CRIM 1 – Introduction to Criminology

MODULE 2 – Schools of Thought in Criminology

1st Semester, AY 2020-2021

Overview
This module describes the most important concepts relating criminology as a
discipline is recent, but its foundations date back to centuries ago built by people
who may be called early criminologists. To better understand current
criminological theories, it is essential to be familiar with these people’s
contributions and earlier approaches.

Learning Outcomes
After studying this lesson, you should be able to:
1. explain the concept of Classical School, Positive School and Neo-Classical School;
2. explain the Sociological Positivism; and
3. explain the Lacassagne School.

SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT IN CRIMINOLOGY

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 CRIM 1 – Introduction to Criminology
MODULE 2 – Schools of Thought in Criminology
1st Semester, AY 2020-2021

CLASSICAL CRIMINOLOGY

By the middle of the 18th century, social philosophers studied, argued and began to look
for a more rational approach in imposing punishment. Social reformers sought to eliminate the
barbaric system of law, punishment and justice. They stressed that the relationship between
crime and punishment should be balanced and fair.

One of the social reformers who worked on

the implementation of said reform was
Cesare Beccaria. He pioneered the
development of a systematic understanding
of why people committed crime. According
to him, the crime problem could be traced
not to bad people but to bad laws, that a
modern criminal justice system should
guarantee all people equal treatment before
the law, Beccaria believed that the behavior
of people with regard to their choice of
action is based on hedonism, the pleasure
pain principle: Human beings choose those
actions that give pleasure and avoid those
that bring pain. Moreover, punishment
should be assigned to each crime in a degree
that results in more pain than pleasure for
those who commit the forbidden acts.
Ces Therefore, the punishments should fit the
are Beccaria (1738-1794) crime."

The writings of Beccaria and his followers form the core of what today is referred to as
Classical Criminology, with the following basic elements:

 In every society, people have free will to choose criminal or law solutions to meet their
needs or settle their problems.

 Criminal solutions may be more attractive than lawful ones because they usually require
less work for a greater payoff; if left unsanctioned, crime has greater utility than
conformity.

 A person's choice of criminal solutions may be controlled by his fear of punishment.

 The more severe, certain, and swift the punishment, the better able it is to control
criminal behavior (Siegel, 2004).
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 CRIM 1 – Introduction to Criminology
MODULE 2 – Schools of Thought in Criminology
1st Semester, AY 2020-2021

Beccaria's book On Crimes and Punishment supplied the blue print, which was based on the
assumption that people freely choose what they do and are responsible for the consequences of
their behavior.

Another classicist was Jeremy Bentham,

a contemporary of Beccaria. He devoted his
life to developing scientific approach to the
making and breaking of laws. Like Beccaria,
he was concerned with achieving the
greatest happiness of the greatest number."
Bentham referred to his philosophy of social
control Utilitarianism as assumes
utilitarianism. that all human 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
Jeremy Bentham (1749 1832)
and future pain.

The Classical School of Criminology concept of human nature as governed by the

doctrine of “free will and rational behavior, upholds the following principles:

1. All human beings, including criminals, will freely choose either criminal ways or non-
criminal ways, depending on which way they believe will benefit them.

2. Criminals will avoid behaviors that will bring pain and will engage in behaviors that
will bring pleasure.

3. Before deciding which course of action to take, criminals will weigh the expected
pains.

4. Criminals are responsible for their behaviors. They are seen as human beings who are
able to interpret, analyze, and understand the situations in which they find themselves.

5. Criminals act over and against their environments. They are not victims of their
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 CRIM 1 – Introduction to Criminology
MODULE 2 – Schools of Thought in Criminology
1st Semester, AY 2020-2021

6. Criminals go through a thinking process whereby they take a variety of factors into
account before they make a final decision on whether or not to commit a criminal act.

