3 Divisions of Criminology:

- Sociology of Law

- Criminal Etiology

- Penology

Criminal Etiology - this division attempts to offer scientific analysis on the causes of crime.
APPROACHES IN CRIMINAL ETIOLOGY

a. Single/ Unitary Approach - criminal behavior is caused only by one factor or variable,
either social, biological or mental

b. Multiple Factor Theory Approach –criminal conduct is not a product of single cause or
factor but a combination of several factors.

c. Ecclectic Theory Approach – views that criminal behavior may be caused by not just one
or more factors, but also outside factors.

A theory is a supposition of ideas that intends to explain something. From the Greek word
“theoria” means contemplation or speculation.

IMPORTANCE OF THEORY

1.Theory provides concepts to name what we observe and to explain relationships between
concepts.

2.Theory is to justify reimbursement.

3.Theory is to enhance the growth of the professional area.

4.Theory also helps us understand what we don’t know.

Dr. David Abrahamsen

C = T + S/R

C -Crime

T -Criminal Tendency

S -Total Situation
R -Resistance to Temptation

 Criminological Theories
- focus on explaining the causes of crime.
 RPC
– Felony
 Special Laws
– Offense
 Local Ordinance
– Misdemeanor
 Delinquency
– minor crimes committed by minors
 Deviance
– against social norms
 Subjective Approach
- this approach is derived mainly from a biological point of view.
 Anthropological Approach
– This approach tried to compare the physical characteristics of the individual
offender to non-offenders.
 Medical Approach
– It explains the role of physical and mental conditions of the individual prior or
after the commission of the criminal acts.
 Biological Approach
– It explains inheritance as a cause of crime.
 Physiological Approach
– It explains that, instinctively, it is the nature of a human being to acquire all the
physical needs in order to satisfy all his wants.
 Psychological Approach
– Intelligence, emotion and education of the individual must be taken into
consideration in relation to the wrongful act he has committed.
 Psychiatric Approach
– This approach explains that the cause of behavioral difficulties is to be found in
emotional tension originating in early life conflict with the family.
 Psycho-analytical Approach
– This is based upon the Freudan theory which traces behavior as a deviation to the
repression of basic drives.
 Objective Approach
- offenders are normal beings who have played the external criminogenic forces.
 Geographic Approach
– It considers climate as one of the factors.
 Ecological Approach
 – It concerns itself with the biotic grouping of men thus, resulting from migration
competition and division of labor.
 Economic Approach
– Financial hardship is one of the primary causes of criminality.
 Sociological and Cultural Approach

– It is concerned with the influences on behavior of group life, including rules and
statutes, social classes and social mobility, subculture, cliques and social changes

PERSPECTIVES OF CRIME CAUSATION

1.Classical Perspective - crime is a product of situational forces; by free will and personal choice.

a. Swift - punishment must be swift to be effective

b. Certain - the person must know that they will be punished when committing a crime

c. Severe - must be severe enough to outweigh the rewards of illegal action

2.Biological Perspective - crime is a product of internal forces.

3.Process Perspective - crime is a product of socialization.

4.Conflict Perspective - crime is a product of economic and political forces.

5.Biosocial Perspective - focuses on the physical qualities as the cause of antisocial behavior.

6.Psychological Perspective - crime is a product of “unconscious” forces that are within a person’s
mind.

 Theory - set of statements to explain behaviors or certain phenomena

 School of Thought - group of ideas that support a scientific theory.

PRE-CLASSICAL SCHOOL

Auguste Comte (1851)- interested in epistemology or how humans obtain valid knowledge.

3 STAGES OF THE PROGRESSION OF KNOWLEDGE

 Theological
- used supernatural or otherworldly powers
 Metaphysical
- used rational and logical arguments
  Scientific
- used positivism and scientific inquiry

 Demonology
- a person who committed a crime was possessed by a demon/devil
 Trial by battle - to prove the accused is innocent

CLASSICAL SCHOOL

-Humans were assumed to have free will and were rational beings.

Thomas Hobbes
- was one of the first social contract thinkers.

Human beings are hedonistic.

