Chapter 1 Crime, Criminal and Criminology

What is Crime? Who is the Criminal?

The crime is an inevitable part of a human

society. The concept of crime is known to the man ever since
knowledge of human civilization. In primitive societies,
people were living in clans hence the problems were limited.
The concept of crime was not too wide as compared to the
modern concept. With the advancement of human life and
with the complexity of human life, the number and kinds of
crime also increased. The crime rate is also increasing
tremendously.
Crime is not only limited to the lower
strata of the society. Social economic offenses and white
collar crimes are the domain of upper and middle class.
People are so busy with their own affairs that they hardly
realise the crime cause irreparable loss to them. We speak
too much about morals and ethics, we also claim that we
have given the message of peace and non-violence through
the teachings of Lord Buddha and Mahaveer however our
values and morals have fallen much behind.
Criminal tendencies developed because of the following
factors:-
1. The avarice for money
2. The norms of standardization
 3. Free intermingling of male and female
4. Indifference of parents towards their children
5. Busy human life
6. Urge for power in a democratic set up
7. Poverty
8. Circumstances
Man by nature is a fighting animal
hence thinking of a crimeless society is a myth. There is no
society without the problem of crime and criminal. The
concept of crime is essentially concerned with the social
order. Man’s interest is best protected as a member of the
community. Every person has certain rights and privileges.
Also every person owes certain duties to his fellow men.
This concept of mutual respect of each other’s rights
regulates the conducts of the members interse.

Who is the criminal?

A criminal is a person who commits a crime.
In the democratic legal tradition, even if a person admits that
he has committed a crime is not designated as a criminal until
criminality has been proven by means of accepted court
procedures.

Legally oriented group:- Statutes adequately defines criminal

behaviour. Therefore, anyone who violates a statute whether
apprehended or not is a criminal. This position is at the very
foundation of all modern systems of criminal justice. Criminal
law and procedures require specifically in definitions.
Second group: - Second group goes to the opposite extreme.
As per them, law on the books is irrelevant. Powerless people
are criminals, according to the law in action, while powerful
people are not. This argument is based on the assumption
that criminal justices processes do not treat all personal
equally. However, it ignores the fact that most poor and
powerless people do not get into trouble with the police
while some prosperous and powerful people do.

Third group:- Third group takes an intermediate position.

The approach of a third group is that the criminologist may
call an act criminal if it reasonably falls within a certain class
of acts defined as a crime. Similarly the criminologist may call
a person a criminal if it reasonable to believe that a person
committed an act of such a class.

What is criminology?
Criminology is concerned not only with the laws which define
crime but with the uniformity in the application of these laws
It examines the moral standards and the social values which
serve to determine the limits of toleration and which
prescribe acceptable behaviour. It covers the procedure of
collecting data on crime, subtleties of interpretation and the
statistical recording and measurement of crime.
Definition of Criminology:-
Edwin Sutherland: - Criminology is the body of knowledge
regarding crime as a social phenomenon. It includes within its
scope the process of making laws, or breaking laws and of
reacting towards breaking of law. The objective of
criminology is the development of a body of general and
verified principles and other types of knowledge regarding
the process of law, crime and treatment.

M.A Elliot: - Criminology may be defined as the scientific

study of crime and its treatment.
Walter Reckless: - Criminology is a science which studies
violation of criminal codes or set of rules or regulations in
society.

Conclusion: - Criminology may be defined as a study of the

crime and the causes of the crime and the crime problems,
the prevention of crime and the effects of punishment on
criminals and society and the treatment of criminals.

Schools of Criminology
Schools of criminology have developed during the last two
centuries. A school of criminology is a system of thought,
together with the proponents of that system of thought. The
system of thought consists of an integrated theory of the
causation of crime and of policies of control implied in the
theory of causation.
1. Pre-classical School of criminology:- Demonological
Theory
Theology of Saint Aquinas (1225-1274):- Man by nature
is simple and his actions are controlled by some
superpower. It was generally believed that that a man
commits a crime due the influence of some external
spirit called “Demon” or “Devil”. Thus, an offender
commits a wrongful act not because of his own free will
but due to the influence of some external superpower.
There was no attempt made to probe into the real
causes of crime. Crime and criminals were considered as
evidence of the fact that the individual was possessed of
devil or demon. The principle of divine intervention
especially through ordeals was in vogue in ancient India
as well.

