The Classicist and Biological Positivism Approaches to Crime

The following criminology assignment focuses upon the classicist and biological
positivist approaches to criminology, comparing and contrasting the two theories. It
is, however, important to investigate the history of crime and punishment briefly in
order to understand fully the development of each theory. If you require assistance
with your own compare and contrast assigment, our team of law assignment writers
are always available to help.

Crime has obviously been present in society since the beginning and one of the first
formal forms of trial and punishment grew in the Middle Ages through Trial by
Ordeal. Feudal Lords initiated a system whereby any person suspected of a crime
would be put through difficult and painful tasks: if they were innocent they would be
protected by God, if they died they were guilty. Obviously most died.

These ‘trials’ were eventually condemned by the Pope and St Thomas Aquianas (1225
– 1274) began to write his theology. He advocated that crime was due to a God
given ‘natural law’. He claimed that it was innately people would do well, but that
crime was committed by sinners who not only violated the ‘natural law’ but, in turn,
violated the ‘criminal law’. Aquinas believed that the punishment for criminals was
their loss of ‘humanness’ and that this alone was punishment enough.

The end of the middle Ages brought with it a search for natural explanations of crime
rather than spiritualist and religious arguments. The Renaissance saw the emergence
of humanists such as ‘social contract’ writer Thomas Hobbs (1588 – 1678), who
studied the human character, personality, society and politics. Naturalistic arguments
explaining crime now replaced spiritual and religious ones as Hobbes argued that
individuals naturally look to satisfy their own needs regardless of the effect on
others. He continued that, thankfully, humans are rational and realise that selfish
behaviour by everyone will benefit no-one; therefore, they will curb their behaviour
as long as others do the same. Through this belief the theory of ‘social contract’
developed and formed an unwritten peace treaty. Hobbes was not, however, naïve
enough to believe that all individuals would adhere to this ‘contract’ and advocated
that the state must intervene and punish anyone who deviated.

By 1748 scholars had developed the ‘social contract’ theory even further and
Montesquieu printed his work, The Spirit of the Laws. Reform was now the new
debate, and he insisted that prevention was far better than punishment. Voltaire
(1694 – 1778) supported this theory by leading a movement challenging the
previously barbaric treatment of prisoners. He advised that prisoners be used to carry
out dangerous public works rather than sitting idle in jail, thus creating in the
criminal a sense of self worth. He blamed poverty for much crime and laid the
responsibility for this at the feet of the developing institution of property. ‘Utopian’
theories were still strong and in 1516 Thomas More’s Utopia was printed. This
satirical work criticised social institutions in England, advocating the link between
poverty and crime.

There was little doubt that by the 1700s the theories of Social Contract and Utopian
writers was highly regarded by scholars of the day, however, these theories did not
represent the thinking of politically powerful groups who still adhered to the spiritual
explanations for crime. It was out of this conflict that the classical school of
criminology raised.

Classical criminology is based around the beliefs that an individual commits a

criminal offence after they have weighed up both the pros and cons. This suggests
that the decision to commit a crime is a rational one as it has been pre meditated.
The assumption is that the individual has a choice between either committing a crime
or to follow the law. If the individual chooses to deviate from the law then a system
of punishment must be put in to action. When a crime is committed a certain
amount of pleasure is received by the individual, to counteract this pleasure,
punishments must be provided. According to ‘classicists’ the major control over a
person exercising their free-will is the fear of pain. The punishment issued to the
offender must carry with it enough pain to outweigh the satisfaction and pleasure
received by committing and offence.. This theory based around individuals having a
choice is very attractive to politicians as it places the blame solely on the individual
and not upon society.