 Hedonism
- people want maximum pleasure and avoid pain (punishment)
Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794)
- was an Italian mathematician and economist.
-Also the Father of Criminology
 Deterrence
- can be accomplished if the punishment is certain, swift, and severe
Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)
- English philosopher who is the founder of utilitarianism
 Utilitarianism
- decisions are right or wrong depending on their effect.
 Utilis/ Utility
- usefulness of the results of actions.
 Principle of Utility
- “the greatest good of the greatest number”
 Good
- happiness or pleasure.
 Quantitative
- focuses on the greatest number.
 Pleasure
- gratification and pursued as an end in its own right
 Happiness
- satisfaction and an indirect by-product of an activity
CLASSICAL THEORIES:

 Rational Choice Theory - consideration of the rewards and punishments before committing
a crime.
 Deterrence theory - the link between punishment and behavior at both individual and group.

DETERRENCE CAN BE OF TWO TYPES.

 Specific deterrence - aimed at the wrongdoer

 General deterrence - is aimed at everyone.

3 KEY ELEMENTS:

1. Certainty -making the public think that their offenses are going to be punished

2. Celerity - swiftness of punishment

3. Severity - amount of punishment

 Routine activities theory

- crime is a product of people’s daily activities.

NEO-CLASSICAL SCHOOL

-accepted the main point of the Classical School but some crimes are caused by other factors as
well.

THESE CAUSES ARE:

a. pathology

b. incompetence

c. insanity

POSITIVIST SCHOOL

- emphasizes the use of scientific methods to study crime and criminal behavior.

 Positivism
- use of empirical evidence through scientific inquiry to improve society.
Charles Darwin
 - wrote “On the Origin of Species” (1859), which outlined his observations of
natural selection.
 Determinism
- contending that human behavior is caused by biological and psychological
factors specific to individuals.
Cesare Lombroso
- a trained medical doctor in Italy when he had an epiphany. Believed criminals
could be known simply by the way they physically looked.
-Father of Modern Criminology

CLASSIFICATION OF CRIMINALS BY LOMBROSO

 Born Criminals (atavistic evolutionary throwbacks)

- crime as heritable and class of biologically defective criminal people
 Insane Criminals
- commit crimes due to psychological disorder.
 Criminoloid
– commit crime due to less self control
 Occasional Criminal
– commits crimes due to insignificant reasons that pushed them to do at a given
occasion.
 Pseudo Criminals
– kills in self defense.

LOMBROSO: HOW TO SPOT AN ATAVIST

1.Sloping Forehead

2.Ears of Unusual Size

3.Asymmetry of Face

4.Excessive length of arms

5.Asymmetry of the cranium

6.Receding chins

7.Protruding Jaw

a. Lack of Remorse

b.Insensitivity to Pain
c.Impulsiveness

POSITIVIST SCHOOL

3 Types of Positivist School

1. Biological Positivism
2. Sociological Positivism
3. Psychological Positivism

BIOLOGICAL POSITIVISM

-a theory that takes an individual’s characteristics and behaviour that make up their genetic disposition
is what causes them to be criminals.

Biological Theories:

 Physiognomy
-the study of person’s physical characteristics especially their face.
-comes from greek word “physis” means nature, “gnomon” means to judge or to interpret. It
refers to the evaluation.
Sir Frances Galton
-known for his innovations in the science d fingerprinting, studied the potential of mug
shots to reveal the look of criminality.
Giambattista Della Porta
-an Italian scholar who often examined patients during his medical practiced and
concluded that appearance and characteristics were related.
Johann Kaspar Lavater
-was a swiss poet and physiognomists. He claim that a person’s facial characteristics
related their “temperament”. And he concluded that through a person’s eyes, ears, nose
and chin could determine criminal behaviour.
 Phrenology
-also referred to as crainology; is a theory of human behaviour based upon the belief that an
individual’s characteristics correlated with the shape of their head.
-comes from the greek word “phren” it means mind and “logos” means knowledge. It is based
on the belief that human behaviour originated in the brain.
Franz Joseph Gall
-a German neuoroanatomist and physiologist who pioneered the study of the human
brain. According to him, a person’s strengths and weaknesses, morals could be
determined by physical characteristics of his/her skull.
Johann Spurzheim
-coined the term phrenology to replace cranioscopy. He created the model of
“phrenology bust”; that depicted the location of the brain organs.

 Somatotyping
-the classifying of people into types according to their body build.
AMERICAN SOMATOTYPING
William Sheldon
-he explains and predict the crime based on a person’s body type that broke into 3
categories:
 Ectomorphs
 Endomorphs
 Mesomorphs
1. Ectomorphs
-are thin and slender and may appear fragile
-the temperament sheldon associated with this body type is considered cerebrotonic;
someone who is introvert.
Crimes that are usually committed are:
Suicide
Crimes against property
Theft
2. . Endomorph
-are round and solid and often appear overweight
 -the temperament Sheldon associated with endomorphic individual is referred to as
Viscerotonic; someone who is extrovert.