2. The Classical school-Free will theory:-

The doctrine of psychological Hedonism:-
1. The classical school of criminology developed in Italy
and England during the last half of the 18th century
and spread to other European nations and the United
States.

2. This school was based on the doctrine of

Psychological Hedonism.
 3. It assumed that individuals seek to attain pleasure
and avoid pain and govern their behaviour by
considerations of pleasure and pain.

4. The pleasure anticipated from a particular act may be

balanced against the pains anticipated from that act,
or the algebraic sum of pleasures and pains from one
act may be balanced against the algebraic sum of
pleasures and pains from the other acts.

5. It also assumed that individuals have free will and

make choices solely on the basis of their Hedonistic
calculations.

6. For the classical school, these assumptions provide

complete explanation of crime.
Accordingly, there is no need for the research for the
Economic, political and social conditions associated with
the crime and criminality.

Basis for Free Will Theory:-

The belief that human beings and
their welfare rests in the hands of supernatural powers
diminished due to new intellectual awakening. The natural
laws govern not only the events external to the man but also
events inside the man i.e the process of bodily growth,
sustenance and decay. The reasoning and willing power are
the divine gifts that separate human beings from others. This
separation of mental from bodily processes is called the
doctrine of Cartesian Dichotomy. The doctrine provided
useful in reforming the criminal law by rationalizing the
punishment due to mental working of the human beings. This
doctrine provided a base for free will theory.

Pioneers of the classical school:-

1. Beccaria, Bentham and Romilly are the pioneers of the
classical school.
2. According to this school, all men are self seeking and
therefor they tempt to commit the offenses.
3. There is a consensus that there must be protection of
property and personal welfare.
4. For it, people with free will entered into a contract with
the state that they would preserve the peace in the
society within the term of consensus.
5. The punishment to be awarded by the state must be
proportionate to the interest suffered by the crime.
6. The laws should be minimum, the implementation of
which should be delineated by the due process.
7. The man is liable for his acts and all are equal before the
law.
Cesare Beccaria (1767) and Jeremy Bentham (1823)
lived during a time when penal codes were little more
than a mass of contradictions and barbarities and the
administration of law was arbitrary and cruel. Adoption
the ethical principle of utility, the greatest happiness of
greatest number” is the only right and universally
desirable end of human action, each man sought to
rationalize the criminal codes and humanize the
imposition of punishment.

Cesare Beccaria (1767) who may be regarded as the

founder of this school, argued that:-

1. All persons who violate a specific law should receive

identical punishment, regardless of age, sanity, social
position or circumstances.
2. Punishment must be precisely specified in advance so
that everyone should take into account when
calculating the pleasures and pains that would result
from violating the law.
3. Punishment must be just severe enough so that the
pains would exceed the pleasures derived from
violating the law.
4. Crime rates would be minimal if fear of state
sanctions is maximal. This principal is called
deterrence.
 Pleasure and Pain theory:-

1. This school developed during the last half of the 19th

century in England.
2. Beccaria and Bentham are main exponents of this
school.
3. The theory explains that since man is free to do as he
pleases or make his own choices, it is of prime
importance to prevail upon him, through teaching or by
threats and rewards, to conform the sanctions of
society.
4. Beccaria rejected the omnipotence of evil spirit.
5. He laid great emphasis on mental phenomenon of the
individual and attributed crime to free will of the
individual.
6. He was much influenced by the utilitarian philosophy of
his time name “pleasure pain theory”.

