CLASSICAL THEORY

CRIMINOLOGY

SUBMITTED TO- SUBMITTED BY-

MS. TANMEET ARUNIMA CHAUHAN
U.I.L.S 10TH SEMESTER
P.U. SECTION- C
ROLL NO. – 133/13
Classical theory

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to express my special thanks of gratitude to my teacher Ms. Tanmeet who gave
me a golden opportunity to present a case which also helped me in doing a lot of research and
I came to know a about so many new things I am really thank full to them . Secondly I would
like to thank my friends who help me to finalizing this project within limited time frame.

ARUNIMA CHAUHAN

133/13

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

TOPIC PAGE NO.

Introduction 4.

Meaning of Criminology 4.

Definitions by various scholars 5.

Nature and scope of criminology 6.

Significance of criminology 7.

Classical theory 10.

Bibliography 20.

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INTRODUCTION

The classical school of criminology was a response to the brutal and arbitrary criminal justice
system of eighteenth-century Europe. Classical criminology emphasizes both the
government's role in regulating and punishing inappropriate behavior and individuals' ability
to guide their own actions. Individuals are considered to be rational actors who are able to
logically determine if the pleasure received from a criminal act is greater than the potential
sanction. Thus, individuals can be inhibited from engaging in criminality if the punishments
outweigh the rewards. Specifically, a deterrent must have three components—severity,
certainty, and celerity—if it is to be successful. The absence of one component reduces a
rational actor's ability to calculate the benefits from the disadvantages, diminishing the
deterrent effect. Classical criminology has been the foundation for several paramount theories
in the discipline, including rational choice, self-control, and routine activity theories1.

MEANING OF CRIMINOLOGY

Criminology may be defined as “the scientific study of the causation, correction,

and prevention of crime”. Criminology (from Latin crīmen, "accusation"; and Greek- logia)
is the social science approach to the study of crime as an individual and social phenomenon.
Although contemporary definitions vary in the exact words used, there is considerable
consensus that criminology involves the application of the “scientific method” to the study of
variation in criminal law, the causes of crime, and reactions to crime (Akers 2000).

Criminological research areas include the incidence and forms of crime as well as its causes
and consequences. They also include social and governmental regulations and reactions to
crime. An important way to analyze data is to look at quantitative methods in criminology. In

1
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118517383.wbeccj041/abstract;jsessionid=F0B3704C8EC85D
6FE49620697E9A6C0A.f01t03

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1885, Italian law professor Raffaele Garofalo coined the term "criminology" (in
Italian, criminologia). The French anthropologist Paul Topinard used it for the first time in
French (criminologie) around the same time.2

DEFINITIONS BY VARIOUS SCHOLARS

<<<

1. Edwin Sutherland

Criminology is the body of knowledge regarding crime as a social phenomenon. It includes

within its scope the processes of making laws, breaking laws and reacting towards the
breaking of law. (From the above definition it is apparent that criminology is a combination
of how the society defines and deals with crime within a social and legal context).

2. Donald Taft
Criminology may be divided into two branches:
1. general
2. specific

Criminology in a general sense is the study of crime and criminals. In a specific sense it
seeks to study criminal behavior its goal being to reform the criminal behavior or conduct of
the individual which society condemns.

3. Webster
Criminology is the scientific study of crime as a social phenomenon or of criminals and their
behaviors and family conditions.

Criminology can thus be said to be and academic discipline that employs scientific
methodology to study crime, its major forms, its reasons for existence or causation and how
the criminal justice system can respond to crime. In its narrower sense, criminology looks at
criminal behavior of individuals in society and how they come to be perceived as such i.e.
Their social, cultural and economic background. In a wider sense, it looks at how the
criminal is dealt with e.g. how he is punished and therefore includes penology.

2
Mrs. Glory Nirmala. K, “Understanding Criminology”, (retrieved from http://www.abyssinialaw.com/about-
us/item/443-understanding-criminology)

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Criminology as a subject therefore deals with:

 criminal acts;
 the criminal;
 it indirectly deals with the victim of the crime;

 crime causation and theory;

 crime prevention and detection of potential offenders;
 The efficacy of the criminal justice system.