7. Criminals are totally responsible for their behaviors.

8. Environmental forces do not push, pull, or propel individuals to act. An individual acts
willfully and freely.

9. Offenders are not helpless, passive, or propelled by forces beyond their control.

10. Each criminal act is a deliberate one, committed by a rational, choosing person who is
motivated primarily by the pleasure-pain principle.

NEOCLASSICAL CRIMINOLOGY

The neoclassical school, which flourished in the 19th Century, had the same basis as the
classical school - a belief in free will. But the neoclassical criminologists, most of whom were
British, saw the need for individualized reaction to offenders. They believed the classical
approach was too harsh and unjust. This school of Criminology is a modification of classical
theory; it believed that certain factors such as insanity will inhibit the exercise of free will

Perhaps the most shocking aspect of harsh penal codes in early times was that they did
not provide for the separate treatment of children. One of the changes of the neoclassical period
was that children under seven years of age were exempt from the law because they were
presumed to be unable to understand what is right or wrong. The exemption would cover
juveniles. Mental disease became a reason to exempt a suspect from conviction too. It was seen
as a sufficient cause of impaired responsibility, and thus defense by reason of insanity crept into
the law. Any situation or circumstance that made it impossible to exercise free will was seen as a
reason to exempt a person from legal responsibility from what otherwise might be a criminal act.

Although the neoclassical school, unlike the classical, was not a scientific school of
criminology, it began to explore the causation issue. Its proponents made exceptions to the law
and implied multiple causation. Even today, much modern law is based on the neoclassical
philosophy of free will tempered by exceptions (Reid, 1997).

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 CRIM 1 – Introduction to Criminology
MODULE 2 – Schools of Thought in Criminology
1st Semester, AY 2020-2021

POSITIVIST CRIMINOLOGY

The positivist school originated in the 19th century in the context of the "scientific
revolution." The positivists rejected the harsh legalism of the classical school and substituted the
concept of "free will with the doctrine of determinism. They focused on the constitutional
approach to crime advocating that structure characteristics of an individual determine that
person's behavior. Since these characteristics are not uniform, the positivists emphasized a
philosophy of individualized, scientific treatment of criminals, based on the findings of the
physical and social sciences.

is considered the founder of positivist

school and sociology. He applied scientific
methods in the study of society, from where
he adopted the word sociology. He wanted a
society in which all social problems will be
solved by scientific methods and research.
He believed that large groups of people such
as society, being a subject of scientific
study, can lead to the discovery of specific
laws that would greatly help them.

Auguste Comte (1798-1857)

The positivist school was composed of several Italians. Generally, it is associated with
Cesare Lombroso (who founded the Italian School of thought), Enrico Ferri, and Raffaele
Garofalo. They were called the "unholy three" by the religious leaders during the time of
positivism because of their belief in evolution as contrasted to biblical interpretation of the origin
of man and woman. Eventually, they have been called the "holy three of criminology" because
their emergence symbolized clearly that the era of faith was over and the scientific age had
begun.

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 CRIM 1 – Introduction to Criminology
MODULE 2 – Schools of Thought in Criminology
1st Semester, AY 2020-2021

The positivist school presumes that criminal behavior is caused by internal and external
factors outside of the individual's control. The scientific method was introduced and applied to
the study of human behavior. Positivism can be broken up into three segments which include
biological, psychological and social positivism. The following are key assumptions of the
positivist school of thought:

1. Human behavior is determined and not a matter of free will.

2. Criminals are fundamentally different from non criminals.

3. Positivists search for such differences by scientific methods.

4. Social scientists (including criminologists) can be objective, or values-neutral, in their

work.

5. Crime is frequently caused by multiple factors.

6. Society is based on consensus, and not on social contract

BIOLOGICAL POSITIVISM

Cesare Lombroso was an Italian

criminologist, scientist, university professor,
prison doctor, and founder of criminal
anthropology. He was one of the largest
contributors to biological positivism and
founder of the Italian School of
Criminology. Lombroso is widely known as
the father of modem criminology, although
most of his ideas have been discredited
today.

