Various Schools of Criminology

VARIOUS SCHOOLS OF CRIMINOLOGY/THEORIES OF CRIME AND CAUSATION Various scholars have attempted to explain the causation of crime and criminal behavior. Each school of criminology explains crime in its own manner and suggests punishment and measures to suit its ideology. Each school represents the social attitude of people towards crime in a given time. Pre-Classical School of Criminology During the period of the seventeenth century Europe was characterized by a dominance of religion in state activities. At this stage, scientific knowledge was yet unknown. The concept of crime was vague and obscure. Society was at the time largely unable to explain criminal behavior. An explanation of criminal conduct was therefore sought through spirits, demons, and other unknown powers. The principle behind this concept was that a man commits a crime due to the influence of some external power and is not subject to the control or understanding of man. Since the spirit world is not one that is easily understood or discernable, it formed a perfect explanation for crime. No further attempts were made to probe the real cause of crime. Worship, sacrifices, ordeals by fire and water were usually prescribed to pacify the spirit and relieve the victims of its evil influence. Trial by battle was also used as a method of deciding the fate of the criminal. The criminal was therefore treated as a person who could only be cured through torture and pain. The pre-classical thinking has however withered away with the lapse of time and advancement of knowledge. Naturalistic School The proponents of this school argued that crime must be explained through the use of ideas and interpretations of objects and events and their interrelation with the existing world. Thus, there is no place for other worldly powers or spirits. No matter how unsatisfactory, the explanation must rest on what is known or assumed to be true of the physical and material world. This approach is ancient as well as modern. The Classical School of Criminology During the middle of the eighteenth century, Beccaria the pioneer of modern criminology expounded his naturalistic theory of criminality by rejecting the theory propounded by the pre-classical school. He laid greater emphasis on the free will of the individual, arguing that intelligence and rationality are the fundamental characteristics of man and therefore the basis for the explanation of human behavior whether individual or collective. Thus, intelligence makes man capable of self-direction and any conduct engaged in will be assumed to have been thought of and rationalized by the individual. Within this frame of

reference, crime and criminals are usually viewed from a strictly legal point of view. I.e. crime is defined as the commission of any action prohibited by criminal law or the omission of any act required by it. A criminal is defined as a person who commits a crime. Crime is seen as the product of the free choice of the individual who assesses the potential benefits of committing the crime against its potential cost. The rational response of society should therefore be to increase the cost and decrease the benefits of crime to the point that individuals will not choose to commit a crime. The task for criminology is seen as designing and testing a system of punishment that would result in the minimum occurrence of crime. Thus, this perspective is concerned with the question of deterrence. The main tenets of the classical school of criminology are as follows: 1. Man applies his sense of reasoning as a responsible individual: 2. It is the act of an individual and not his intent which forms the basis for determining criminality in him. Classical criminologists are therefore concerned with the “act” of the criminal rather than his “intent”. 3. The classical criminologists are greatly influenced by hedonism – the pain (cost) and pleasure (benefit) theory. Thus, they accepted punishment as a mode of inflicting pain, humiliation and disgrace on the offender so as to create fear in him and thus control his behavior. 4. The proponents of this school of thought considered crime prevention more important than the punishment for it. They therefore stressed the need for a well-established system of criminal justice. 5. The classical criminologists supported the right of the state to punish offenders in the interest of public security.

Keeping in view the hedonistic principle of pain and pleasure they pointed out that

individualization was to be the basis of punishment. The punishment was to be meted out keeping in view the pleasure derived by the criminal from the crime and the pain caused to the victim there from. They however advanced the theory of equalization of justice i.e. Equal punishment for the same offence. 6. They further believed that criminal law was primarily based on positive sanctions. They were against arbitrary use of power by judges and abhorred torturous punishments. The greatest achievement of the classical school is the fact that it shifted emphasis from myths and concentrated on the personality of the offender in order to determine his guilt and punishment. In other words, Beccaria was the first criminologist to shift the emphasis from crime to criminals. Nonetheless, the classical school has the following shortcomings:  Firstly, it proceeded on an abstract presumption of free will and relied solely on the criminal act without devoting any attention to the state of mind of the criminal;

