Classical School
Individuals have free will and free choice in making decisions whether to criminally offend.
Positivist School
Human behavior is determined by factors beyond free will and free choice, such as biological, psychological, and sociological variables.
Neoclassical School
The same as the Classical School except also considers aggravating and mitigating circumstances when considering an appropriate sentence for a criminal offender. First began in France.
Rational Choice Theory
The more an individual feels informal factors like friends, family, employers, etc. will look down on criminal behavior, the more likely he/she will be deterred. The greater the pleasure versus the pain, the less likely there will be deterrence.
Learning Theory
Assumes the criminal behavior of individuals is due to a process of learning from others the motivations and techniques from engaging in such behavior.
Social Bonding Theory
As each of the four elements of social bond grows stronger (attachments, commitment, involvement, and moral beliefs), the likelihood of offending decreases.
Routine Activities Theory
The convergence of three elements: motivated offender, suitable target, and absence of guardianship.
Radical Conflict Theory
Influenced by Karl Marx. Conflict arises between control by various groups, with an emphasis on wealth and social class.
Differential Association Theory
The influence of close peer groups or other role models may cause criminality.
Developmental/Life Course Theory
Individuals can change and stop offending despite early propensities, especially when positive transitions occur.
Low Self-Control Theory
Caused by bad parenting which results in lack of development of self-control.
Neutralization
Individuals can engage in criminal behavior and avoid feeling of guilt for these actions by justifying or rationalizing their behavior. This is especially used in the corporate world "metaphor of the ledger.
Social Control Theory
Emphasizes that human are born selfish and that their tendencies toward aggression and offending must be controlled.
Differential Reinforcement Theory
Assumes individuals are born with a blank slate and behavior is learned through classical nd operant conditioning, and imitation and modeling.
Labeling Theory
Criminal behavior increases because certain individuals are caught and branded as offenders.
General Strain Theory
Emphasizes the importance of stress, anger, and frustration in increasing the likelihood of engaging in criminal behavior, especially when individuals have not developed healthy coping mechanisms.
Power Control Theories
In households with dissimilar levels of power between mother and father, mothers will more likely suppress criminal activity in daughters, but not sons. In households with mother and father having similar levels of power, mothers are less likely to exert
Interactional Theory
The final major development theory that added beyond the other developmental theories the idea of feedback loops: engaging in crime leads to hanging out with other delinquents and hanging out with other delinquents leads to crime.
Cesare Beccaria
Italian known as the Father of Criminal Justice, Father of Classical School of Criminology, and Father of the Deterrence Theory.
Charles Darwin
Wrote the Origin of Species, which began to cast doubt on the Classical and Neoclassical Schools of thought. His book got others to start looking at the theory of born criminals.
Thomas Hobbes
Wrote Leviathan and was a philosopher who wrote about government, the social contract, and free will as the Age of Enlightenment began.
Cesare Lombroso
A medical doctor who studied bodies and was the first person to attempt using scientific theory in criminology. He looked at many physical features (stigmata) to determine if a person was a born criminal.
H.H. Goddard
Studied feeble-minded individuals and ranked them: morons, imbeciles, and idiots. He particularly worried about morons in the gene pool. He also studied the Kalikak to determine the link between heredity and genetics.
Sigmund Freud
A medical doctor who developed the concept of psychoanalysis, where a therapist tries to make a patient conscious of their unconscious.
Emile Durkheim
A French sociologist, he is known as the Father of Sociology. He was an influential theorist in the modern structural perspectives of criminality. He was particularly concerned with the breakdown of society by anomie (the breakdown of social bonds between
Andre-Michael Guerry
A French lawyer who was very interested in statistics, particularly the relationships between moral and social variables. He was particularly interested in what types of crimes occurred in which neighborhoods and the age of the offender in relation to wha
Robert E. Park
Theorist that said the principles of ecology applied to human behavior and how cities grew.
Ernest W. Burgess
Proposed a theory of city growth from the inside out utilizing five zones.
Edwin Sutherland
One of the most influential criminologists of the 20th Century, he introduced differential association theory and coined the term "white collar crime.
Michael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi
Developed the general theory of crime, low self-control, which assumes that an individual must learn self-control by age 10, as it cannot be developed later than that.
Terrie Moffitt
Developed the theory that there are two types of offenders: adolescence-limited offenders (most of the population) and life-persistent offenders.
Terrence Thornberry
Developed in Interactional Theory, which added beyond the other developmental theories the idea of feedback loops: engaging in crime leads to hanging out with other delinquents leads to crime.
Robert Hare
Psychologist who developed the psychopathy checklist, a list of 20 personality traits used to evaluate whether an individual may be a psychopath.
Longitudinal
an observational research method where data is gathered for the same subjects repeatedly over a long period of time.
Aggregate
collection of studies on a certain topic.
Cross-sectional
research conducted or data collected at one point in time.
Early Positivist School
Craniometry, Phrenology, Atavism, and Physiognomy
Craniometry
the study of the size of the skull/brain as being determinative of superiority or inferiority, with larger skulls and brains being superior.
Phrenology
the study of the various bumps on the skull used to determine human dispositions were believed to conform to the shame of the brain. For instance, the left side of the brain above the ear (left temporal lobe) was believed to be associated with destructive
Atavism
a variety of stigmata (such as large eyes, small eyes, small ears, large ears, small jaws, large jaws, tattoos, etc.) indicated biological inferiority and an individual likely to be a born criminal.
Physiognomy
a study of facial and other bodily features that indicate inferiority and developmental problems, like criminality.
What are the three main factors of deterrence?
1. Celerity (swiftness) of punishment
2. Severity of punishment
3. Certainty of punishment (Beccaria thought this one was the most important.
Nature vs. Nurture debate
Various studies conducted, including various kinds of twin studies, adoption studies, and family studies.
At what level are you considered a psychopath?
Level 30 and above
What are the effects on the brain?
Neurotransmitters, hormones, brain injury
Up to the 17th Century what did people attribute to criminality?
Religion and superstition
What were the 17th and 18th Century called?
Age of Enlightenment and philosophers wrote about man having free will and the social contract with government.
In the 19th Century, particularly as slavery was in the forefront, what influenced the science of the day?
Eugenics movement- as people tried to justify their racism by trying to prove that certain races and ethnicities were inferior.