Crimes that are usually committed:

Deception

Fraud

Violence

3. Mesomorphs

- tend to have more muscular and appear strong and powerful.

-the temperament Sheldon associated with mesomorphic individual is referred to as somotonic;

someone who is aggressive.

Crimes that are usually committed:

Rape

Physical injury

Murder

 European somatotyping
Ernst kretchmer
-attempted to correlate body build and physical constitution with personality
characteristics and mental illness
-he posited three constitutional groups:

 Asthenic type is tall and thin (ectomorphs)

 Pyknic type is round (endomorphs)
 Athletic type is muscular (mesomorphs)
  Dysplastic are those who has inappropriate body unlike to those three mentioned.

 Heredity studies

-heredity, also called inheritance or biological inheritance which is the passing of traits

from parents to their offspring.

 Twin studies

-twin studies are vastly important tool ain dissecting the nature versus nurture argument.

Identical twins (monozygotic twins)- siblings whose genotypes are duplicate of each other

Fraternal twins (dizygotic twins)- share exactly half of their genes with each other

Genes- is the basic physical and functioning unit of heredity that are made up of DNA

Chromosomes- is a strand of DNA that is encoded with genes

XX- female

XY- male

XYY syndrome (super male genes)

–a genetic conditions that occurs when a male has and extra copy of the Y chromosomes in
each of their cells (XY)

 Adoption studies

-a very significant portion of studying heredity and environmental effects on human traits
and psychopathology is devoted to adoption studies. This studies is important as it includes they
include two set of factors that may account for differences in behaviour, characteristics.

 The Kallikak Family

 -a study of heredity and feeble mindedness

“KALLIKAK”- is pseudonym derived from the greek word “KALLOS” means beauty

and “KAKOS means bad.

Henry Herbert Godard

-he believe that the kallikak family provided strong evidence that intelligence was

inherited traits.

 The Juke/ Duke Family

-a study of crime, pauperism, disease and heredity

-the name ”JUKE” came from a slang term “to juke” which describes the behaviours of
chicken who did not deposit their eggs in nest, but rather laid them in any convenient spot

Rochard Louis Dugdale

-he identified that for six generations had included large number of paupers, criminals
and vagrants.
Margaret/ Ada
-mother of criminals

 Sir Jonathan Edwards Family

Jonathan Edwards
-was a puritan preacher. His descendants are all professional on their own field.

SOCIOLOGICAL POSITIVISM

 Sociological positivism
-refer to things, place, events, person with whom man comes in contact that plays a part in
determining actions and conduct
 Sociological theories
-have generally asserted that criminal behaviour is a normal response or biologically and
psychologically normal individuals to kinds of social circumstances
SOCIAL PROCESS THEORIES

1. SOCIAL LEARNING THEORIES (Albert Bandura)

- the criminal behaviour is learned through social interaction by imitating and observing the
behavior of others.
-this theory has often been called a bridge between behaviourist and cognitive learning
theories because it encompasses attention, memory and motivation.

Observation + 4 Necessary steps = Learning

Attention: First off, the learner needs to pay attention. If they are distracted, this will
influence the amount or quality of learning that occurs.
Retention: How you can store the information learned (i.e., retention) is important. Let’s
face it.
Motivation: The last step is motivation. To have the most success for any observational
learning, you need to be motivated enough to imitate the behavior that was modeled.

BANDURA’S 3 MODELS FOR OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING

Live model: this is an actual person who is demonstrating the desired behavior.
 Verbal instruction: an individual instructs the participants on how to engage a behavior
Symbolic: the models occur by means of the media that involves in a means of fictional
character demonstrating the behavior.

 Differential Association Theory (Edwind Sutherland)

- people pursue criminal behavior to the extent that they identified themselves with real or
imaginary people

 Differential Identification Theory (Daniel Glaser)

-imitating a behavior thinking that it is somehow cool.

 Imitation- Suggestion Theory

-delinquency and crime are matters that are learned and adopted.
LAWS OF IMITATION:
 The laws of close contact
 ;the laws of imitating superiors to inferiors
 The laws of insertion

 Social Disorganization (Clifford Shaw & Henry Mckay)

- a person’s residential location is more significant in identifying than the person’s
characteristics when predicting criminal behavior.
REASONS OF SOCIAL DISORGANIZATION
 Family
 Neighbourhood
 Economic status
Marcus Aurelius
- according to him “Poverty is the mother of crime”.