 It also erred in prescribing equal punishment for similar offences thus making no distinction between first offenders and habitual offenders. Neo-Classical School of Criminology The “free-will” theory of the classical school did not survive for long due to the oversights mentioned above. The neo-classists asserted that certain categories of offenders such as minors, idiots, insane or incompetent persons had to be treated leniently irrespective of the similarity of their criminal acts with those of other offenders. This reasoning was based on the argument that such persons are incapable or partially incapable of distinguishing right from wrong. The Neo-Classical theory can be summarized as follows: 1. They approached the study of criminology on scientific lines by recognizing that certain extenuating situations or mental disorders deprive the criminal of his normal capacity to control his conduct. In so doing they represent a reaction against the severity of the classical view of equal punishment for the same offence. 2. They were the first school to point out the distinction between a first offender and a recidivist. 3. They started on the premise and assumption that man acts on reason of intelligence and is therefore responsible for his own conduct. But those lacking normal intelligence or suffering some mental depravity are not responsible for their conduct as they do not possess the capacity of distinguishing between good or bad and should therefore be treated differently from other offenders. 4. Although they recommend lenient treatment for irresponsible or mentally deprived criminals on account of their incapacity to resist criminal tendency, they unanimously believed that all criminals whether responsible or irresponsible must be kept away from society. 5. The distinction between responsibility – sanity and insanity as suggested by the neo-classical school paved way for the formation of the different correctional institutions such as parole, probation etc in the criminal justice system.

Through this school therefore attention of

criminologists was drawn to the facts that all crimes have a cause. 6. This school adopted a subjective approach to criminology and concentrated their attention on conditions under which an individual commits crime. 7. The origin of the jury system and the assessor system is essentially the result of the reaction of the neo-classical approach towards the treatment of offenders. The main shortcoming of the neo-classical school is that their theory presumes that the criminal whether responsible or irresponsible is a menace to society and therefore needs to be eliminated from it. Their primary concern is therefore to protect society from crime and criminals.

Positive Criminology This school presumes that man’s behavior is determined by factors outside his control. These factors are either biological or cultural. Those who argue that the factors are biological believe that man’s social organization has developed as a result of his biological evolution and hence social evolution is subsequent and not primary. On the other hand positivists who base their theory on cultural factors; argue that man’s behavior despite his identification with the world of biology is always related to and somehow reflects the characteristics of the social world in which he lives. Positivists thinking thus relies heavily o philosophy, biology, sociology and history among other disciplines. Criminology is therefore understood as an analysis of criminal behavior through scientific study of the physical, social and cultural characteristics of the criminal. Critical Criminology This is a framework based on critical thinking, employing a variety of disciplines which include political science, economics, sociology and philosophy. Its proponents are not preoccupied with the question of whether man’s behavior is free or determined. They are concerned with the process by which man creates the social world in which he lives. Critical criminologists would for example maintain that the phenomenon of crime is socially constructed when a society defines certain actions and people as criminal. Any of a wide variety of people and actions may, at one time or another, be the subject of these definitions. Thus crimes and criminals are not independent phenomena that can be identified and studied objectively by the social scientist. Crime and criminals exist only to the extent that they are defined as such by society. The critical criminologist therefore studies the processes by which particular people and actions become criminal at particular times and places.

THE ANTROPOLOGICAL SCHOOL/THE ITALIAN SCHOOL OF CRIMINOLOGY This is one of the earliest positivist schools of thinking. With the advance of time and the development of scientific research during the nineteenth century certain doctors in Europe were successful in establishing that it was neither the “free-will”(Classical) of the offender nor his innate depravity nor evil spirits that actuated the offender to commit crime. The real cause of crime lay in the anthropological features of the criminal. Some proponents of this theory tried to

demonstrate the organic functioning of the brain and established a co-relationship between criminality and the structure and functioning of brain. The main proponents of this theory are three Italian criminologists:  Cesare Lombroso  Raffaele Garofolo  Enrico Ferri

