CCJ4100 UOCF Differences Between the Rational Choice and Classical Theory

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CCJ4100

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Answer each question minimum of 300 words. Use provided material (PDF book) as well as 2 additional sources to answer questions. Reference/cite in APA formatt. Remember to place in-text citations at the beginning of each new paragraph to support facts. Here is the reference for the (PDF): [Bohm, R. M., & Vogel, B. L. (2011). A primer on crime and delinquency theory (3rd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/CENGAGE Learning].


1.) In detail, describe the Classical Theory and Neo-Classical Theory. What do you see as the main differences between the two? Which theory do you believe to be dominant?

2.)Jeremy Bentham believed that the pain of the punishment should outweigh the pleasure of performing the crime. Do you agree with this theory or not?

3.) Cesare Beccaria believed in crime prevention over criminal punishment. List the six items that Beccaria believed would reduce crime and expound on whether you believe them to be pertinent to this day and age.

4.) What are the differences between the Rational Choice Theory and the Classical Theory?



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A Primer on Crime and L Delinquency Theory I DT H I R D E D I T I O N D E L LROBERT M. BOHM University of Central Florida , and TBRENDA L. VOGEL I F F A N Y California State University, Long Beach 1 5 6 8 T S Australia • Brazil • Japan • Korea • Mexico • Singapore • Spain • United Kingdom • United States Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. L I D D E L This is an electronic version of the print textbook. L Due to electronic rights restrictions, some third party content may be suppressed. Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. The publisher reserves the,right to remove content from this title at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. For valuable information on pricing, previous editions, changes to current editions, and alternate formats, please visit www.cengage.com/highered to search by ISBN#, author, title, or keyword for materials in your areas of interest. T I F F A N Y 1 5 6 8 T S Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. A Primer on Crime and Delinquency Theory, Third Edition Robert M. Bohm, Brenda L. Vogel Editor: Carolyn Henderson-Meier Editorial Assistant: John Chell Media Editor: Andy Yap © 2011, 2001, 1997 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this work covered by the copyright herein may be reproduced, transmitted, stored or used in any form or by any means graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including but not limited to photocopying, recording, scanning, digitizing, taping, Web distribution, information networks, or information storage and retrieval systems, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the publisher. 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Locate your local office at www.cengage.com/global F Cengage A Learning products are represented in Canada by Nelson Education, Ltd. N Y more about Wadsworth, visit To learn www.cengage.com/Wadsworth Purchase any of our products at your local college store or at our preferred online store www.cengagebrain.com 1 5 6 8 T S Printed in the United States of America 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 14 13 12 11 10 Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 2 Classical and L Neoclassical Theory I D D E Enlightenment Philosophy and L Classical Theory L Beccaria , Rational Choice Theory A Critique of Classical Theory Neoclassical Theory C lassical theory is a productTof the philosophy of the Enlightenment, a period of I social history roughly spanning the time of transition between the Protestant Reformation (1517) and the F American and French Revolutions (1776 and 1789, respectively). The Enlightenment, or the “Age of Reason,” was characterized by an F intellectual challenge to the then-dominant theological worldview and theologically A derived knowledge based on revelation and the authority of the Church. During the “Middle Ages” N or the “Dark Ages,” the nearly thousand years between the fall of the western Roman Y Empire (476) and the Reformation, the Catholic Church was the primary cultural and social influence in the Western world. Catholic theology constituted the source of virtually all knowledge, as Carl Becker, a noted 1 philosopher, describes: 5 Existence was … regarded by the medieval man as a cosmic drama, composed by the master6dramatist according to a central theme and on a rational plan.… The duty 8 of man was to accept the drama as written, since he could not alter T it; his function, to play the role assigned. That he might play his role according to the divine text, subordinate S authorities—church and state—deriving their just powers from the will 13 Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 14 CHAPTER 2 of God, were instituted among men to dispose them to submission and to instruct them in their proper lines.1 ENLIGHTENMENT PHILOSOPHY AND CLASSICAL THEORY The challenge to the theologically based worldview and the authority of the Catholic Church came from Enlightenment thinkers who promoted a new, “scientific” worldview based on reason. For Enlightenment thinkers, who drew many of their ideas from the Greek or “classical” philosophers Socrates (469–399 L B.C.), Plato (427–347 B.C.), and Aristotle (384–322 B.C.), reason, especially in I those areas where personal observation was possible, was a legitimate and more democratic source of knowledge.DReason, for Enlightenment thinkers, referred