Criminology borrows heavily from other sciences including biology (genetical make up of a
criminal) psychology) (thinking process of a criminal mind), psychiatry (mental stability and
inclination of a criminal), philosophy, general medicine etc.3

NATURE AND SCOPE OF CRIMINOLOGY

Criminology is an inter-disciplinary field of study, involving scholars and practitioners

representing a wide range of behavioural and social sciences as well as numerous natural
sciences. Sociologists played a major role in defining and developing the field of study and
criminology emerged as an academic discipline housed in sociology programs.
However, with the establishment of schools of criminology and the proliferation of academic
departments and programs concentrating specifically on crime and justice in the last half of
the 20th century, the criminology emerged as a distinct professional field with a broad,
interdisciplinary focus and a shared commitment to generating knowledge through systematic
research.4

One ultimate goal of criminology has been the development of theories expressed with
sufficient precision that they can be tested, using data collected in a manner that allows
verification and replication.

As a subdivision of the larger field of sociology, criminology draws on psychology,

economics, anthropology, psychiatry, biology, statistics, and other disciplines to explain the

3
https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/criminology
4
Supra 2

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causes and prevention of criminal behaviour. Subdivisions of criminology include penology,

the study of prisons and prison systems; bio-criminology, the study of the biological basis of
criminal behaviour; feminist criminology, the study of women and crime; and Criminalistics,
the study of crime detection, which is related to the field of Forensic Science. Much research
related to criminology has focused on the biological basis of criminal behaviour. In fact, bio-
criminology, attempts to explore the biological basis of criminal behaviour. Research in this
area has focused on chromosomal abnormalities, hormonal and brain chemical imbalances,
diet, neurological conditions, drugs, and alcohol as variables that contribute to criminal
behaviour.5

Criminology has historically played a reforming role in relation to Criminal Law and the
criminal justice system. As an applied discipline, it has produced findings that have
influenced legislators, judges, prosecutors, lawyers, Probation officers, and prison officials,
prompting them to better understand crime and criminals and to develop better and more
human sentences and treatments for criminal behaviour.

Criminologists also study a host of other issues related to crime and the law. These include
studies of the Victims of Crime, focusing upon their relations to the criminal, and their role as
potential causal agents in crime; juvenile delinquency and its correction; and the media and
their relation to crime, including the influence of Pornography.6

SIGNIFICANCE OF CRIMINOLOGY

The true effect of criminology upon practices in the criminal justice system is still subject to
question. Although a number of commentators have noted that studies in criminology have
led to significant changes among criminal laws in the various states, other critics have
suggested that studies in criminology have not directly led to a reduction of crime.

5
Ibid
6
Supra 2

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In Mc Cleskey v. Kemp7, an individual who had been sentenced to death for a murder in
Georgia demonstrated to the U.S. Supreme Court that a criminologist's study showed that the
race of individuals in that state impacted whether the defendant was sentenced to life or to
death. The study demonstrated that a black defendant who had killed a white victim was four
times more likely to be sentenced to death than was a defendant who had killed a black
victim. The defendant claimed that the study demonstrated that the state of Georgia had
violated his rights under the EQUAL PROTECTION CLAUSE of the Fourteenth
Amendment, as well as under the Eighth Amendment's protection against Cruel and Unusual
Punishment.

The high court disagreed. Although the majority did question the validity of the findings, of
study's it held that the study did not establish that officials in Georgia had acted with
discriminatory purpose, and that it did not establish that racial bias had affected the officials'
decisions with respect to the death sentence. Accordingly, the death sentence violated neither
the Fourteenth Amendment nor the Eighth Amendment.

Criminology has had more of an effect when states and the federal government consider new
criminal laws and sentencing provisions. Criminologists' theories are also often debated in the
context of the death penalty and crime control acts among legislators and policymakers. In
this light, criminology is perhaps not at the forefront of the development of the criminal
justice system, but it most certainly works in the background in the determination of criminal
justice policies. The significance can be discussed below:

1. The most significant purpose of criminology is its concern for crime and criminals.
There is a basic assumption that no one is born a criminal (Lombroso theory).
Reformation is therefore treated as the ultimate object of punishment while
“individualization” i.e. according individualized understanding and treatment is the
preferred method for such reformation.