Cesare Lombroso He is referred to as the father of the Italian school of criminology. He was an Italian psychiatrist who was a physician in the army. Lombroso turned attention from crime to criminals. During his period of service in the army he was able to observe those army personnel who were trouble-makers. From his experience he concluded that the criminals were a distinct anthropological type possessing definite physical characteristics. According to him, the criminal was a biological throw-back to an earlier evolutionary stage – a man more primitive and savage than his non-criminal counterparts. His theory was based on the view that the physical characteristics of the criminal were an important causation for his criminal behavior. The theory was largely based on degeneracy. This degeneracy was atavistic – i.e. the criminal was inferior in his development to normal man and resembled lower or ape-like animals. Lombroso was therefore, of the view that criminals were born criminal. He arrived at his conclusions, based on a study of 833 Italian criminals mainly drawn from the army. From his research, he concluded that born criminals had the following characteristics: 1. They had a deviation in head size and shape; 2. Their faces were not symmetrical; 3. They would have excessive dimensions of the jaw and cheek bones; 4. They would have eye defects and peculiarity; 5. They had ears of unusual size – very small or standing out from the head as do those of chimpanzees; 6. the nose would be twisted and upturned. For thieves, the nose would be flat, beak-like for murderers or with the tip rising like a peak; 7. The lips would be fleshy and swollen; 8. The dentition would be abnormal; 9. The chin would be receding or excessively long or excessively flat as in apes;

10. Abundance and variety of wrinkles; 11. Anomalies of the hair marked by characteristics of the hair of the opposite sex; 12. Defects of the thorax – too many or too few ribs 13. Inversion of sex characteristics in the pelvic region; 14. Excessive length of the arm; 15. Too many or too few fingers or toes. Of the 833 criminal people studied, 21 percent had one or more of such anomalies, 43% had five or more. A person with five or more was described/classified as a criminal. As such Lombroso adopted an objective and empirical approach to the study of criminals through his anthropological experiments. In further research, he classified criminals as follows: 1. The Born Criminal In his opinion, these were criminals who could not refrain from engaging in criminality. The environment had no relevance whatsoever to the crimes committed by these offenders.

He

therefore, considered these criminals to be beyond reformation; 2. Insane Criminals The second category of criminals were insane criminals who resorted to criminality on account of certain mental disorders or insanity. 3. Crimes of Passion The third category are those who commit crime in a state of passion or due to inferiority complex; 4. Atavistic Criminals The atavistic category are those who commit crime due to alcohol or when they get the opportunity. Critique of Lombroso’s theory; Charles Goring He was an English criminologist who carried out research on the psychology of criminals. He agreed with Lombroso’s statistical and inductive method and supported the latter’s view that criminals were often mentally depraved. He also commended Lombroso for his assertion that the centre point of penology was neither crime nor punishment but the individual. He critiqued Lombroso’s worked based on the following issues;

 There is no such thing as a physical criminal type. In his opinion, the whole of Lombroso’s enterprise was conducted with the intention of stamping a pre-conceived idea with the hallmark of science;  One cannot declare people criminal merely by their physical characteristics. The use of the word criminal should be restricted to a legal framework which prohibits certain conduct and which finds those guilty of such conduct criminal and punishes them as such;  Even if specific differences did exist between the criminal and the non-criminal, this does not mean that the criminal is abnormal but rather the differences evidence a selected class of normal men whose qualities may present extreme degrees from the normal average.

Thus Goring concluded that there is no such thing as a physical criminal. E.A. Hooton He studied 17,000 individuals of whom 14,000 were criminals drawn from across 10 states of the United States of America. His conclusions were quite similar to Lombroso’s. According to him crime is the result of the impact of the environment upon low grade human organisms. It therefore follows that the elimination of crime can only be effected the expiation of the physically, mentally and morally unfit or their complete segregation. The study concluded that big tended to be murderers and robbers. Tall heavy men are killers and also commit forgery and fraud. Undersized men are thieves and burglars; short heavy persons commit assault, rape and other sex crimes. Men of mediocre physique have no specialty and commit several offences. Conclusion 1. In 19 out of 33 measurements, there was a significant difference between criminals and civilians; 2. Criminals are inferior to civilians in nearly all their body characteristics; 3. Physical inferiority is significant as it is associated with mental inferiority; 4. Tattooing is more common among criminals than civilians; 5. Thin lips and compressed jaw angles are common in criminals; 6. The ear of the criminal tends to be rolled or small’ 7. Criminals have low sloping foreheads, thin necks and sloping shoulders. He was criticized on the following grounds: 

Most of the people he studied were recidivists i.e. they fell back to crime.



He ignored other important differences between criminals and civilians apart from physical characteristics.