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 CRIM 1 – Introduction to Criminology
MODULE 2 – Schools of Thought in Criminology
1st Semester, AY 2020-2021

It is interesting to examine the sequence of events that made Lombroso, not Beccaria or
Bentham, deserve this title.

Lombroso's work closely followed Charles Darwin's theory of man's evolution.

Lombroso contended that just as human beings developed from the nonhuman animal forms, the
criminal was a throwback or mutant to a primitive stage of human evolution. The criminal was a
product of biology, and not much could be done for this "born criminal Lombroso's positivist
approach was scientific, anthropological and biological. With his research, the "legalistic
concern for crime" advanced to a "scientific study of the criminal, which in turn became the field
of criminology. This accounted for his title of being the father of criminology

After completing his medical studies, Lombroso served as an army physician, became a
professor of psychiatry at the University of Turin, and later in his life accepted an appointment as
professor of criminal anthropology. His theory of the "born criminal" states that criminals are a
lower form of life, nearer to their apelike ancestors than non-criminals in traits and dispositions.
They can be distinguished from non-criminals by various atavistic stigmata, which refers to the
physical features of creatures at an earlier stage of development, before they became fully human
beings.

The criminal's distinct physical and mental stigmata include deviation in head size and
shape from the type common to the race and region from which the criminal came; asymmetry of
the face; excessive dimensions of the jaw and cheek bones; eye defects and peculiarities; ears of
unusual size, or occasionally very small, or standing out from the head as those of chimpanzee;
nose twisted, upturned or flattened in thieves, or aquiline or beak-like in murderers, or with a tip
rising like a peak from swollen nostrils; fleshy lips, swollen and protruding; pouches in the
cheeks like those of animal's toes; and imbalance of the hemispheres of the brain. Lombroso's
work supported the idea that the criminal was a biologically and physically inferior person.

Among Lombroso's major contributions to positivist criminology are the following:

1. The theory of atavism. Lombroso had the opinion that criminals were developed from
primitive or subhuman individuals characterized by some inferior mental and physical
characteristics such as receding hairline, forehead wrinkles, bumpy face, broad noses,
fleshy lips, sloping shoulders, long arms, and pointy fingers. He called this condition
atavism.

2. The application of the experimental or scientific method to the study of the criminal.
Lombroso spent endless hours measuring criminally insane persons and epileptics'
skulls.

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 CRIM 1 – Introduction to Criminology
MODULE 2 – Schools of Thought in Criminology
1st Semester, AY 2020-2021

3. The development of a criminal typology. Although Lombroso's system of classification

is considered crude and not adopted today, he still attempted to categorize criminals.
They are as follows:

a. Born criminals - These refer to individuals who are born with a genetic
predilection toward criminality.

b. Epileptic criminals - These are criminals who commit crime because they are
affected by epilepsy.

c. Insane criminals - These are those who commit crimes due to abnormalities or
psychological disorders. These criminals are not criminal from birth; they
become criminal as a result of some changes in their brains which interfere
with their ability to distinguish between right and wrong.

d. Occasional criminals - These are criminals who commit crime due to

insignificant reasons that push them to do at a given occasion.

Lombroso also identified the various types of occasional criminals as:

a. Pseudo criminals - These individuals are not real criminals. They have
neither any inborn tendency towards crime nor are they under the
influence of any bad crime-inducing habit. They do something
criminal on account of acute pressure of circumstances that leave
them with no choice. An example would be persons who kill in
self-defense.

b. Criminaloids - The term "criminaloids (sometimes called criminoloid)

means "like a criminal" or "having resemblance with the criminal."
From this, it can be said that criminaloids are not born criminals
but non criminals who have adopted criminal activity due to
pressure of circumstances and less physical stamina or self control.
The nature of their crimes is not very grave.

c. Habitual criminals - They have no organic criminal tendency, but in the

course of their lives they have developed some foul habits that
force them into criminality. Some attributing factors are poor
parenting and education, or contact with other criminals.

d. Passionate criminals - These are individuals who are easily influenced

by great emotions like fit of anger.

