Assignment 1: Understanding Criminology

Understanding Criminology

Assignment 1

Offer a brief insight into the historical foundations of criminology

In this assignment I intend to offer an insight into the historical foundations of criminology. I will give a brief outline of four perspectives in the field of criminology and how these are still seen in the modern field. These will be Positivism, sociological positivism through the Chicago School, biological positivism through the theory of Atavism, and the Classic View.

One of the earliest schools of thoughts on criminology is the Classic View or Classicism. Classicism is a theory based on the idea that all men have the choice and free will to be a criminal or not, that the pleasure-pain or hedonism of a man will either allow or

The punishment should be decided by the legislature not the courts and should be on a scale that reflects the severity of the crime by the damage caused to society not the individual. This means crimes that cause the most damage to society will have the highest punishment. These punishments should be imposed and carried out as promptly as possible so to be just and efficient. Both the Law and the punishment should be well published so that it is widely known, therefore to act as a deterrent. The prevention of crime is better than the punishment and activities that are not expressly prohibited by the law, though deviant acts are permissible by society. Classical theorist deliberately ignored the individual differences of the offenders; children, ‘feeble minded’ and the insane were treated as if they were fully rational members of society and competent at the decision making process. First offenders and recidivists were punished with the same severity (Hopkins Burke

These different types of positivism did not exist in as separate fields, they merged and biological positivism for example included and incorporated ideas from both sociological and psychological (Tierney 2009) Positivist criminology contains some defining features such as Scientific Methodology which is using research methods to achieve objective and factual knowledge. Causal-corrective orientation is the use of this data to find the cause of criminal behaviour and develop interventions to correct it. Determinism is the belief that free will is not a cause of criminals, which biological and psychological factors dominate. Positivists believe criminals are viewed qualitatively different from non-criminals and pathology plays a massive role in whether or not someone turns to crime. They use treatment and rehabilitation to individuals who commit crimes, to correct the underlying cause (O’Brian and Yar