to either the rationalism of Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), Rene Descartes D (1632–1677), John Locke (1632–1704), (1596–1650), Benedict de Spinoza Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716), Francois-Marie Arouet de Voltaire E (1694–1778), Charles de Secondat, the Baron de Montesquieu (1689–1755), L and others, or the empiricism of Francis Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), Bacon (1561–1626), Galileo Galilei L (1564–1642), Johannes Kepler (1571– 1630), and Isaac Newton (1642–1727), among others.2 , logic, which involves reasoning from the genRationalism is based on deductive eral to the particular or applying theory to a particular case. The scientist constructs a theory and then makes observations in an effort to support or refute the theory. T on inductive logic, which involves reasoning Empiricism, on the other hand, is based from the particular to the generalI or moving from specific facts to theory. The scientist makes observations and then constructs a theory to explain the observaF tions.3 Modern scientific reasoning frequently combines deduction and induction. As noted, the new, scientific F worldview of the Enlightenment thinkers explicitly rejected the theological worldview, considering it a fraud or at least an A illusion. Again, as Carl Becker explains: N Renunciation of the traditional revelation was the very condition of being truly enlightened; for to beYtruly enlightened was to see the light in all its fullness, and the light in its fullness revealed two very simple and obvious facts … the fact that the supposed revelation of God’s purposes through Holy Writ and Holy 1 Church was a fraud, or at best an illusion born of ignorance, perpetrated,5 or at least maintained, by the priests in order to accentuate the fears of mankind, and so hold it in subjection. 6 The other … that God had revealed his purpose to men in a far more simple and natural, a far less mysterious and recondite way, through his 8 works. To be enlightened was to understand this double truth, that it was T book of nature, open for all mankind not in Holy Writ, but in the great to read, that the laws of God S had been recorded. This is the new revelation, and thus at last we enter the secret door to knowledge.4 Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. CLASSICAL AND NEOCLASSICAL THEORY 15 The Enlightenment thinkers assumed that human beings could understand the world through science—the human capacity to observe and reason. Moreover, they believed that if the world and its functioning could be understood, then it could also be changed. They rejected the belief that either the world or the people in it were divinely ordained or determined. Instead, they believed that people were freewilled and thus completely responsible for their actions. Human behavior was considered to be motivated by a hedonistic rationality, where individuals weighed the potential pleasure of an action against its possible pain. The concept of hedonistic rationality is associated with the work of Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), who described his “felicity [or hedonic] calculus” in his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789). To determine the “amount” of pleasure and pain associated with an L act, Bentham considered several factors such as the intensity and the duration of 5 I the pleasure or pain. This pseudo-mathematical model was hardly a scientific analysis but, instead, was based on Bentham’s personal evaluation of an act.6 D In any event, human beings committed crime, in this view, because they ratioDwould give them more pleasure than pain. Before nally calculated that the crime the Enlightenment, crime was Eequated with sin and was considered the work of demons or the Devil.7 Besides Bentham, other Enlightenment thinkers associated L with the classical school of criminology were Cesare Bonesana, the Marchese de Beccaria (1738–1794) of Italy, William Blackstone (1723–1780), John Howard L (1726–1790), and Samuel Romilly (1757–1818)—all of England—and Paul , (1775–1833) of Germany. Johann Anselm von Feuerbach In the realm of criminal justice, barbaric punishments were common both before and during the Enlightenment. For example, in England during the eighT 100 and 200 offenses carried the death penalty.8 teenth century, between about Consider the following account I of the punishment of Robert-Francois Damiens, who in 1757 stabbed, but did not kill, King Louis XV of France: F At seven o’clock in the morning of his execution day, Damiens was led F to the torture chamber, where his legs were placed in “boots” that were A were inserted. A total of eight wedges were squeezed gradually as wedges inserted, each at fifteen-minute N intervals, until the attending physicians warned that an additional wedge could provoke an “accident” [Damiens’ Y Damiens was removed to the place where premature death]. Thereupon, he would be executed. … The condemned man was placed on a scaffold, where a rope was tied to each arm and leg. Then, Damiens’ hand was 1 burned with a brazier containing burning sulphur, after which red-hot tongs were used to pinch5his arms, thighs, and chest. Molten lead and boiling oil were poured onto his open wounds several times, and after 6 each time the prisoner screamed in agony. Next, four huge horses were whipped by attendants as8they pulled the ropes around Damiens’ bleeding wounds for an hour. Only after some of the tendons were cut did two legs and one arm separateTfrom Damiens’ torso. He remained alive and breathing until the second Sarm was cut from his body. All parts of Damiens’ body were hurled into a nearby fire for burning.9 Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 16 CHAPTER 2 The classicists, as Enlightenment thinkers, were concerned with protecting the rights of humankind from the corruption and excesses of the existing legal institutions.10 Arbitrary and barbarous punishments were not the only problems. At the time, crime itself was poorly defined and extensive. Due process of law was either absent or ignored. For example, people could be arrested without warrants and be held in custody indefinitely without knowing why they were being held. Torture was routinely employed to extract confessions. Judgeships typically were sold to wealthy persons by the sovereign, and judges had almost total discretion. BLE C C A R I A I It was within that historical context that Beccaria wrote and published anonyD work, On Crimes and Punishments (Dei mously in 1764 his truly revolutionary Delitti e delle Pene). His book generally D is acknowledged to have had “more practical effect than any other treatise ever written in the long campaign against barbaE 11 Historians of criminal law credit Beccaria’s rism in criminal law and procedure.” arguments with ending legal torture L throughout Christendom.12 At the time, however, Beccaria’s treatise was not universally acclaimed. For example, in 1765, the Pope placed Beccaria’s workLon a list of banned books for its “extreme rationalism.”13 Nevertheless, in the , book, Beccaria sets forth most of what we now call classical criminological theory. According to Beccaria, the only justified rationale for laws and punishments is the principle of utility, that is, T “the greatest happiness shared by the greatest number.”14 For Beccaria, “Laws Iare the conditions under which independent and isolated men united to form a society.”15 Criminal law should be based on F of society has a right to do anything that positive sanction; that is, every member is not prohibited by law, without fearing anything but natural consequences. The F source of law should be the legislature and not judges. A of society, as well as the origin of punishBeccaria believed that the basis ments and the right to punish, isNthe social contract.16 The social contract is an imaginary agreement entered into by persons who have sacrificed the minimum Y to prevent what the English philosopher amount of their liberty necessary Hobbes called “the war of all against all.” With the demise of absolute monarchies based on the “divine right of kings” and the rise of constitutional monarchies, social contract theory was1used during the Enlightenment to provide justification for the new political5 system.17 In describing the social contract, Beccaria wrote: 6 Weary of living in a continual state of war, and of enjoying a liberty 8 rendered useless by the uncertainty of preserving it, they [people] sacrificed a part so that they mightTenjoy the rest of it in peace and safety. The sum of all these portionsS of liberty sacrificed by each for his own good constitutes the sovereignty of a nation, and their legitimate depository and administrator is the sovereign.18 Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. CLASSICAL AND NEOCLASSICAL THEORY 17 However, Beccaria realized that establishing the social contract is not enough to prevent people from infringing on the remaining liberties of other people. Thus, Beccaria believed that punishment is necessary. For Beccaria, the only legitimate purpose for punishment is deterrence, both special and general.19 Special or specific deterrence is the prevention of particular individuals from committing crime again by punishing them, while general deterrence is the prevention of people in general or society at large from engaging in crime by punishing specific individuals and making examples of them. Beccaria summarized his position on punishment in the following way: “In order for punishment not to be, in every instance, an act of violence of one or of many against a private citizen, it must be essentially public, prompt, necessary, the least possible in the given circumstances, proportionate to the crime, dictated by the laws.”20 It is important to emphasize that Beccaria promoted crime prevention over punishment. As Beccaria maintained, “It is better to prevent crimes than to punish them. This is the ultimate end of every good legislation [that is, to lead] men to the greatest possible happiness or the least possible unhappiness.”21 Interestingly, before Beccaria, the French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire claimed that marriage was an effective deterrent to crime: “The more married men you have, the less crime there will be. Look at the frightful records of your registers of crime; you will find there a hundred bachelors hanged or wheeled for one father of a family.… The father of a family does not want to blush before his children. He fears to leave them a heritage of shame.”22 Beccaria did not include marriage as a way to prevent crime, but he did make six other recommendations:23 1. Social contract 2. Law (must be clear, simple, unbiased, and reflect the consensus of the entire population) 3. Punishment (must be proportionate to the crime, prompt and certain, public, necessary, and dictated by the laws and not by judges’ discretion) 4. Education (enlightenment): “Knowledge breeds evil in inverse ratio to its diffusion, and benefits in direct ratio.” 