One of the main writers of the classical approach was Cesare Beccaria author of On
Crime and Punishment (1764). According to Beccaria, right minded people would
have no problem with appreciating that “good” laws are for their benefit not their
control, and as such will abide by these. In On Crimes and Punishment, Beccaria
argues that in a fair society, when a crime is committed by an individual, the
punishment issued should be only harsh enough to defer the individual from
committing that particular crime. He believes,

“The most severe crimes should receive the harshest penalties, but when being
punished for a crime, everybody should be treated equally regardless of their
previous character.”
- (Marsh, 2006:93-94)

Beccaria believed that when a punishment was issued to a criminal, it was not for
“social revenge” or “retribution” but to ensure the greatest overall good for society
and to set to deter others from committing crimes.
Beccaria was one of the first people to disagree with the existing systems of law and
criminal justice. He believed that the courts made inconstant decisions against
criminals, especially the poor, such as the extensive use of the death penalty.

“Beccaria was one of the first opponents of the death penalty claiming that long
prison sentences were more of a deterrent than the threat of instant punishment”
- (Jones, 2009: 75-77)

In his criticism of the death penalty he appealed to two philosophical theories, these
been social contract and utility. He argued that punishment is issued only to defend
the social contract. He argued that the state does not possess the right to take a life
of an individual which ever crime they have committed.

English political philosopher Jeremy Bentham’s theory of utilitarianism is based

around the idea laws must be established in order to ensure the security and
happiness of the majority of society. His theory is based upon the idea that human
beings will always consider the consequences of their actions; weighing up the
proposed pain of punishment against the gain of the crime. This theory however,
supposes that all crime is committed whilst the perpetrators are of sound mind. It
does not take in to account the fact that much crime is committed when the person
is under the influence of alcohol or drugs and obviously these influences will severely
distort the perpetrators judgement. There is also an argument that it is impossible to
measure pain or pleasure in different individuals. Certain punishments will, to some
criminals, be worth risking for the pleasure or gain of their crime.

Biological positivism claims that criminal behaviour is the results of some chemical
imbalance within the brain or abnormalities. Traditional biological theories suggest
that criminal behaviour is a result if a defect within the individual. This defect can be
either biological or genetic, and can be used to differentiate between a criminal and
law abiding citizens. More modern biological theories unlike traditional ones search
for a link between things like testosterone and IQ. Even thought modern theories
share a biological link they also understand that larger society have influences on the
individual’s choices to commit crime. Society is very limited in the responses they can
make to the individual, if the biological theories are correct. There are however some
approaches society could offer, firstly they could try and fix the offender through
medication or therapy. Secondly society could keep the offender isolated from larger
society. Thirdly, to keep the offender passing on any genes to future generations the
offender could be sterilised. Finally society could take the life of the offender. If
criminal behaviour is purely biological determined, these options would be more
useful than if the individual was punished for the crime committed by advocates of
classical punishment.
Cesare Lombroso (1935-1909) is best known as the founder of criminal
anthropology, the study of the mind, body and habits of the “born” criminal.
Lombroso began his studies while in the army service. He measured psychical
differences among soldiers, including soldiers who were highly disciplined and those
who displayed aggressive or criminal behaviour. His initial theories supported the
correlation between physical abnormalities and features of an individual against his
propensity to commit crime. Lombroso studied abnormalities such as the dimensions
of skull and jaw, asymmetries of the face and body etc and referred to these various
anomalies as stigmata. He advocated that criminals could be identified by these
types of features. One strong criticism of Lombroso’s theory was that it encouraged
stereotyping among society, which would then leas to discrimination towards
individuals who processed these characteristics Lombroso referred to. Whilst
Lombroso’s theories of physical abnormality and criminal behaviour has been
scientifically discredited, Lombroso was however responsible for instigating the
importance of the scientific study of the criminal mind.

One of Lombroso’s main critics was an English man, Charles Goring who stated
Lombroso work was “an organized system of self-evident confusion whose parallel is
only to be found in the astrology, alchemy, and other credulities of the Middle Ages”
(Jones 1986:107). Goring was the author of “The English Convict”, a study in to the
psychical characteristics of 3000 inmates. Goring included a sample study by
comparing an equal amount of law abiding citizens, such as, army members and
college students to criminal offenders. Goring disproved that criminals show certain
psychical abnormalities when compares to the general population. The only
differences Goring established was that criminals were on average 2” shorter than the
non criminals and weighed 3 to 7 pounds less. Goring believed however that these
differences were attributed to hereditary inferiority.

