APPROACHES TO CRIME

Approaches to Crime

Approaches to Crime

Introduction

The emergence of positivist criminology in Europe in the 19th century marked a fundamental shift of academic thinking about crime and its treatment (Roshier 1989). Prior to this was the dominance of classical criminology. The classicists, led by Beccaria, Bentham and Romily, all proceeded on a common set of assumption:- Men are possessed of free will. They are calculating animals and based their action on pleasure and pain. Men will be discouraged from criminal activity if threatened with punishment that outweighs any gain resulting from their actions. The individual is responsible for his actions and punishment must be proportional to the interest violated by the crime (Bentham 1823, Phillipson 1923).

'The nineteenth-century forces of positivism and evolution moved the field of criminology from a philosophical to a scientific perspective'. Critically evaluate this statement.

In 1876, Lombroso conventionally designated the founding father of criminal anthropology, explained criminality in terms of "atavism", a hereditary regression to the behaviour and appearance of a primitive human ancestral type (Nye 1984, p.99). Lombroso argued that about 40% of offenders were "born criminals", persons who had inherited a large numbers of primitive characteristics. Their behaviour was therefore that of the savage. While savage behaviour might have been appropriate in savage time, it was now intolerable and hence branded criminal (Gould 1978). Lombroso compared the behaviour of lower animals to that of the criminal and argued that 'the usual behaviour of lower animals is criminal by our standard' (ibid p.224). He then examined the anatomy of criminals to show that criminals were throwbacks to our evolutionary past(ibid). The criminal, he claimed, had many features, not only of lower primates, but also of lower mammals and even of flatfishes (ibid p.225). These physical stigmata were accompanied by mental and social signs of atavism. It can be seen that Lombroso's views were more complex than the argument for which he is often credited with:- i.e. that criminals are biological inferior( West. 1988) .

According to Roshier (1989), there are three features to distinguish biological positivists (criminal anthropology) from classical criminology:- (a) Determinism - in the more general positivist sense means that crime is seen as behaviour that is caused by biological, psychological or social factors, depending on the academic origins of the criminologist concerned. On this view, crime does not consist of actions rationally chosen by the "criminal". (b) Differentiation - refers to the positivist assumption that there is something (preferably measurably) different about criminals. They may be seen as differing from non-criminals in terms of their biological or psychological make-up, or in term of their values, again to the academic origins of criminologist concerned. There may also be sub-categories of criminal committing different types of crime caused by different types of factor. (c) Pathology - means that criminals are not only different from non-criminals, but there is also something “wrong” with them. Their different make-up or values are not simply variations of the normal.

Relying on the three features stated above, criminal anthropology/biological positivism ...