 Differential Reinforcement Theory (Ronald Akers)

- defined as the balance of anticipated or actual rewards and punishments that follow or are
consequences of behavior.
 Drift Theory
-juvenile delinquent were either compelled or committed to their delinquent actions; it drifts
between law-abiding and law-breaking behavior.

 Neutralization Theory
-according to Matza and Sykes, most delinquent have the same values and attitudes as those of
law-abiding citizen.

 Drift Theory and Neutralization (Matza & Sykes)

- develop as means of explaining of how criminal offenders engage imn rule-breaking activity
while negating their culpability or crime.
Greysham Sykes
-focus on the study of delinquency and prison
David Matza
-focus on juvenile delinquency
FIVE TECHNIQUES OF NEUTRALIZATION
1. Denial of responsibility
-an offender will deny to take responsibility of its action
2. Denial of injury
-an offender will deny of harmful effect that nobody got hurt.
3. Denial of victim
-an offender will claim against the victim that he was deceiving to be punished.
4. Denial of condemners
-an offender will claim that the condemner’s behavior is bad
5. Appear to higher loyalties
-an offender will claim that his actions were selfless motive.

 Labeling Theory (Frank Tannerbaum)

 -a theory in which that society labelled a person based on their appearance, where they live,
status. Whereas this person will tend to commit crime based from what the society labelled
them.

 Conflict Theory
-holds that those in society who possess the social and economic power, the ruling class, define
antisocial behavior. Crime is based on the conflict between competing interest groups (dog-eat-
dog theory).

 Containment Theory
-this theory argued that there are inner and outer forces of containment that retrain a person
from committing a crime.
Internal pushes – includes personal factors that needs for immediate gratifications.
External pressures – includes living conditions that influence deviant behavior.
External pulls –represented by deviant companions, membership in criminal subcultures or
other deviant groups

 Social Bond Theory/ Social Control Theory

-this theory emphasizes that social control is about the role of the social relationship that bind
people to the social order and prevent antisocial behavior.
FOUR ELEMENTS:
1. attachment to family
2. commitment of an institution
3. involvement of recreational activities
4. belief of conventional norms

 Subculture Theory
-this theory explains that if the lower class is unable to achieve their goals and gain status in the
society they will accept ways that somehow create deviance.
Subcultures are defined as subsystems or anti-systems of society with their own attitudes and
norms that often contradict the moral concepts of majority society.
 Differential Opportunity Theory
-this theory explains the idea that people (usually teens) from low socioeconomic background
who has few opportunities for success, will use any means at their disposal to achieve success.
The means is subculture.- group of people with culture that differentiates from the larger culture
to which they belong.
Crime, where in a neighborhood that is stable and in which opportunity for crime exists, the
individual will turn to crime as his or her alternative.
Conflict, where this subculture is typical of disorganized areas of low socioeconomic
opportunity. The area is characterized by a mix of groups trying to establish dominance.
Retreatist, teens are unsuccessful at both legitimate and illegitimate enterprises.

 Culture conflict
-this theory suggest that crime is caused due to the clash of values that arises when different
social groups have different idea and acceptable behavior.

 Strain Theory
-a pressure from social factors such as lack of income. (American Dream)
FIVE ADAPTATIONS OF DILEMMAS
1. conformity- pursuing cultural goals through approved means
2. innovators- accept societal goals but has few legitimate means to achive it.
3. retualists- abandoned the goals they once believe
4. retreatist- give up the goals and means
5. rebel- goals and means are rejected

 Chicago School of Criminology

-uncover the relationship between neighborhood crime rate and characteristics of the
neighborhood

 Concentric Model
- a model that explains the settlement of certain group of people
 Anomie Theory
- The theory was based upon the idea that the lack of rules and clarity resulted in psychological
status of worthlessness, frustration, lack of purpose, and despair.
A-without; NOMOS- norms

 Symbolic Interactionism
- these theory says that people assign symbols and create meaning based on their interaction
with one another

 General Strain Theory (Robert Agnew)

-this theory states that strains increases the likelihood of crime, particularly strains that are high
in magnitude are associated with low social control and create some pressure or incentives for
criminal cooping.
THREE MAIN REASONS OF DEVIANCE PRODUCING STRAIN
1. failure to achive goals
2. removal of positive impulses
3. existence of harmful impulses