While he accepted that genetic make-up may influence behavior, he never actually clarified how this genetic make-up would actually influence the criminal.

Enrico Ferri (1856 – 1929) He was a student of Lombroso, though he challenged Lombroso’s views on criminality. Through his research, Ferri proved that mere biological reasons were not enough to account for criminality. IN his opinion, there were other factors that influenced crime such as psychological, sociological, economic and emotional factors. For this reason Ferri is referred to as the founder of criminal sociology. Ferri described a criminal as an agent of outside forces. During Mussolini’s regime Ferri prepared a Penal Code for Italy. In it he proposed that for the reformation, prevention and rehabilitation of criminals the following social needs had to be considered; free trade, abolition of monopolies, better street lighting, birth control, freedom of marriage and divorce, public recreation, better economic conditions of the public, improvement of laws and abolition of certain taxes. However, Ferri emphasized that punishment is still important for the alleviation of crime and in some cases useful for reformation. Ferri classified criminals into the following categories: 1. Insane criminals – inclined to crime due to congenital factors; 2. Born criminals - commit crimes out of impulse, anger, or excessive zeal; 3. Occasional or habitual criminals – influenced by social factors around them and the need to satisfy certain needs within the social environment; He categorized the factors that lead to criminal behavior as follows;  Physical – race, climate, geographical location, seasonal effects, temperature;  Anthropological – age, sex, organic and psychological conditions;  Social – population density, custom, religion, organization of government, economic and industrial conditions. Raffaele Garofolo (1852 – 1934) Garofolo was a magistrate in Italian courts. He agreed with Lombroso and Ferri in emphasizing the positive approach to crime

- i.e. that crime can only be understood by scientific research and

investigations. In so doing he rejected the pre-classical theory and the classical theory of free will. Garofolo formulated a sociological definition of crime where crime meant any immoral and harmful act that is regarded as criminal by the public. The criminal who commits the crime has no pity (sympathy) or

probity (honesty). Lack of pity causes crime against persons while lack of probity leads to crime against property. He categorized criminals as such: 1. Endemic criminals – e.g. murderers, they commit crime in their own locality and are mainly influenced by passion. 2. Criminal deficient in probity i.e. honesty e.g. thieves 3. Criminals influenced by lust – lascivious criminals 4. Violent criminals – affected by environmental influences such as prejudices of honor, politics and religion Garofolo’s main contribution was his concentration on the idea of motive as an important causation of crime. An understanding of motive was the first step to changing the criminal and alleviating criminal behavior in society. He suggested three means of eliminating crime: 1. Death for those whose acts grow out of permanent psychological anomaly which renders the subject for ever incapable of a social life. 2. Partial elimination including lengthy or life time imprisonment and transportation for those fit only for the life of nomadic hordes or primitive tribes. He also suggested mild isolation for young and more hopeful offenders. 3. Repatriation for those who commit their under exceptional circumstances not likely to occur again. Garofolo was however, not very optimistic about reformation of offenders from the experience in the criminal justice system. He therefore, strongly emphasized and pleaded for elimination of habitual offenders were incapable of social adaptation as a measure of social defense. Modern positivism does not strictly adhere to Lombroso, Ferri, or Garafolo’s arguments. It however emphasizes the application of scientific methods to the study of criminal behavior, the criminal himself, his environment and other causative factors in an attempt to determine the causes of crime and its elimination of reduction in society. Appraisal of the Positive School  It rejected the earlier classical theories of spirit and free will;  It attributed criminality to anthropological, physical and social factors;  The attention of the criminologist was drawn to the individual, the personality of the criminal rather than his act – the crime or punishment. This paved way for modern penology to emphasize individualization as a method reformation;

 Exponents abandoned the retributive mode of punishment. Reformatory modes were to be used on different classes of criminals;  Only those criminals that were incapable of reformation were to be eliminated;  While deciding a case a judge should not only consider the law but the circumstantial conditions of the accused. The Ecological School The ecological school examines factors including the environment and other social factors that may lead to criminal behavior. Social Disorganization Theory According to this school of thought high crime rates are indices of an underlying state of social disorganization. Increase or decrease in population can cause social disorganization, rapid changes in technology, industrial growth, cultural conflict etc. The Differential Theory This theory was developed by Professor Edwin Sutherland an America criminologist. This theory is based on the following points: 1.