2. It is important for lawyers (when dealing with criminal clients it helps to understand their
mind set and particular circumstances for purposes of giving proper legal advise as well
as for pursuing a logical line of defense), judicial officers (for purposes of awarding

7
95 L. Ed. 2d 262 (1987),

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appropriate sentencing, it is important for a judicial officer to not only understand the
offender, but the society/community’s perceptions and emotions on given offences), law
enforcement officers (for purposes of investigations, prosecutions, surveillance and
crime prevention, for those holding criminals such as prison officers), social workers,
psychologists etc. to understand the criminal more.

3. It enhances official understanding of criminals, offenders, the types and prevalence of

offences committed, generally or specifically by a class of people or in certain localities.

This kind of understanding supported by data is important for crime detection and control.
The government is enabled to plan better in terms of allocation of resources towards
fighting different types of crimes.

4. The ultimate object of criminology is to render a crimeless society. (This is of course a

very remote possibility especially considering how crimes are created).8

Inter-Relation between Criminology, Penology and

Criminal Law

It must be reiterated that criminology is one of the branches of criminal science which is
concerned with social study of crimes and criminal behaviour. It aims at discovering the
causes of criminality and effective measures to combat crimes. It also deals with custody,
treatment, prevention and control of crimes which, for the purposes of this study, is termed as
penology. The criminal policies postulated by these twin sister branches (i.e., criminology
and penology) are implemented through the agency of criminal law. The formulation of
criminal policy essentially depends on crime causation and factors correlated therewith while
its implementation is achieved through the instrumentality of criminal law. It has been rightly
observed by Prof. Sellin that the object of criminology is to study the sequence of law-
making, law-breaking and reaction to law-breaking from the point of view of the efficacy of
law as the method of control.9

8
learning.uonbi.ac.ke/courses/GPR200/.../criminology
9
https://chilot.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/criminology.pdf

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According to Donald Taft, criminology is the scientific analysis and observation of crime
and criminals whereas penology is concerned with the punishment and treatment of
offenders. In his view, the development of criminology has been much later than that of
penology because in early periods the emphasis was on treatment of offenders rather than
scientific investigation into the causation of crime.10

CLASSICAL THEORY

Introduction
Classical school in criminology is usually a reference to the 18th-century work by the
utilitarian and social contract philosophers Jeremy Bentham and Cesare Beccaria. Their
interests lay in the system of criminal justice and penology and, indirectly through the
proposition that "man is a calculating animal", in the causes of criminal behaviour. The
Classical school of thought was premised on the idea that people have free will in making
decisions, and that punishment can be a deterrent for crime, so long as the punishment is
proportional, fits the crime, and is carried out promptly.11

Beccaria, the pioneer of modern criminology expounded his naturalistic theory of criminality
by rejecting the omnipotence of evil spirit. He laid greater emphasis on mental phenomenon
of the individual and attributed crime to “free will” of the individual. Thus he was much
influenced by the utilitarian philosophy of his time which placed reliance on hedonism,
namely, the ―pain and pleasure theory‖. As Donald Taft rightly put it, this doctrine implied
the notion of causation in terms of free choice to commit crime by rational man seeking
pleasure and avoiding pain.12

Main Reforms Advocated by the Classical School

10
ibid
11
Teacher, Law (November 2013).The Classical School of Criminological, Retrieved from :
(https://www.lawteacher.net/free-law-essays/criminology/the-classical-school-of-criminological.php?cref=1)
12
http://research-paper.essayempire.com/examples/criminal-justice/classical-criminology-research-paper/

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The system of law, its mechanisms of enforcement and the forms of punishment used in the
eighteenth century were primitive and inconsistent. Judges were not professionally trained so
many of their decisions were unsatisfactory being the product of incompetence,
capriciousness, corruption or political manipulation. The use of torture to extract confessions
and a wide range of cruel punishments such as whipping, mutilation and public executions
were commonplace. A need for legal rationality and fairness was identified and found an
audience among the emerging middle classes whose economic interests lay in providing
better systems for supporting national and international trade13.