William Herbert Sheldon was an American psychologist. In the 1940s Sheldon

examined 200 photographs of nude men and categorised them in to three different
body types, or how Sheldon called them “somatotypes” together with their
personality types. These were “Endomorphs”, this is where the individual was large
and heavy with a outgoing and sociable attitude. “Mesomorphs”, this is where the
individual was broad and muscular with an adventurous and aggressive personality.
And the final one “Ectomorphs” is where the individual was thin and bony with a
restrained and introverted personality. Sheldon realised that no one can be entirely
characterised in to one of these groups, so he created a scale. The scale ran from 1
through to 7, with 7 been the highest. According to Sheldon, a totally balanced
person would be 4-4-4 and a person with strong “Mesomorphs” tendencies could
possibly be 3-6-2. He concluded that most deviant characters display “Mesomorphs”
characteristics, with his typical delinquent been “3.5-5.6-2.7”. He also concluded that
criminals lack “Ectomorphs” characteristics, yet display slightly more “Endomorphs”
characteristics than the delinquents. There are however criticism towards Sheldon’s
theory, one been that Sheldon underestimates the effects that society has on our
behaviour. Another criticism been that when this experiment has been repeated it
has had inconsistent results, therefore it is unreliable.

Although Positivist and Classicist theories on crime are extremely different in their
views regarding what creates criminal behaviour, they are alike in the fact that both
have their roots in Italy, and both would agree that the causes of crime are rooted in
human nature. Each theory suggests that criminals must be removed from society,
but the classicist theory would suggest that there is some hope of rehabilitation and
deterrence. Positivists would rebuke this thinking as, by their admission, criminals are
born, not made.

Classicists argue that individuals decide rationally to commit crime weighing up the
pleasure of gain against the pain of being punished. Free will is exerted by the
individual when choosing to deviate and, therefore, appropriate punishments must
be established in order to discourage such behaviour. Early advocates of this theory
were mainly interested in legal reform and showed very little interest in whether
there may be an underlying reason which might cause an individual to commit crime.
They insisted that any punishment must always exceed the nature of the actual crime,
therefore ensuring that the risk to the criminal of being caught was too great.

Biological positivist theory reflects a very different approach to the classicist

reasoning behind why individuals commit crime. They reject the idea that individuals
have a choice, advocating that criminal behaviour is the result of biological defects
and abnormalities. These defects can be either biological or genetic; however they
render the sufferer incapable of free will regarding their deviant behaviour.
Advocates of this theory regard themselves as scientists, studying the physical and
biological make up of humans in respect to their propensity to commit crime and,
therefore, have a very different approach to punishment. Biological positivists
claimed that the threat of incarceration and punishment was useless in deterring
criminals as the criminal had not exercised free will when committing the crime. They
offered five alternatives to punishments, one being that the offender could be
treated through medication or therapy. Further alternatives were offenders could
simply be looked away from society for the rest of their life or alternatively deported.
Fourthly, the offender might be sterilised, thus enduring that his deviant genes were
not passed down to further generations and finally the offender may be executed,
thus ensuring no further deviance.

Of these two approaches, politicians and courts have always preferred the classicist
theory and much of the modern legal system is based upon it. This perspective puts
the blame for crime solely onto the criminal. Society, poverty, deprivation and poor
health is unable to be held responsible for crime, and those who commit crime can
be publically punished, thus satisfying the rest of society.

Having investigated the above theories I would maintain that although the classical
school’s popularity did in fact diminish as some positivist explanations emerged, the
Classicist theory still serves to provide much of the framework for the modern legal
system. Free will of the individual has never been rejected and the Classical model
has now re-emerged as the ‘justice model’ and rational choice explanation.