The processes which result in criminal behavior are fundamentally the same in form as the processes which result in lawful behavior. Criminal behavior, just like lawful behavior is learned. Thus a person who is not already trained in crime cannot invent criminal behavior

2.

Criminal behavior is determined by a process of association with those who commit crime just as lawful behavior is determined by association with those who are law abiding.

3.

Differential association is the specific causal process in the development of criminal behavior. The principles of the process of association are the same in the development of criminal and lawful behavior but the techniques, training, motive etc in the two processes differ. This is why Sutherland calls it differential association.

4.

A person becomes delinquent because of an excess of definitions favorable to violation of law over definitions unfavorable to violation of law.

5.

The chance that a person will participate in systematic criminal behavior is determined roughly by the frequency and consistency of his contacts with other persons of a criminal behavior.

6.

Cultural conflict is the underlying cause of differential behavior. This is common in areas where society is composed of people of different races, ethnic groups, habits and cultures.

7.

Social disorganization is the basic cause of systematic criminal behavior.

Criticism 1. Sutherland’s theory does not attempt to explain the origin of crime. It relies on an existing criminal group that influences a normal person to engage in criminal activities. 2. The theory cannot apply uniformly to all kinds of offenders e.g. rural and urban based offenders, white and blue-collar criminals. It cannot apply evenly to perpetrators of individual crimes e.g. crimes of passion, occasional and incidental offenders or those pushed to criminal conduct by factors outside their control e.g. Genetic make up, mental imbalance etc. 3. It has also been argued that contrary to Sutherland’s theory, criminal or delinquent behavior is not learned. It comes naturally. It is non-criminal behavior that is learned. 4. The theory fails to recognize that there may be an element of free will in human behavior and leaves little if any room for the introduction of new knowledge i.e. it acts as a conclusive study, yet it is generally accepted that there must be an element of the “unknown”. 5. The theory fails to recognize biological and psychological factors. It is argued that biological differences in human personality also account for criminality in the individual. Response to the critics In response to one of the critics George B Vold (Theoretical Criminology, Oxford University Press 1958) who stated thus; “One of the persistent problems that always has bedeviled the theory of differential association is the obvious fact that not every one in contact with criminality adopts or follows the criminal pattern”. (page 194). The response has been that this criticism fails to take into account the words differential and excess, these words refer to both criminal and anticriminal associations and had to do with counteracting forces. Melvin L DeFleur and Richard Quinney (A Reformation of Sutherland’s Differential Association Theory and Strategy for Empirical Verification: (Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, January 1966). They discovered that the sixth assertion of the theory says that persons become criminals because of exposure to an overabundance of criminal associations, in comparison with anti-criminal associations. They restated the theory as follows: “Overt criminal behavior has as its necessary and sufficient conditions a set of criminal motivations, attitudes, and techniques, the learning of which takes place when there is exposure to criminal norms in excess of exposure to corresponding anticriminal norms during symbolilc interaction in primary groups.”

Hence it is erroneous to argue state or imply that the theory is invalid because a category of persons – such as policemen, prison workers or criminologists – have had extensive association with criminal behavior patterns yet they are not criminals. Secondly, in response to the criticism that the theory says that persons become criminals through association with criminals is not the correct position. The theory it is posited is concerned with ratios of patterns of behavior , no matter what the character of the person presenting them. Accordingly if a mother teaches her son that honesty is the best policy, but also teaches him that it is alright to steal a loaf of bread when you are starving, she is presenting the son with an anticriminal behavior pattern and a criminal behavior pattern, even if she herself is honest, non criminal and even anticriminal. In other words one can learn criminal behavior patterns from persons who are not criminals and anti criminal behavior patterns from hoods, professional crooks, habitual offenders and gangsters. Thirdly, there was criticism based on the use of the word systematic as opposed to general criminal behavior, in subsequent publications Sutherland deleted the offending word. Fourthly, in response to the criticism that the theory does not explain why people have the associations that they have, it is stated that this is a highly relevant research problem and when viewed as a principle that attempts to account for variations in crime rates it does deal in a general way with differential opportunities for association with an excess of criminal behavior patterns. Lastly the responses can be seen in the context of on going research, ie the theory could only be realistically be expected to deal with facts or norms that were known and available at its conception, criticisms form a good basis for new research taking into account various developments. Multiple Causation Theory Many scholars have insisted that crime is a product of a large number of factors and that these factors cannot now and perhaps cannot ever, be organized into general propositions which have no exceptions; that is they insist that no scientific theory of criminal behavior is possible. This approach which is considered more of an approach than theory is known as the multiple causation or factor theory. It is used primarily in discussions of individual cases of crime, but one form of this approach is also used in analysis of variations in crime rates. Those who use this approach to study individual cases are convinced that crime is as a result of a combination many factors, while another case is also caused by combination of factors and circumstances. Factors and circumstances taken onto consideration include; anthropological, physical, natural or sociological factors. Social factors include population density, immigration, public opinion, customs, religion, public order etc.