John Locke
John Locke considered the mechanism that had allowed monarchies to become the primary
form of government. He concluded that monarchs had asserted the right to rule and enforced
it either through an exercise in raw power, or through a form of contract, e.g. the feudal
system had depended on the grants of estates in land as a return for services provided to the
sovereign. Locke proposed that all citizens are equal, and that there is an unwritten but
voluntary contract between the state and its citizens, giving power to those in government and
defining a framework of mutual rights and duties. In Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes wrote, "the
right of all sovereigns is derived from the consent of every one of those who are to be
governed." This is a shift from authoritarianism to an early model of European and North
American democracy where police powers and the system of punishment are means to a more
just end14

Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794)

In 1764, Beccaria published Dei Deliti e Delle Pene ("On Crimes and Punishments")
arguing for the need to reform the criminal justice system by referring not to the harm caused
to the victim, but to the harm caused to society. In this, he posited that the greatest deterrent
was the certainty of detection: the more swift and certain the punishment, the more effective
it would be. It would also allow a less serious punishment to be effective if shame and an
acknowledgement of wrongdoing was a guaranteed response to society's judgment. Thus, the
prevention of crime was achieved through a proportional system that was clear and simple to
understand, and if the entire nation united in their own defence. His approach influenced the

13
https://lawaspect.com/classical-theory-criminology/
14
Supra Note 13

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codification movement which set sentencing tariffs to ensure equality of treatment among
offenders. Later, it was acknowledged that not all offenders are alike and greater sentencing
discretion was allowed to judges. Thus, punishment works at two levels. Because it punishes
individuals, it operates as a specific deterrence to those convicted not to reoffend. But the
publicity surrounding the trial and the judgment of society represented by the decision of a
jury of peers, offers a general example to the public of the consequences of committing a
crime. If they are afraid of similarly swift justice, they will not offend15.

In his book "On Crimes and Punishments" Beccaria presented a coherent, comprehensive
design for an enlightened criminal justice system that was to serve the people rather than the
monarchy. According to Beccaria, the crime problem could be traced not to bad people but to
bad laws. A modern criminal justice system should guarantee all people equal treatment
before the law. Beccaria‘s book supplied the blue print. That blue print was based on the
assumption that people freely choose what they do and are responsible for the consequences
of their behavior. Beccaria proposed the following principles:

1. Laws Should Be Used To Maintain Social Contract: “Laws are the conditions under
which men, naturally independent, united themselves in society. Weary of living in a
continual state of war, and of enjoying a liberty, which became a little value, from the
uncertainty of its duration, they sacrificed one part of it, to enjoy the rest in peace and
security.
2. Only Legislators Should Create Laws: “The authority of making penal laws can only
reside with the legislator, who represents the whole society united by the social compact.
3. Judges Should Impose Punishment only in Accordance with the Law: ―No magistrate
then, (as he is one of the society), can, with justice inflict on any other member of the
same society punishment that is not ordained by the laws.
4. Judges Should not Interpret the Laws: ―Judges, in criminal cases, have no right to
interpret the penal laws, because they are not legislators....Everyman has his own
particular point of view and, at different times, sees the same objects in very different
lights. The spirit of the laws will then be the result of the good or bad logic of the judge;
and this will depend on his good or bad digestion.‖
5. Punishment Should be Based on the Pleasure/Pain Principle: ―Pleasure and pain are
the only springs of actions in beings endowed with sensibility. If an equal punishment be

15
https://schoolworkhelper.net/theories-of-crime-classical-biological-sociological-interactionist/

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ordained for two crimes that injure society in different degrees, there is nothing to deter
men from committing the greater as often as it is attended with greater advantage.
6. Punishment Should be Based on the Act, not on the Actor: ―Crimes are only to be
measured by the injuries done to the society they err, therefore, who imagine that a crime
is greater or less according to the intention of the person by whom it is committed.
7. The Punishment Should be Determined by the Crime: ―If mathematical calculation
could be applied to the obscure and infinite combinations of human actions, there might
be a corresponding scale of punishment descending from the greatest to the least.
8. Punishment Should be Prompt and Effective: ―The more immediate after the
commission of a crime a punishment is inflicted the more just and useful it will be. An
immediate punishment is more useful; because the smaller the interval of time between
the punishment and the crime, the stronger and more lasting will be the association of the
two ideas of crime and punishment.
9. All People Should be Treated Equally: ― I assert that the punishment of a noble man

should in no wise differ from that of the lowest member of the society. 


10. Capital Punishment Should be Abolished: ―The punishment of death is not authorized
by any right; for....no such right exists....The terrors of death make so slight an

impression, that it has not force enough to withstand forgetfulness natural to mankind. 