5. Eliminate corruption from the administration of justice 6. Reward virtue In sum, Beccaria’s main ideas are as follows: Human motivation is governed by a rational hedonism. A society based on a social contract is necessary to escape criminal violence and other predatory behavior. The state has the right to punish. Penalties should be legislated, with a scale of crimes and punishments. It is better to prevent crimes than to punish them. RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY A contemporary version of classical theory is rational choice theory, developed most fully by Derek Cornish (1939– ) and Ronald Clarke (1941– ).24 In this theory, it is assumed that, before many people commit crimes, they consider the risks and Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 18 CHAPTER 2 rewards. Economists have presented a more quantitative version of rational choice theory in their attempt to explain criminal behavior through a costs and benefits analysis.25 The costs and benefits may be either material (for example, money) or psychological. Cornish and Clarke’s rational choice theory extends or modifies classical criminological theory in three ways. First, Cornish and Clarke do not believe that all people are rational all the time. They argue that people utilize a rationality that is limited, or “bounded” by incomplete information, time, and ability.26 Second, they expand the concept of “costs” of crime to include not only official, state sanctions, but also informal sanctions (e.g., parental disapproval), shame, and other consequences such as the loss of a job. Finally, Cornish and Clarke argue that different people calculate the costs and benefits of crime differently. Drawing on other theL oretical perspectives, they contend that the estimation of costs and benefits of I as the individual’s level of self control, moral crime is “influenced by such factors beliefs, strains, emotional state andD association with delinquent peers.”27 D E A CRITIQUE OF CLASSICAL THEORY L The classical school has been characterized as legal and administrative criminolL ogy,28 denounced as “armchair criminology,”29 and accused of being “constructed , retrospectively by nineteenth century criminal anthropologists who, hoping to become a ‘school’ in their own right, invented a forerunner with whom they might favorably compare themselves.”30 The application of classical school tenets T was supposed to make the criminal law fairer and easier to administer. To those ends, judicial discretion would be Ieliminated. Judges would only determine innocence or guilt. All offenders wouldFbe treated alike, and similar crimes would be treated similarly. Individual differences among offenders and unique or mitigating F be ignored. Mitigating circumstances or excircumstances about the crime would tenuating circumstances refer to features A of a case that explain or particularly justify the defendant’s behavior, even though they do not provide a defense to the crime. N are youth, immaturity, or being under the Examples of mitigating circumstances influence of another person. A problem Y with treating all offenders alike and similar crimes similarly is that all offenders are not alike and similar crimes are not always as similar as they might appear on the surface. Should first offenders be treated the same as habitual offenders? Should1juveniles be treated the same as adults? Should the insane be treated the same as the sane? Should a crime of passion be treated the same as the intentional commission5of a crime? The classical school’s answer to all of those difficult questions would be 6 a simple yes, because the school’s focus is the harm caused by the criminal act and not the specific circumstances of the offender. 8 For classical theorists, a murder at the hand of an insane offender creates the same harm as a murder at the hand of T a sane offender and, therefore, they should be treated alike. S The theory of the classical school of criminology poses other problems as well. For example, classical theory assumes that there is a consensus in society, Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. CLASSICAL AND NEOCLASSICAL THEORY 19 at least about the desirability of a social contract.31 However, as much as it may be in everyone’s interest to be protected from criminal violence, in a society in which the distribution of property is inequitable, it may not be in everyone’s interest to have the present distribution of property protected. Why would a person without property agree to enter into a social contract to protect the existing distribution of property? Classical theory also assumes that rational people will choose to enter into the social contract; thus, anyone who commits crime is pathological or irrational, that is, unable or unwilling to enter into a social contract.32 Again, why would a person without property want to enter into a social contract to protect the existing distribution of property? Classical theory fails to consider that crime may be rational given the individual’s social position.33 On the other hand, classical theL ory, especially rational choice theory and economic models, has been criticized I to which offenders rationally calculate the confor overemphasizing the degree sequences of their actions.34 D Placed in its historical context, classical theory turns out to be an ideological justification for the position D of the then new and increasingly prosperous merchant or business class.35 Beccaria’s E system of justice protected the newly propertied classes, while controlling all others, especially the old landed aristocracy who L was in direct political competition with the new merchant or business class. Although Beccaria was bornLa member of the aristocracy as a marquis, he had no property and was a disaffected member of his class.36 Other classical criminologists were members of the, new merchant or business class or were in sympathy with them. Note that rational calculation of pains of punishment versus the pleasure of success makes