A proponent of this approach William Healy (The Individual delinquent (Boston: Little, Brown 1915) was determined that no theoretical orientation or preconception would influence his findings and that he would simply observe any “causal factor” present. The result was that at a time when many were concerned with discounting the physical and biological explanations for crime, this multiple causation assumption based on empirical studies gained importance within the area of criminology. Anthropological factors include age, sex, status, and profession. Physical factors include race, climate, fertility, seasons, and temperature etc. A classical example of multiple factor thinking about individual cases is found in the book “Social Disorganization” by Mabel A Elliot and Francis E Merrill (New York, Harper 1941): “Elaborate investigations of delinquents give us conclusive evidence that there is no single predisposing factor leading inevitably to delinquent behavior. On the other hand, the delinquent child is generally a child handicapped not by one or two, but usually by seven or eight counts. We are safe in concluding that almost any child can overcome one or two handicaps, such as the death of one parent or poverty and poor health. However, if the child has a drunken unemployed father and an immoral mother, is mentally deficient, is taken out of school at an early age and put to work in a factory, and lives in a crowded home in a bad neighborhood, nearly every factor in his environment may seem to militate against him.” All the statement may seem to infer that each and every factor is of equal importance, adherents of this approach, ordinarily argue that either the presence of one or two important factors or seven or eight minor factors will cause delinquency. Cyril Burt A British scholar who using this multiple approach in a study (London: University of London Press, 1944, at p 600), found 170 conditions, every one of which was considered as conducive to delinquency. (Sutherland calls this the inevitable consequence of such crass empiricism.) Crime is not assignable to one universal source but rather to a wide variety of reasons which is best explained by a multiple causation approach. Others have argued that the multiple causation or multiple factor theory is more illuminating and more in accord with the variety of people involved in crime – the variety in behavior and mentality of the people concerned. The approach recognizes that behavior is conditioned by natural, biological, social cultural and economic influences. Criticism Albert Cohen (Harvard, 1951)

1. There has been confusion of explanation by means of a single factor and explanation by a single theory or system of theory applicable in all cases. A single theory does not explain crime in terms of a single factor and is often concerned with a number of variables. A variable is a characteristic or aspect such as velocity or income with respect to which something may vary. We make statements of fact in terms of the values of these variables, e.g. “The crime rate is high among persons with incomes of less than $2,000. per year”. The pertinent variable here is income and its value is $2,000. but neither a statement of one fact (single factor) nor a series of such statements (multiple factors) about crime is a theoretical explanation of crime. A theoretical explanation, a single theory organizes and relates the variables; it is an abstract statement of how the known variations in the values of one variable are related to known variations in the values of other variables. A test the theory is how well it accounts for all the variations in the values of the variables. 2. Factors are not only confused with causes but each factor is also assumed to contain within itself a capacity to produced crime, a fixed amount of crime producing power. Thus one factor is not always considered powerful enough to produce crime in individual cases – several factors must conspire to do so. 3. “evil –causes -evil fallacy” this fallacy is that evil results (crime) must have evil precedents (broken homes, psychopathic personality etc). so that when we explain crime or other social problem we tend to merely catalog a series of sordid and ugly circumstances which any “decent citizen” would deplore and attribute causal power to those circumstances. In criminology, this fallacious procedure might stem from a desire to eradicate crime without changing other existing conditions which we cherish and esteem; that is criminologists tend to identify with the existing social order and seek “causes” of crime in “factors” which might be eliminated without changing social conditions which they hold dear, or which may be safely deplored without hurting any one’s feelings.