11. The Use of Torture to Gain Confessions Should be Abolished: ―It is confounding all
relations to expect...that pain should be the test of truth, as if truth resided in the muscles
and fibers a wretch in torture. By this method the robust will escape, and the feeble be

condemned.‖ 


12. It is Better to Prevent Crime than to Punish Them: ―Would you prevent crimes? Let
the laws be clear and simple, let the entire force of the nation be united in their defence,
let them be intended rather to favour every individual than any particular classes. Finally,
the most certain method of preventing crimes to perfect the system of education.

Perhaps no other book in the history in the history of criminology has had so great an impact.
After the French Revolution, Beccaria‘s basic tenets served as a guide for the drafting of the

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French Penal Code, which was adopted in 179116. 


Jeremy Bentham(1748-1832) 

Jeremy Bentham was an eccentric personality, an incredibly prolific writer, a thinker who had
the colossal temerity to attempt to catalogue and to label all varieties of human behavior and
the motivations giving rise to them. With this information in hand, as he pointed out with
disarming simplicity, he believed that he could select the precisely proper procedures to
control human actions and direct them into desirable channels.17

Being a utilitarian, Bentham argued that crime is the result of human behaviour and can be
attributed to an individual’s free will through the employment of “hedonistic calculus.”
Bentham describes hedonistic calculus as an individual’s ability to logically ascertain if the
pleasure acquired from the participation of a criminal act outweighs the potential pain. Thus,
individuals are considered to be selfish actors pursuing gratification while avoiding
discomfort. Thus, “nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign
masters, pain and pleasure.” Therefore, crimes are just acts that quench the basic aspirations
of human behaviour.18

In 1789 he developed a general theory of crime, which is composed of four sanction systems,
that are the sources of pleasure and pain: physical, religious, moral, and political. Physical
sanctions are natural restrictions (e.g., bodily harm) to behaviour making them risky or
difficult to achieve. Religious sanctions (e.g., hellfire) are deterrents that are delivered in both
this life and the afterlife. Presumably this type of sanction should be a powerful influence on
individuals, yet previous research has shown this to not be the case. According to Bentham,
moral sanctions (e.g., attachment) should be considered the most important of the four,
requiring the assent of neighbours, the community, and family: essentially, establishing a
type of informal deterrence that is quite potent.

16
Supra Note 2
17
Gilbert Geis, “Pioneers in Criminology VII--Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)”, Journal of Criminal Law and
Criminology, volume 46, Issue 2, (retrieved from :
https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4361&context=jclc)
18
Joycelyn M. Pollock, “The Philosophy and I History of Prisons”, (Retreived from:
http://www.jblearning.com/samples/0763729043/Chapter_01.pdf)

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By emphasizing the principles of utility to justify the use of government penalties to produce
some optimum effect for society, Bentham began to focus primarily on political sanctions.
Bentham also argued that punishment should have a suppressive effect.

The postulates of his theory are as follows:

 Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789) is a philosophy of social control based on
the principle of utility, which prescribed “the greatest happiness for the greatest
number.”
 Any human action at all should be judged moral or immoral by its effect on the
happiness of the community.
 Hedonism: A doctrine with the central tenet that the achievement of pleasure or
happiness is the main goal of life.
 Hedonism and rationality are combined in concept of the hedonistic calculus, a
method by which individuals are assumed to logically weigh the anticipated benefits
of a given course of action against its possible costs.
 Free will enables human beings to purposely and deliberately choose to follow a
calculated course of action. If crime is to be deterred, punishment (pain) must exceed
the pleasures gained from the fruits of crime.19

The Panopticon Prison20

The much-maligned scheme for a utopian prison, Bentham's ill-fated Panopticon plan,
represents the philosopher's most tangible contribution to penology It is a story of eccentricity
in action. To Bentham's credit it must be remembered that imprisonment represented a rather
novel form of treatment during this period.

There were two intriguing facets to the Panopticon plan. One concerns the unusual
architectural pattern for the prison, and the other the method of running the institution.
Architecturally, the Panopticon was to be a circular building with a glass roof and containing
cells on every story of the circumference. It was to be so arranged that every cell could be
visible from a central point. The omniscient prison inspector would be kept from the sight of
the prisoners by a system of blinds "unless ... he thinks fit to show himself." The philosophy
behind the proposed prison operation was admirable, but the precise method of carrying it out
often shows more vivid imagination than practical knowledge.