more sense for property crime than for violent crime. T practical reasons (to the new merchant or busiIn addition, there were very ness class) for making the laws I more humane and reducing capital and corporal punishment. In the first place, under the system of barbarous punishments, F judges and juries were frequently reluctant to convict, thus diminishing deterF of punishments, judges and juries were more rence. By reducing the severity likely to convict, and, as a result, property was better protected. An added beneA fit of sending offenders to prison rather than killing or maiming them was that N in prisoners (or so it was thought), preparing prisons indoctrinated work habits them for labor in the newly Y emerging industrial age. It was considered wasteful to destroy able-bodied workers. Another problem with classical theory is the assumption that human beings are freewilled and completely 1 responsible for their behavior. Among the first Enlightenment thinkers to counter those notions, and take what at the time was 5 the seventeenth-century philosopher Benedict de a very unpopular position, was Spinoza. According to Spinoza, 6 people often believe they are freewilled or choose freely, but this belief is a product of their ignorance of the causes that determine 8 as Spinoza concluded, “It is absurd to praise or their actions or choices. Thus, blame people since they are and T do what they must be and do. We should rather seek to understand the causes of their actions and states of mind.”37 Beirne has argued that Beccaria has beenSmisinterpreted and that he was “resolutely opposed to any notion of free will.”38 Beirne maintains that Beccaria believed that “human Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 20 CHAPTER 2 agents are no more than the products of their sensory reactions to external stimuli.”39 Besides, a belief in free will would seem to deny the contributions of all modern social sciences, as well as the success of the entire advertising industry. A major goal of the social sciences, after all, is to understand, predict, and control human behavior, and the sole purpose of the advertising industry is to create and maintain a market for commodities by manipulating human behavior. Perhaps a more fundamental problem is the apparent contradiction between the ideas of free will and social contract. If people cede a minimum amount of liberty as their share in the social contract, then they are no longer totally free but are minimally constrained by the state to which they ceded their liberty. Still another problem with classical theory is its belief in deterrence. In the first place, little scientific evidence supports the contention that people do not commit crimes because they are afraid of being punished.40 A recent meta-analysis of forty empirical studies found that the effects of deterrence variables on crime/deviance are quite weak, and are weakened even more in the presence of other relevant variables.41 Second, even if deterrence exists (and this is not the place to delve into the methodological difficulties of demonstrating why people do not act in a given situation), then it probably is effective only for people who have been adequately socialized. How threatened are people whose lives are miserable beyond all hope? What about people (“outsiders”) whose value systems are not likely to be changed? For those types of people, deterrence is unlikely to be effective. Finally, classical theory, as well as both versions of rational choice theory, has been criticized for being based on circular reasoning: The theory explains the phenomenon, and the phenomenon serves as evidence to support the theory (for example, people rationally choose to commit crimes and their crimes are evidence of their rational choices). The problem with a theory based on circular reasoning is that it cannot be falsified.42 How is it possible to falsify the claim that criminal behavior was rational for the person who committed it? Despite those problems, Beccaria’s ideas, as previously noted, were very influential. France, for example, adopted many of Beccaria’s principles in its Code of 1791, in particular, the principle of equal punishments for the same crimes. However, because classical theory ignored both individual differences among offenders and mitigating circumstances, applying the law in practice was difficult. Because of that difficulty, as well as new developments in the emerging behavioral sciences, modifications in classical theory and its application were introduced. NEOCLASSICAL THEORY Several modifications of classical theory collectively are referred to as neoclassical theory.43 The principal difference between the two theories has to do with classical theory’s assumptions about free will. In the neoclassical revision, it was conceded that certain factors (for example, insanity) might inhibit the exercise of free will.44 Benjamin Rush (1745–1813), who is considered the founder of American psychiatry, was one of the first “psychiatrically inclined physicians” (at the time, they were called alienists or mad-doctors) to make the connection between what CLASSICAL AND NEOCLASSICAL THEORY 21 they called moral insanity and crime.45 Other early psychiatrists to make the connection were Philippe Pinel (1745–1826) of France, James Cowles Prichard (1786–1848) of England, and Isaac Ray (1807–1881) of the United States.46 In making the insanity–crime connection, these early psychiatrists rejected the more than one-thousand-year-old tradition of equating crime with sin and provided the first secular and scientific theories of crime.47 However, they did not attempt to explain all types of crime but rather focused on “recidivistic, often violent, apparently uncontrollable [crimes], committed by offenders who appeared incapable of remorse.”48 The concept of moral insanity would later become the basis for the psychiatric theory of psychopathy and the diagnosis of Antisocial Personality Disorder (both discussed in Chapter 5).49 The insanity–crime connection was formalized in legal procedure in 1843, L when the M’Naghten Rule for determining legal insanity was formulated in I was adopted in the United States shortly thereEngland. The M’Naghten Rule after. With recognition of the Dconnection between insanity and crime, the idea of premeditation was also introduced into legal proceedings as a measure of the D50 and mitigating circumstances were considered degree of free will exercised, legitimate grounds for an argument of diminished responsibility.51 E Those modifications of classical theory, as embodied in the revised French L effects. First, they provided a reason for nonCode of 1819, had two practical legal experts (such as alienistsLor mad-doctors) to testify in court as to the degree of diminished responsibility of an offender.52 Second, offenders began to be sen, considered rehabilitative.53 The idea was that tenced to punishments that were certain environments were more conducive than others to the exercise of rational choice.54 However, consistent with the classical school’s implicit ideology T the distribution of private property, the modifiabout the sanctity of preserving cations in the theory that were I made conspicuously omitted consideration of economic pressure as a mitigating circumstance and a legal excuse for criminal F responsibility. In any event, the reasonFso much emphasis has been placed on the classical school of criminology and its neoclassical revisions is that together they are A essentially the model on which criminal justice in the United States is based N years, at least in part because of dissatisfaction today. During the past thirty-five with the exercise of judicialYdiscretion, determinate and mandatory sentences based on sentencing guidelines have all but replaced indeterminate sentences. In addition, a similar dissatisfaction with the discretion exercised by parole boards has led to the abolition 1 of parole in the federal jurisdiction and in some states. 5 during the past thirty-five years is also probaThe revival of classical theory bly the result of a perceived 6 failure on the part of criminologists to discover the causes of crime. In a renewed effort to deter crimes, judges currently are sentencing more offenders to prison8for longer periods than at any other time in the history of the United States, T and some states continue to use capital punishment. Ironically, one reason the theory of the classical school lost favor in the nineS that punishment was not a particularly effective teenth century was the belief method of preventing or controlling crime.55 Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 22 CHAPTER 2 STUDY QUESTIONS 1. What is the cause of crime from the perspective of the classical school (including contemporary versions)? 2. How would classical theorists prevent crime? 3. What are problems with the theory of the classical school? 4. What changes or modifications to classical theory did the neoclassicists make? Why? NOTES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. Becker (1932:7). Zeitlin (1968:Chap. 1). See Runes (1968); Babbie (1992). Becker (1932:50–51). http://www.iejs.com/Criminology/jeremy_benthams_hedonic_calculus.htm. Curran and Renzetti (1994). Some still hold this view today. Vila and Morris (1997:8); Thompson (1975:22–23); Bedau (1982:7); Banner (2002:7). From Jones (1987:26); also see Foucault (1977:3–6) for a somewhat different description of the same event. Taylor et al. (1974:1). Beccaria (1975:ix). Beccaria (1975:ix). Beirne (1991:782). Beccaria (1975:8). Beccaria (1975:11). The English philosophers Hobbes and Locke wrote about the social contract in the seventeenth century, and the French philosopher Rousseau wrote about the social contract in a book published in 1762—two years before the publication of Beccaria’s On Crimes and Punishments. Levin (1973). Beccaria (1975:11–12). Beccaria (1975:42). Beccaria (1975:99). Beccaria (1975:93). Cited in Horkheimer (1996:89). For a more recent discussion about marriage and its deterrent effect on crime, see Warr (2002:105). Beccaria (1975:94–95). Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. CLASSICAL AND NEOCLASSICAL THEORY 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 23 Cornish and Clarke (1986). See Curran and Renzetti (1994:20). Cornish and Clarke (1986). Cullen and Agnew (2006:410). Vold (1958:23). Curran and Renzetti (1994:22). Rafter (2004:980). See Taylor et al. (1974:3). Taylor et al. (1974:3); but see Vold and Bernard (1986:28–29) for a different view. See Taylor et al. (1974:3). Curran and Renzetti (1994:21); L Tittle (1995:12). Taylor et al. (1974:3). I Beccaria (1975). D Berofsky (1973:238). Beirne (1991:807). D Beirne (1991:807). E See Paternoster (1987); Finckenauer (1982). L and Madensen (2006). Pratt, Cullen, Blevins, Daigle, Tittle (1995:10–11). L See Taylor et al. (1974:7). , Vold (1979:28). Rafter (2004:983). T Rafter (2004). Rafter (2004:985). I Rafter (2004:999). F Rafter (2004:1003). F Vold (1979:28). Vold (1979:28). A Taylor et al. (1974:8). N Taylor et al. (1974:9). Y Taylor et al. (1974:9). See Vold and Bernard (1986:33). 1 5 6 8 T S Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. L I D D E L L , T I F F A N Y 1 5 6 8 T S Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
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Running Head: CESARE BECCARIA