Criticism:- The major shortcoming of this school was that it

proceeded on an abstract assumption of free will and relied
solely on the act i.e crime without devoting any attention to
the state of mind of the criminal. This school also failed in
prescribing equal punishment for same offences thus making
no distinction between first offenders and habitual criminals
and varying degrees of the gravity of the offense.
3. Neo Classical School

Following the French Revolution of 1789, Beccaria’s

principle were used as the basis for the French code of
1791. The code treated everyone exactly alike. The
practical difficulty in applying this code was that it
ignores differences in the circumstances of particular
situations. Ultimately, these reactions resulted in
revisions to this code so that the judges were able to
exercise discretion in considering factors such as age,
mental condition and extenuating circumstances.

Neo classical represented no particular break with the

basic doctrine of human nature that made up the
classical tradition throughout Europe that time.
The doctrine continued to be that people possess free
will and that they are guided by reason and self-interest.
They therefore can be controlled by the fear of
punishment.

1. Neo classical school asserted that certain extenuating

situations or mental disorders deprive a person of his
normal capacity to control his conduct. This this
theory justified mitigation of equal punishment in
cases of certain psychopathic offenders
2. Neo classical school was first to differentiate between
the first offenders and the recidivists.
3. They differentiated criminals on the basis of their age
and intelligence.
4. Supporters of this theory propounded that man
action on reason and intelligence is a self-determining
person and is responsible for his conduct. But
individuals who have some abnormal features and
lacking normal intelligence are not responsible for
their own conduct, whether its good or bad.
5. The Neo classical school recommended that all
criminals whether normal or abnormal must be kept
segregated or isolated from the society. They also
proposed lenient treatment for abnormal as they are
not able understand the difference between good or
bad or the consequence of their own act.
6. The thoughts and theories of neo classists on ‘normal
and abnormal’, ‘responsible or irresponsible’ and
‘sanity and insanity’ are the result of establishment of
correctional institutions like Parole, probation, open
air campus, rehabilitation and reformation of
offenders.
7. The most significant contribution of this school was
that they adopted subjective approach towards the
offenders rather than objective and concentrated on
the conditions under which offenders commit the
crime.

Criticism:- Neo classical school believe that criminal

with normal or abnormal behaviours must be isolated
from the society permanently. This eliminations is
against the humanity. However if the offender is
eliminated from the society only during the
 punishment period then it would be administration of
criminal justice.

4. Positive School:-

The century intervening between Becccaria and

Lombroso marks a shift in man’s thinking about himself
that is of such magnitude that it can be well considered
an intellectual revolution.
During this century Logic and basis methodology
of objective, empirical and experimental science became
well established.
With the advance of behavioural science the
monogenetic explanation of human conduct lost its
validity and a new trend to adopt an elective view about
the genesis of crime gradually developed.
By 19th century it was well established that
neither free will of the offender nor his innate depravity
which actuated him to commit a crime but the real
cause of criminality lay in anthropological features of
the criminal. Positivist school criticised and refused the
views of classical and neo classical thinkers that the
actions of man are controlled by some supernatural
power called demon or devil.

The positive school of Italy focussed its attention

on the personality of the offender and rejected Free will
theory. The school owes its origin to the contributions of
Cesare Lombroso (1836-1909), Enrico Ferri (1856-1928) and
Raffaele Garofalo (1852-1934). They tried to explain crime
primarily in terms of factors within the criminal i.e physical,
biological and mental traits and therefore either ignored
external factors or gave them secondary importance.

Cesare Lombroso (1836-1909)

Lombroso was born in Venice, of a Jewish family.
He was educated for medicine and became a specialist
in Psychiatry
He was a professor of Legal medicine at the University
of Turin.
He adopted an objective and empirical approach to the
study of criminals through his anthropological
experiments.
As per him criminals were physically inferior in the
standard of growth so they developed a tendency of
inferior acts.
Criminals are different from normal persons and had
physical characteristics of savages and inferior animals.