19
Supra 17
20
Ibid.

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The pivotal figure in the prison was to be the manager who would employ the convicts in
contract labour. The manager would derive a proportion of the money earned by the
prisoners. Meanwhile, he would be financially liable if felons once under his charge
subsequently committed offenses. Further, if more than a specified number of prisoners were
to die in a given period, the manager would have to pay a certain sum to the government.
These fines were to provide incentive for high-minded supervision of the Panopticon
population. The manager would care for the prisoners because he would be "forced to do for
his own interest anything that he was not inclined to do for them."
The prison was to be placed near the center of the city so that it would be a visible reminder
of the fruits of crime. Within the Panopticon, idleness would be eliminated and the prisoners
would be taught profitable trades. There would be a segregation policy by classes of offender,
and religious services were to be adjusted to the special needs and tastes of the inmates.
Finally, there is some anticipation of today's pre release units.

Bentham bewails the fact that prisoners are transferred directly from the prison into society
and he recommends an intermediate stage in this process. Bentham was convinced that the
Panopticon would produce all of the following admirable results: "Morals reformed, health
preserved, industry invigorated, instruction diffused, public burdens lightened, economy
seated as it were upon a rock, the Gordian knot of the poor laws not cut but untied."

The Panopticon idea was something of a monomania with Bentham; its abortive history
occupies a large proportion of his time, correspondence, and thoughts. His travail in
attempting to have a Panopticon built by the British government need not be detailed here.
The episode reflects to the high credit of the various committees of Parliament that reviewed
the scheme and rejected it so that in England, to use one writer's term, the "monstrosity" was
never built. From Bentham's viewpoint, the Panopticon represents a prolonged case study in
extraordinary frustration.

Influence of Bentham’s Panopticon Model of Prison

There was some little diffusion of the Panopticon idea outside of England. In France, for
instance, the National Assembly had Bentham's work printed for study but the project never
went any further.

Other efforts were made to have it adopted in Ireland. A committee reported adversely upon
it in New York in 1811.0 Two Panopticon-type prisons actually were constructed in the

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United States. The Western State Penitentiary which opened at Pittsburgh in 1826 was
modelled to some extent on Bentham's plan. But the prison, "wholly unsuited for anything
but a fortress", was ordered rebuilt in 1833.

In addition, from 1926-1935, Illinois constructed the Statevile prison, six miles from Joliet,
upon the Panopticon plan. After four of the circular cell houses were built and occupied their
impracticability was so obvious that it was decided to change to a more conventional plan in
completing the institution.
The construction drew from a noted prison architect the comment that it was "the most awful
receptacle of gloom ever devised and put together with good stone and brick and mortar.21

Spiritualistic understandings of crime stem from an understanding of life in general, that

finds most things in life are destiny and cannot be controlled, we are born male or female,
good or bad and all our actions are decided by a higher being. People have held such beliefs
for all of recorded history, ―primitive people regarded natural disasters such as famines,
floods and plagues as punishments for wrongs they had done to the spiritual powers. These
spiritual powers gained strength during the middle ages as they bonded with the feudal
powers to create the criminal justice systems. Under a spiritualistic criminal justice system,
crime was a private affair that was conducted between the offender and the victim‘s family.
However this method proved to be too revengeful, as the state took control of punishment.
Spiritual explanations provided an understanding of crime when there was no other way of
explaining crime. However, the problem with this understanding is it cannot be proven true,
and so it was never accepted22.

Thus the main tenets of the Classical Theory are:

1. Man‘s emergence from the State‘s religious fanaticism involved the application of his

reason as a responsible individual.

2. It is the act of an individual and not his intent which forms the basis for determining
criminality within him. In other words, criminologists are concerned with the act of the
criminal rather than his intent. Still, they could never think that there could be something

21
Supra 17
22
Vold, G. Bernard, T. and Snipes, J. 1998

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like crime causation.

3. The classical writers accepted punishment as a principal method of infliction of pain,

humiliation and disgrace to create fear in man to control his behavior. 


4. The propounders of this school, however, considered prevention of crime more important
than the punishment for it. They therefore, stressed on the need for a Criminal Code in
France, Germany and Italy to systematize punishment for forbidden acts. Thus the real
contribution of classical school of criminology lies in the fact that it underlined the need

for a well defined criminal justice system. 