1

Cesare Beccaria
Instructor
Class
Date
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CESARE BECCARIA

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Beccaria largely influenced the structure of the criminal justice system. His focus was to
reform the criminal justice system. Beccaria emphasizes that all individuals possess qualities of
having free-will, rational thoughts, self-interested, and are manipulative. He felt that people
conduct criminal acts because they are equipped with the free-will to do so, given their selfinterests (Bohm & Vogel, 2011). Such choices have sometimes become conflicted with the
interests of society. Due to the criminal decisions in which individuals anticipate, the community
should be incorporating further measures of manipulation to discourage the choices being made.
Thus, society could be discouraging these choices by the setting of criminal sanctions and severe
punishments to deter the possibility of future crimes from occurring. Beccaria fully believed in
the social construct of individuals in society and how the views of utilitarianism piggybacks
those constructs (Devine, 1981).
The social construct in which he emphasized was on the bases of believing that
government exists are to serve the people of society solely and that those in society are the
source of the governmental powers. Thus, making and incorporating their own rules of law. He
also claimed that given criminal punishments and how they are only justifying the order in which
social constructs are presented, must be classified as being more severe in terms of the
punishment given to those who conduct criminal behaviors (Bohm & Vogel, 2011). However, he
emphasized that his beliefs of deterrence were based on the prevention of crimes, not necessarily
the punishments are given out to the criminals. I feel that the deterrence of crimes should have
methods and measures set in place. If society and criminal professionals can institute measures
and practices of preventing the occurrence of crimes, then there would be no need for
punishments.

CESARE BECCARIA

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If there are no crimes being committed, then there are no individuals committing criminal
behaviours (Bohm & Vogel, 2011). For instance, drug prevention programs being displayed to
adolescents before the use and experimentation of drugs could help deter adolescents from
becoming drug addicts in the future. The same goes for criminal conduct. If programs are
educating the ...


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