He classified criminals into three main categories:-

1. The atavist or Hereditary criminals:-

These criminals are termed as born criminals
One third of the criminal belong to this group
These criminals are considered as incorrigibles i.e
beyond reformation
Such atavistic stigma is disclosed by a low forehead,
receding chin, ears standing our from the head and
peculiarities of the eyes.
Other physical abnormalities may include fleshy lips,
abnormal teeth, long or flat chin, dark skin, twisted nose
and so on.

2. Insane Criminals:-
These criminals commit a crime because of mental
conditions
E.g General paralysis, dementia, alcoholism, idiocy or
hysteria
He did take into account certain circumstances which
can make an otherwise normal person, a criminal.

3. Criminoids or Criminoloids:- A large general class of

those without physical stigma, who are not affected
with recognizable mental disorders, but whose
mental and emotional make up are such that under
certain circumstances they indulge in vicious and
criminal behaviour. Criminal who are physical criminal
type and had a tendency to commit crime in order to
overcome their inferiority in order to meet the needs
of survival
4. Occasional criminals:- These criminals commit crime
involuntarily, who commit acts which are not
 perverse of prejudicial to society but called crime by
the law. They commit crime under extraordinary
circumstances like in defence of the person, honour
killing or for the sustenance of the family.
5. Passionate criminals:- The occasions out of which
these crimes are the temptation to imitate, the
constant opportunities offered by the commercial
profession for fraud, abuse of confidence etc, the
association of the prison, a passionless intense than in
the criminal by passion which drives an honest man
slowly to the crime.
Criticism:- Lombroso’s theories have been criticised by many
modern criminologists. His assumption regarding some
sort of nexus between atavism and criminal behaviour
has no scientific base. He also failed to appreciate that
both criminal and non-criminal behaviours were the
result of the same process operating on the basis of
various social and physical factors.
Conclusion:- It is undisputed that Lombroso was the great
pioneer whose original and versatile genius and
aggressive personality led in the great movement
towards the application of the positive, inductive
methods of modern science to the problem of crime,
and who stimulated, more than any other, the
development of new science of criminology.
Enrico Ferri (1856-1928)
He found that geographical, psychological, social and
economic factors are important aspects while
accounting the causes of crime besides anthropholical
factors.
He was the most widely known of Lombroso’s pupils
and young sociologist.
After Musolini came to power Ferri was asked to
undertaken the preparation of a new penal code for
Italy.
He accepted the view of Lombroso and also gave
emphasis on environment.
He described crime as synthetics product of:-
1. Physical or geographical
2. Anthropological and
3. Psychological and social factors.
He classified crime into five categories:-
1. Insane criminals:- Criminals who commit criminal acts
due to congenial reasons.
2. Born Criminals:- To be understood as a atavistic
reversions to a lower or more primitive evolutionary
form of development, and thought to constitute about
1/3 of the total number of offenders.
3. Habitual criminals:- These criminals are influenced by
social and physical environments also, though show
atavistic tendencies basically.
 4. Criminals by passion:- Those criminals who involve in
commission of crime due to impulse, anger or jealousy
and feel repentant in future. The social economic factors
consists of density of population, public opinion,
manners and religion, family circumstances, the system
of education, industrial pursuits, alcoholism, economic
and political conditions public administration, justice
and police and In general legislative, civil and penal
institutions.
5. Occasional criminals:- These criminals only perform the
act if the opportunity occurs in his routine daily life.
There are occasional criminals who commit the offenses,
characteristic of habitual criminality.

Ferri’s ideal of punishment:-

1. He suggested an intensive programme of crime

prevention and recommended series of measures for
treatment of offenders.
2. He asserted that punishment could be one of the
possible methods of reforming the criminal.
3. He favoured inseminate sentence keeping in view the
possible chances of inmates’ readjustment to the
community.

Criticism:-
 1. A British physical Charles Goring conducted research on
both criminals and non-criminals and he found no
significant physical difference between the both
2. It failed to present clearly the resemblance of the
criminal was with what type of savage.
3. Many critics opposed ferri’s law of criminal saturation
stating that it is nothing more than a statement that the
law of cause and effect equally applies to criminal
behaviour as well.