5. The advocates of classical school supported the right of the State to punish the offenders
in the interest of public security. Relying on the hedonistic principle of pain and pleasure,
they pointed out that individualization was to be awarded keeping in view the pleasure
derived by the criminal from the crime and the pain caused to the victim from it. They,
however, pleaded for equalization of justice which meant equal punishment for the same

offence. 


6. The exponents of classical school further believed that the criminal law primarily rests on
positive sanctions. They were against the use of arbitrary powers of Judges. In their
opinion the Judges should limit their verdicts strictly within the confines of law. They

also abhorred torturous punishments. 


Thus classical school propounded by Beccaria came into existence as a result of the influence
of writings of Montesquieu, Hume, Bacon and Rousseau. His famous work “Essays on Crime
and Punishment‟ received wide acclamation all over Europe and gave a fillip to a new
criminological thinking in the contemporary west. He sought to humanize the criminal law by
insisting on natural rights of human beings. He raised his voice against severe punishment,
torture and death penalty. Beccaria’s views on crime and punishment were also supported by
Voltaire as a result of which a number of European countries redrafted their penal codes
mitigating the rigorous barbaric punishments and some of them even went to the extent of

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Classical theory

abolishing capital punishment from their Penal Codes.23

Major shortcomings of the Classical School

 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.24

However, the greatest achievement of this school of criminology lies in the fact that it
suggested a substantial criminal policy which was easy to administer without resort to the
imposition of arbitrary punishment. It goes to the credit of Beccaria who denounced the
earlier concepts of crime and criminals which were based on religious fallacies and myths
and shifted emphasis on the need for concentrating on the personality of an offender in order
to determine his guilt and punishment. Beccaria’s views provided a background for the
subsequent criminologists to come out with a rationalized theory of crime causation which
eventually led the foundation of the modern criminology and penology.25

23
Supra 2
24
ibid
25
http://criminal-justice.iresearchnet.com/criminology/classical-criminology/

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Classical theory

BIBLIOGRAPHY
 Books
1. Paranjpe N.Y., “Criminology and Penology”, Central Law Publications, Allahabad, Ed.
2008.
2. Padhay., Prafullah., “Crime & Criminology- Criminal Theories”, Isha Publications, New
Delhi, Ed. 2006.
3. Siddique Ahmed, “Criminology: Problems and Perspective”, Eastern Book Company,
Lucknow, Ed. 2008.

 Websites

1. https://schoolworkhelper.net/theories-of-crime-classical-biological-sociological-
interactionist/
2. http://criminal-justice.iresearchnet.com/criminology/classical-criminology 2.
3. http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/8854/11/11_chapter%20iv.pdf
4. learning.uonbi.ac.ke/courses/GPR200/.../criminology/CRIMINOLOG6[1]jaoko.do
5. https://chilot.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/criminology.pdf
6. https://lawaspect.com/classical-theory-criminology/
7. http://research-paper.essayempire.com/examples/criminal-justice/classical-criminology-
research-paper/

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Classical theory

8. https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/criminology

 Articles

1. Alex R. Piquero, “The Handbook of Criminological Theory”, p.123, (retrieved from:

https://www.lawethiopia.com/images/law_books/The.Handbook.of.Criminological.Th
eory%20[Dr.Soc].pdf)
2. Gilbert Geis, “Pioneers in Criminology VII--Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)”, Journal
of Criminal Law and Criminology, Volume 46 | Issue 2, (retrieved from :
https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4361&co
ntext=jclc)
3. Glory Nirmala. K, “Understanding Criminology”, (retrieved from
http://www.abyssinialaw.com/about-us/item/443-understanding-criminology)
4. Joycelyn M. Pollock, “The Philosophy and I History of Prisons”, (retrieved from :
http://www.jblearning.com/samples/0763729043/Chapter_01.pdf)
5. Mathew Valasik, “Classical Criminology”, (retrieved from:
http://www.academia.edu/11083694/Classical_Criminology)
6. Teacher, Law. (November 2013), “The Classical School Of Criminological”
(retrieved from: https://www.lawteacher.net/free-law-essays/criminology/the-
classical-school-of-criminological.php?cref=1)

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