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 CRIM 1 – Introduction to Criminology
MODULE 2 – Schools of Thought in Criminology
1st Semester, AY 2020-2021

4. The belief in the indeterminate sentence. Penalties should be indeterminate so that

those other "born" criminals who are incorrigible could be worked with and rehabilitated.

5. The application of statistical techniques to criminology. Although crude and with the
use of questionable control groups, statistical techniques were used by Lombroso to make
criminological predictions.

A student of Lombroso, Enrico Ferri is the

best-known of Lombroso's associates. But,
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
factors in the study of criminal behavior. 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 those acts. On the contrary, Ferri
believed that criminals could not be held
morally responsible because they did not
choose to commit crime but rather were
driven to commit them by conditions in their
lives. He, however, stressed that society
needed protection against criminal acts and
Enrico Ferri that it was the purpose of the criminal law
and penal policy to provide that protection.

Ferri claimed that strict obedience to preventive measures based on scientific methods
would eventually reduce crimes and allow people to live together in society with less dependence
on the penal system.

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 CRIM 1 – Introduction to Criminology
MODULE 2 – Schools of Thought in Criminology
1st Semester, AY 2020-2021

Just like Lombroso and Ferri, Raffaele

Garofalo 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 by
Lombroso's theory of atavistic stigmata,
which he found to have many shortcomings,
he traced the roots of criminal behavior, not
to physical features, but to their
psychological equivalents, which he called
"moral anomalies. According to this theory,
natural crimes are found in all human
societies, regardless of the views of
lawmakers, and no society can disregard
that.
Raffaele Garofalo

According to Garofalo, natural crimes are those that offend the basic normal sentiments
of probity, which mean respect for the property of others, and piety or avoidance of causing
infliction of sufferings to others. An individual who has an organic deficiency in these moral
sentiments has no moral force against committing such crimes. Influenced by the theory of
Darwin, Garofalo suggested that the death penalty could rid the society of its maladapted
members, just as the natural selection process eliminated maladapted organisms. And for those
who committed less serious offenses, who are capable of adapting themselves to society in some
measure, he preferred: transportation to remote islands, loss of privileges, institutionalization in
farm colonies, or perhaps simple reparation. Clearly, Garofalo was more concerned and
interested in protecting society than individual rights of offenders. Garofalo classified criminals
as:

1. Murderers - those who are satisfied from vengeance or revenge

2. Violent criminals - those who commit very serious crimes

3. Thieves - those who commit crimes against property

4. Lascivious criminals - those who commit crimes against chastity

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 CRIM 1 – Introduction to Criminology
MODULE 2 – Schools of Thought in Criminology
1st Semester, AY 2020-2021

SOCIOLOGICAL POSITIVISM

During the nineteenth and early scholars began to search for social determinants of
criminal behavior. Among them were Quetelet and the French lawyer Andre Michel Guerry.
They started what was called Cartographic School of Criminology in which they worked
independently on the relation of crime statistics to such factors as poverty age, sex, race, climate,
and other demographic factors. Both scholars concluded that society, not the decision of
individual offenders, was responsible for criminal behavior.

Another scholar who worked on relationship

of crime and social factors was Gabriel
Tarde. He was of the opinion that society
played an important role in creating the
criminal. However, individual choice and
chance were also important to him. Tarde's
major contribution in the study of the cause
of crime was his concept of the criminal as a
professional type. He believed that most
criminals went through a process of training
before finally becoming criminal. Moreover,
it was an accident of birth or chance that put
them in an atmosphere of crime.

Of all the nineteenth-century writers on the relationship between crime and social factors,
none has more powerfully influenced contemporary criminology than Émile Durkheim.

According to Durkheim, crime is an inevitable aspect of society. It could disappear only

if all members of society had the same values, and such standardization is neither possible nor
desirable. He called this concept anomie (Greek, anomos, without norms), a breakdown of social
order as a result of a loss of standards and values. In a society plagued by anomie, disintegration
and chaos replace social cohesion.

