Development of Criminology

Development of Criminology

The discipline of criminology has evolved in three phases, beginning in the 18th century. Although crime and criminals have been around for as long as societies have existed, the systematic study of these phenomena did not begin until the late 1700s. Prior to that time, most explanations of crime equated it with sin-the violation of a sacred obligation. When scholars first distinguished crime from sin, they made possible explanations of criminal behavior that were not theological (religious). This, in turn, allowed for the dispassionate, scientific study of why crime occurs. The development of this study is now known as the era of classical criminology.

The second phase, which began in the 19th century, is referred to as modern criminology. During this era, criminology distinguished itself as a subspecialty within the emerging disciplines of psychology, sociology, and economics. Scholars formed criminological societies and founded criminology journals. Criminologists conducted empirical tests (observations or experiments) of their theories, rather than relying solely on speculation, and consequently developed a wide range of theories.

The third phase, beginning in the second half of the 20th century, may best be called independent criminology. During this period, criminology began to assert its independence from the traditional disciplines that spawned it. In Western Europe, the United States, and Canada, criminologists expanded their professional associations and published an increasing number of journals. A number of universities developed graduate programs in criminology. Criminological theories have become more multidisciplinary (spanning various fields of study) because independent criminologists seek to understand crime itself rather than study crime as one aspect of an overall sociological or psychological theory.

Classical Criminology

The issues of crime and punishment have aroused interest and discussion since ancient times. Scriptures dating from the 10th century BC prohibit certain acts and provide consequences for those who disobey these rules. In the 5th century BC Greek historian Thucydides wrote about the usefulness of the death penalty. With the development of Christianity in the 1st century AD, questions of crime and punishment were almost always discussed in religious terms.

Christian thought tended to emphasize personal responsibility for wrongdoing; requiring penitence (remorse) by the criminal in exchange for salvation, or forgiveness, by God. Although punishment practices during the Middle Ages (5th century to 15th century) were often brutal, the church generally had a moderating influence. Christian philosophers expressed in their writings that the legitimate purpose of punishment was to reform and salvage the erring sinner.

It was not until the 18th century, however, that penal policy (and thereby the understanding of crime) was subject to systematic consideration. Authors began to condemn the frequent use of torture and the widespread imposition of capital punishment (the death penalty) and other brutal and degrading sanctions (penalties). In 1764 Italian jurist Cesare Bonesana, Marchese di Beccaria published Tratto dei delitti e delle pene (1764; translated as Essays on Crimes and Punishments, 1880). In this work, Beccaria criticized the use of torture and secret judicial proceedings and advocated abolition of the death penalty. He also argued that the certainty-rather than the severity-of punishment was a more effective deterrent to crime. Finally, Beccaria argued that penalties imposed for criminal offenses should be in proportion to the seriousness of the offense.

Around this same time, British philosopher Jeremy Bentham proposed the systematic codification (arrangement) of criminal law. Bentham urged lawmakers to base crimes and punishments on the principle of utility-that is, the greatest good for the greatest number. He attacked the excessive severity of punishments prescribed in the criminal law. Many of Bentham’s ideas were introduced as legislation into the British Parliament, and his efforts laid the groundwork for substantial legal reform in the next generation. In part as a result of Bentham’s proposals, the number of crimes in England punishable by the death penalty was reduced from about 250 at the beginning of the 19th century to 4 by 1861.

The work of these 18th-century legal reformers did not produce an organized body of knowledge about why and when crime occurs. Rather, it served as the intellectual foundation for the field of criminology. Beccaria, Bentham, and those who followed them made crime and criminals a legitimate subject for scientific inquiry.

Modern Criminology

At the beginning of the 19th century, scholars began to apply the concepts and technologies of the rapidly developing biological and behavioral sciences to the study of crime. For the first time criminologists developed typologies of crime and criminals and attempted to identify patterns between these typologies and various biological, psychological, and social characteristics of offenders.

The Italian School

The founding of modern scientific criminology is generally credited to the so-called Italian school and to the work of its three principal exponents- Cesare Lombroso, Enrico Ferri, and Raffaele Garofalo. The first edition of Lombroso’s most important work, L’uomo delinquente (The Criminal Man, 1876), attracted a great deal of attention because it appeared to demonstrate the feasibility of a genuinely scientific study of criminal behavior.

