s telescope
heliocentrism
3)Newton’s law of motion

Question 43

Historical Context: Scientific Evolution (16-18th century Europe) - Outcome

Answer 43

Development of the scientific method
The importance placed on inductive reasoning

Question 44

Historical Context: Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859) - 4 points/def

Answer 44

1) Theory of evolution by natural selection
2) Certain heritable traits make it easier for some to survive and reproduce
3) The fittest thrive and multiply, while the unfit die
4) Over time, this process modifies the genetic makeup of the population

Question 45

Historical Context: Social Darwinism (1865-1900) - main idea

Answer 45

The wealthy and powerful ae so because of inherited qualities and traits that evolved through natural selection
The unsuccessful are so because they are less evolved

Question 46

Historical Context: Social Darwinism (1865-1900) - main idea - Herbert Spencer (3)

Answer 46

1) Proponent of the welfare state and all reform efforts
2) Government intervention only interferes with the ‘natural’ process of ‘survival of the fittest’
3) Helping the poor and working classes only delay the extinction of the unfit

Question 47

Historical Context: Social Darwinism (1865-1900) - main idea - Problems (3)

Answer 47

1) Misinterpretation of Darwin: evolution is not linear and one-dimensional
2) Confused culture with biology: traits that are culturally undesirable are treated as biologically inferior
3) Examples of naturalistic fallacy: social inequality is good because it is a result of evolution, a natural process

Question 48

The Positivist Perspective: five points/considerations

Answer 48

1) Rose to prominence in the 19th century
2) Pictures crime as a sickness, not a sin
3) Considers crime as caused, rather than chosen
4) Posts that crime is the product of a disease infecting the body or mind
5) Sought to eliminate or at least reduce crime

Question 48

The Positivist Perspective: five points/considerations

Answer 48

1) Rose to prominence in the 19th century
2) Pictures crime as a sickness, not a sin
3) Considers crime as caused, rather than chosen
4) Posts that crime is the product of a disease infecting the body or mind
5) Sought to eliminate or at least reduce crime

Question 49

The Body is Lombroso’s object of analysis in 3 ways

Answer 49

1) The Criminal Body
2) The Punishable Body
3) The Social Body

Question 50

The Body is Lombroso’s object of analysis in 3 ways: The Criminal Body (4)

Answer 50

1) Interested in corporeal signs of atavism. Crminlait could be read off the body
2) Used autopsies of criminal bodies to scientifically prove criminality and dangerous
3) Nearly all criminals have jug ears, thick hair, thin beards, pronounced sinuses, retruded chins
4) Habitual murders had a black, glassy look in their eyes

Question 51

The Body is Lombroso’s object of analysis in 3 ways: The Punishable Body

Answer 51

1) Punishments should be equal to the dangerousness of the offender
2) Permanent incapacitation or death from born criminals
—–Some people can’t be rehabilitated
3) Manual labor for criminals of less danger

Question 52

The Body is Lombroso’s object of analysis in 3 ways: The Social Body (3)

Answer 52

1) Worried criminal body would infiltrate and infect the social bod
2) Represents anarchists and other political agitators as pathogens or a form of illness plaguing the social body
3) Concerned to protect the social body by managing and eradicating criminal bodies

Question 53

Heredity and Crime: The Jukes

Answer 53

1) 150 years of information on a degenerate family
2) Inferred that poverty and criminality can be inherited

Question 54

Heredity and Crime: Goddard - The Kallikak Family

Answer 54

1) Study of children of feebleminded people
2) Found that children on the feeble-minded side ended up poor, mentally ill, criminal bastards living off the generosity of the state
3) Found that children of the legitimate did better financially and professionally
4) Inferred that feeblemindedness was strongly inheritable

Question 55

Positive Eugenics

Answer 55

Attempts to improve the gene pool by encouraging the genetically well-endowed to produce more frequently

Question 56

Negative Eugenics

Answer 56

1) Permanent segregation
2) Sterilization
3) Restrictive marriage policies
4) Restrictive immigration policies

Question 57

Critiques of Positivism (3)

Answer 57

1) Methods: imprecise definitions, poor sampling procedures, inadequate control group-comparisons
2) Determinism: The assumption that there are things beyond the individual that impel or constrain people in ways that lead to crime. Fails to take into account of human-decision making, rationality, and choice
3) Individualism: focuses on individual factors to the exclusion of everything else. Vuture, socialization, enforcement of activities, and inequality are completely ignored.

Question 58

Contribution to BioCrim: Conclusion 1

Answer 58

1) biological factors almost certainly have some role in the determination of the criminal contract
–The extent of this role is very small
–Role is heavily mediated by broader social and environmental facts

Question 59

Contribution to BioCrim: Conclusion 2

Answer 59

the common topic of all past and current bio-criminology is this: to know criminological bodies in such a way that pathological ones never reach their full potential so that social defense is a thing of the past