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 CRIM 1 – Introduction to Criminology
MODULE 2 – Schools of Thought in Criminology
1st Semester, AY 2020-2021

COMPARISON OF THE CLASSICAL AND POSITIVE CRIMINOLOGY

The classical and positivist schools had an important impact on the emergence and
development of criminology. The basic differences between these schools of thought are listed in
the following table (Reid, 1997).

Classical Criminology Positivist Criminology

1. Legal definition of crime 1. Rejection of legal definition

2. Let the punishment fit the crime 2. Let the punishment fit the crime
3. Doctrine of free will 3. Doctrine of determinism
4. Death penalty for some offenses 4. Abolition of the death penalty
5. Anecdotal method - no empirical research 5. Empirical research, inductive method
method
6. Definite sentence 6. Indeterminate sentence

LACASSAGNE SCHOOL

Lombroso's Italian school was rivaled, in France, by Alexandre Lacassagne and his
school of thought, based in Lyon and influential from 1885 to 1914. The Lacassagne School
rejected Lombroso's theory of "criminal type" and of "born criminals" and stressed the
importance of social factors. However, contrary to criminological tendencies influenced by
Durkheim's social determinism, it did not reject biological factors. Indeed, Lacassagne created an
original synthesis of both tendencies, influenced by positivism, phrenology and hygienism,
which alleged a direct influence of the social environment on the brain.

Furthermore, Lacassagne criticized the lack of efficiency of prison, insisted on social

responsibilities toward crime and on political voluntarism as a solution to crime, and thus
advocated harsh penalties for those criminals thought to be unredeemable ("recidivist"), for
example by supporting the 1895 law on penal colonies or opposing the abolition of the death
penalty in 1906.

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 CRIM 1 – Introduction to Criminology
MODULE 2 – Schools of Thought in Criminology
1st Semester, AY 2020-2021

psychologist, claimed that psychological

factors such as extraversion and
neuroticism made a person more likely to
commit criminal acts. He also included a
psychoticism dimension that includes traits
similar to the psychopathic profile,
developed by Hervey Cleckley, and later
Robert Hare, Eysenck also based his model
on early parental socialization of the child.
His approach bridges the gap between
biological explanations and environmental
or social learning-based approaches (See
e.g. social psychologists B.F. Skinner
[1938], Albert Bandura [1973], and the
Hans Eysenck (1977), a British topic "nature vs. nurture.").

CHICAGO SCHOOL

The Chicago School arose in the early twentieth century, through the work of Robert
Park, Ernest Burgess, and other urban sociologists at the University of Chicago. In the 1920's,
Park and Burgess identified five concentric zones that often exist as cities grow, including the
"zone in transition" which was identified as most volatile and subject to disorder. In the 1940s,
Henry McKay and Clifford Shaw focused on juvenile delinquents, finding that they were
concentrated in the zone of transition.

Chicago School sociologists adopted a social ecology approach to studying cities, and
postulated that urban neighborhoods with high levels of poverty often experience breakdown in
the social structure and institutions such as family and schools. This results in social
disorganization, which reduces the ability of these institutions to control behavior and creates an
environment ripe for deviant behavior.

Other researchers suggested an added social psychological link. For one, Edwin
Sutherland suggested that people learn criminal behavior from older, more experienced criminals
that they may associate with.

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 CRIM 1 – Introduction to Criminology
MODULE 2 – Schools of Thought in Criminology
1st Semester, AY 2020-2021

References
Books/Journal/Magazine/Proceedings
ALVIOLA, A., ALVIOLA J. 2014. Introduction to Criminology and Psychology of
Crimes, Wiseman’s Book Trading, Inc. pp. 19-33
Electronic References

Icons Used

open.edu

sciencephoto.com

en.wikipedia.org

en.wikipedia.org

en.wikipedia.org

sciencephoto.com

en.wikipedia.org

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