Lombroso asserted that criminals are a distinct physical and biological type. He believed that the true criminal could be identified by observing certain physical traits, including a long lower jaw, asymmetric cranium, and other detectable conditions. These traits, according to Lombroso, did not cause criminal behavior, but they revealed an inherent propensity (inclination) to crime. Lombroso taught that the propensity toward crime was the result of atavism, a reversion to a more primitive state of human development.

One of Lombroso’s students, Enrico Ferri, accepted the existence of a criminal type but also focused on factors other than inherited physical characteristics as predictors of crime. He considered social factors such as population trends, religion, and the nature of the family. Ferri also proposed a more elaborate classification of criminal types, including the born or instinctive criminal, the insane criminal, the passionate criminal, the involuntary criminal, the occasional criminal, and the habitual criminal. According to Ferri, the last two types were not innate criminals but rather the products of unfortunate family or environmental circumstances. By explaining criminal behavior on the basis of social factors as well as inherited traits, Ferri expanded the scope of criminology.

Italian lawyer Raffaele Garofalo’s major contribution to modern criminology is the concept of natural crime, which he argued was the principal concern of criminologists. According to Garofalo, natural or true crime is conduct that, when evaluated against the average moral sense of the community, offends the basic altruistic (unselfish) sense of humankind. The true criminal is one who lacks the basic altruistic sentiments of pity and honesty. Garofalo believed that the true criminal is a distinct biological or psychic type and that the altruistic deficiencies were organic or inherited. Still, Garofalo acknowledged that certain forms of criminal behavior might be encouraged by social and environmental circumstances.

The Italian school made a valuable contribution to criminology by stimulating thought and writing about crime and criminals. It focused attention on the offender as an appropriate object of study, which the 18th-century reformers had not done. Finally, the work of the Italian school framed the so-called nature-versus-nurture debate (whether biological or social factors create behaviors) that became a principal theme throughout the development of modern criminology.

Criminology in the United States

Scholars in the United States soon became interested in European thought and writing in the field of criminology. Two important events in the early development of scientific criminology in the United States were the National Conference on Criminal Law and Criminology held in Chicago, Illinois, in 1909 and the establishment of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology. The institute translated several important European works not previously available to the English-reading audience. Thereafter, criminology became a recognized subspecialty of study in many U.S. universities and in public and private research agencies.

Much of the development of modern criminology beyond that of the Italian school took place in the United States. The disciplines of psychology and sociology dominated criminological thought and research throughout the first half of the 20th century. Scholars developed theories of criminal behavior that were offshoots of more general psychological and sociological theories. For example, theories of crime that attributed criminal behavior to the social disorganization of urban areas developed as part of more general theories regarding the relationship of humans to their environment (see Ecology). The same general theories were used to explain the distribution of other social phenomena such as mental illness.

During this time period criminologists developed a diverse collection of theories of criminal behavior based upon very different disciplinary assumptions. Eventually, sociology came to dominate the emerging field of criminology in the United States. Most of the work in criminology was done by sociologists, and most of the more popular theories emphasized the role of social factors in encouraging criminal behavior.

The dominance that social science disciplines had over the evolution of criminology in the United States led to a much greater emphasis on empirical testing than theorizing. The members of the Italian school and their successors in Europe did very little empirical testing of theories. Scholarship in Europe followed methods of deduction and argument. Practitioners of the emerging social sciences in the United States adopted a more scientific approach to building theory, emphasizing the collection and analysis of data on the social causes of criminal behavior.

Independent Criminology

In the late 1960s and early 1970s criminology began to emerge from the more established social sciences and became a discipline in its own right. The number of instructional programs in criminology and criminal justice by themselves increased significantly. Existing professional associations, such as the American Society of Criminology (ASC), grew substantially, new professional organizations such as the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (ACJS) were formed, and the number of criminology journals increased. Much of this development was due to the availability of government funding for criminological research and statistical analysis.

The evolution toward an independent criminology freed the discipline from the dominance of sociology. Theories of criminal behavior became more multidisciplinary and included a greater variety of causal factors, including biological, psychological, and sociological factors. New technologies helped increase the emphasis on empirical testing of theories, which had begun in the era of modern criminology. Large-scale surveys of victims and self-report surveys of criminals provided data on crime and criminals independent of police and correctional records. In keeping with the new multidisciplinary nature of criminology, public and private funding encouraged the formation of multidisciplinary groups of researchers to engage in data collections.

“Criminology,”Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2000

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