Raffaele Garofalo (1852-1934)

-Raffaele Garofalo was one of the three main exponents of
the positive school of criminology.
-Born in Naples in 1852, Raffaele Garofalo started his career
as a Magistrate in Italian Court and rose to the position of
Minister of Justice in 1903.
-He stressed the need of a closer study of the circumstances
and living conditions of the criminals.
-He firmly believed that criminal is a creature of his own
environment.
-He was the only positivist who had varied experience as an
eminent jurist, a senator, and a professor of criminal law.
-So, he approached the problem of crime and criminals in an
altogether different manner than those of his
contemporaries.
-He rejected the classical theory of free will as a cause of
crime.
-He defined crime as an act that offends the sentiments of
pity and probity possessed by an average person and which is
injurious to the society.
-He emphasized the lack of pity generates crime against a
person while lack of probity leads to crime against property.

He rejected Ferri’s classification of criminals and placed

offenders into four main categories:-
1. Murderers whom he called Endemic criminals
2. Violent criminals who are affected by environmental
influences such as prejudices of honour, politics, and
religion.
3. Criminals lacking in the sense of probity; and
4. Lascivious criminals or lustful criminals who commit
crimes against sex and chastity.

As a member of the Italian Judiciary he was well

acquainted with the then existing criminal law and
procedure in the administration of criminal justice
and recommended death, imprisonment for life and
transportation and reparation as three modes of
punishment for criminals. Out of his experience as a
judge and having witnessed total failure of
correctional measure in France, he was not very
optimistic about the reformation of offenders. He
 therefore strongly pleaded for elimination of habitual
offenders who were incapable of social adaptation as
a measure of social defence.

Criticism:-
- An analysis which attaches the idea of criminality
only to violation of the moral sentiments of pity
and probity is incomplete and insufficiently
sophisticated.
- Whether the particular horror associated with
certain kinds of sexual offenses can be completely
or adequately explained as a manifestation of pity
for the victim. Nor do these categories encompass
serious political crime.

Gabriel Tarde (1843-94)

Gabriel Tarde was a critic of

the positive school of
criminology. He asserted that
the influence of the social
environment was most
emphatic on the
criminal behavior out that the
law of insertion and imitation
was responsible for the
incidence of
crime. The members of society
are prone to imitate the
behavior of their associates.
Likewise, the
subordinate or inferior
members have a tendency to
imitate the ways of their
superiors just as the
children imitate their parents
and elder members of the
family. Consequently, as
regards crimes,
the beginners have a tendency
to imitate the acts of habitual
criminals and thus they lend
into
criminality. The effect of
imitation is still worse on
youngsters who are prone to
fall easy prey to
criminality. Particularly, the
impact of the movie, cinema,
and television is so great on
teenagers
that it perverts their minds and
actions which eventually
makes them delinquents. Thus
there is
considerable truth in Tarde‘s
assertion that ―crime, like
another social phenomenon,
starts as a
fashion and becomes a
customǁ. He classified
criminals into urban and rural
types and expressed
a view that crimes in urban
areas are far more serious in
nature than those in rural
places. Despite
the fact that the views of Tarde
were logical and nearer to
truth, they were discarded as
over
simplification of facts
-He was a critic of the positive school of
criminology
-He asserted that the influence of the social
environment was most emphatic on the
criminal behaviour that the law of imitation
and law of insertion was responsible for the
incidence of crime.
-The members of society are prone to imitate
the behaviour of their associates.
-Likewise inferior or subordinate members
have a tendency to immediate their superiors
just as the children imitate their parents and
elder members of the family.
-consequently as regards to crime the
beginners have a tendency to imitate the acts
of habitual criminals and thus they lend into
criminality.
-The effect of imitations is so worse on
youngsters that they easily fall prey to
criminality. Particularly the impact of cinema,
movies and television is so great on teenagers
 that it perverse their minds and actions which
eventually makes them delinquents.
-Thus there is a consider truth in Tarde’s
assertion that-crime like another social
phenomenon, starts as a fashion and becomes a
custom.
-He classified criminals into Urban and Rural
- As per him crimes in Urban areas are more
serious than crimes in rural areas.

