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Criminology
•The scientific study of crime and the causes of criminal behavior.
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Criminologist
A specialist in the field of crime and the causes of criminal behavior
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•One of the major issues of interest to criminologists is to explain:
–“Why do we have crime?”
–To criminologists, this the problem of the “etiology” of crime.
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Etiology
•the study of causes
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Theory
an explanation of a happening or circumstance that is based on observation, experimentation, and reasoning
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It is also important to understand that modern criminological theory tries to be
scientific
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For something to be scientific, it must meet at least three minimum criteria:
- –must be empirical = based on observable data.
- –must be testable = open to experiment, capable of being disproved
- –must be objective = free from bias and unscrutinized influence
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In criminology, there are at least three major schools of thought
- •Classical Criminology
- • Positivist Criminology
- • Critical Criminology
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Classical Criminology
- •This title is used to refer to a school of thought on crime which first developed near the end of the 1700’s.
- •The original version is based primarily on the writings of two men:
- –Cesare Beccaria
- –Jeremy Bentham
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•Human beings were seen as being:
- –Rational – capable of creative thought
- –Hedonistic – inclined to seek pleasure and to avoid pain
- –Self-determining – choose behavior based on a hedonistic evaluation of the pains and pleasures
- –Thus, human beings were seen as having total free will.
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Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794)
- •An Italian nobleman trained as a mathematician and economist
- •Visitor to the courts and prisons of his day
- –He was horrified by the illogic of the criminal justice system of his day
- –He thought a discretionary system conflicted with the prevailing free will view of human nature.
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Beccaria proposed new principles of justice, which included:
- –Law should originate in the legislature not in judges
- –There should be a scale of crimes and punishments.
- –Penalties should be as harsh as necessary to make crime more painful than conformity.
- –The effectiveness of penalties lies in:
- •The certainty of the punishment
- •The immediacy of the punishment
- •NOT in the harshness of the punishment.
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•French and Americans soon discovered that there were some problems with Beccaria’s kind of strict system:
- –No two offenses are ever exactly the same.
- –First offenders and repeat offenders were to be treated the same way, but we know they are very different.
- –Children, mentally challenged, the insane and other incompetents were treated as if they were rational, intelligent and capable of free will.
- •This is because the basis of the judgment in a Beccarian system is the act – not the actor.
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