Criticism:- Despite the fact that the view of

Tarde were logical and nearer to the truth, they
were discarded as over simplification of facts.

Gabriel Tarde was a critic of

the positive school of
criminology. He asserted that
the influence of the social
environment was most
emphatic on the
criminal behavior out that the
law of insertion and imitation
was responsible for the
incidence of
crime. The members of society
are prone to imitate the
behavior of their associates.
Likewise, the
subordinate or inferior
members have a tendency to
imitate the ways of their
superiors just as the
children imitate their parents
and elder members of the
family. Consequently, as
regards crimes,
the beginners have a tendency
to imitate the acts of habitual
criminals and thus they lend
into
criminality. The effect of
imitation is still worse on
youngsters who are prone to
fall easy prey to
criminality. Particularly, the
impact of the movie, cinema,
and television is so great on
teenagers
that it perverts their minds and
actions which eventually
makes them delinquents. Thus
there is
considerable truth in Tarde‘s
assertion that ―crime, like
another social phenomenon,
starts as a
fashion and becomes a
customǁ. He classified
criminals into urban and rural
types and expressed
a view that crimes in urban
areas are far more serious in
nature than those in rural
places. Despite
the fact that the views of Tarde
were logical and nearer to
truth, they were discarded as
over
simplification of facts
Gabriel Tarde was a critic of
the positive school of
criminology. He asserted that
the influence of the social
environment was most
emphatic on the
criminal behavior out that the
law of insertion and imitation
was responsible for the
incidence of
crime. The members of society
are prone to imitate the
behavior of their associates.
Likewise, the
subordinate or inferior
members have a tendency to
imitate the ways of their
superiors just as the
children imitate their parents
and elder members of the
family. Consequently, as
regards crimes,
the beginners have a tendency
to imitate the acts of habitual
criminals and thus they lend
into
criminality. The effect of
imitation is still worse on
youngsters who are prone to
fall easy prey to
criminality. Particularly, the
impact of the movie, cinema,
and television is so great on
teenagers
that it perverts their minds and
actions which eventually
makes them delinquents. Thus
there is
considerable truth in Tarde‘s
assertion that ―crime, like
another social phenomenon,
starts as a
fashion and becomes a
customǁ. He classified
criminals into urban and rural
types and expressed
a view that crimes in urban
areas are far more serious in
nature than those in rural
places. Despite
the fact that the views of Tarde
were logical and nearer to
truth, they were discarded as
over
simplification of fac
Chapter 2

Psychology and Crime

Meaning of Criminal Psychology

The term Criminal Psychology has been defined in a

number of different ways. Even today there is no
accepted definition.

G.H Gudjonsson and L R C Harward (1998) defined

criminology as:- “ that branch of applied
psychology which is concerned with the collection,
examination and presentation of evidence of
judicial purposes”.
From this definition we can conclude that criminal
psychology is concerned with investigative (those
to do with the police) and court processes.

However, with the growth in the last quarter of a

century in the involvement of the criminal
psychologists in the assessment and treatment of
offenders following their sentencing. It would not
be surprising if there were some disagreement with
a definition which could exclude these group of
professionals being called Criminal psychologists.

We can say that this branch of criminology is the

part of investigation for the investigative agencies
and of the important branches of the criminal
justice system. The entire process of criminal
psychology is nothing but the collection of evidence
and validation of evidence for the purpose of
prosecution in the courts for the adjudication of
cases.

A wider definition of the term is needed hence

American psychologist Wrightsman described it as,
“any application of psychological knowledge or
methods to a task faced by the legal system. This
more inclusive definition involves the whole of the
legal system. Criminal psychologists can be involved
in all areas of the judicial process including post
sentence and a broad based definition is needed to
encompass all of this work.