2 Criminology, Deviance and Crime · 2.1 Criminology, deviance and crime
2.1.1 Criminology: meaning, scope, history and schools
Criminology is the scientific study of crime, criminals, the making of criminal laws and society's reaction to crime; it moved from demonological ideas (crime as sin) to the classical school (Beccaria, 1764: free will, fixed punishment), the neo-classical compromise, the positivist (Italian) school (Lombroso, Ferri, Garofalo: crime has causes), the cartographic school (Quetelet, Guerry: crime maps and statistics) and the sociological school (crime is a product of society).
- APPSC Paper I
- Standard level
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Core facts
- Word "criminology": usually credited to the French anthropologist Paul Topinard (1879, criminologie); Raffaele Garofalo made it a book title, Criminologia (1885).
- Sutherland's definition (first published as Criminology, 1924; Principles of Criminology from 1934; later editions with Donald Cressey): criminology is the body of knowledge on crime as a social phenomenon; it covers the processes of making laws, breaking laws and reacting to the breaking of laws.
- Sutherland's three branches:
- sociology of law: how criminal laws are made and changed;
- criminal etiology (aetiology): the causes of crime;
- penology: the control and treatment of crime and criminals (punishment, prisons, probation).
- Penology: study of punishment and treatment of offenders; the word is credited to Francis Lieber (1830s).
- Victimology: study of the victim, the victim–offender relationship and victim rights. Benjamin Mendelsohn coined the term and is called the father of victimology; Hans von Hentig, The Criminal and His Victim (1948).
- Criminalistics: scientific crime detection (forensic science); the term comes from Hans Gross (Austria, 1890s).
- Nature: an interdisciplinary social science drawing on sociology, psychology, law, biology, psychiatry and statistics. Criminal law says what ought to be punished (normative); criminology studies what is (factual).
- Schools in order:
| School | Period | Key names | Core idea |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-classical (demonological) | before 1750 | priests, kings | crime is sin or possession by evil spirits |
| Classical | 1764 onwards | Beccaria, Bentham | free will; punishment fixed and proportionate |
| Neo-classical | early 1800s | French Code 1810, Rossi | free will, but age and insanity reduce guilt |
| Positivist (Italian) | 1876 onwards | Lombroso, Ferri, Garofalo | crime has causes; treat the criminal |
| Cartographic | 1830–1880 | Quetelet, Guerry | crime follows place, season and social data |
| Sociological | late 1800s–1900s | Durkheim, Tarde, Chicago school | crime is produced by society |
- Cesare Beccaria (Italy): Dei delitti e delle pene, On Crimes and Punishments (1764); founder of the classical school; against torture and the death penalty; punishment must be certain, prompt and proportionate.
- Jeremy Bentham (England): utilitarianism, hedonistic (felicific) calculus: people weigh pleasure against pain; designed the Panopticon prison (1791).
- Cesare Lombroso (Italian army doctor): L'uomo delinquente, Criminal Man (1876); born criminal, atavism (a throwback to an earlier stage of evolution), physical stigmata; called the father of modern (positive) criminology; traced crime to heredity (inborn traits).
- Enrico Ferri: Criminal Sociology (1884); rejected free will; law of criminal saturation (a given social setting produces a fixed amount of crime); five classes of criminals.
- Raffaele Garofalo: natural crime, an act that offends the basic moral sentiments of pity and probity.
- Lombroso, Ferri and Garofalo are called the holy three (trinity) of criminology.
- Adolphe Quetelet (Belgium): Sur l'homme (1835), "social physics"; thermic law of crime: crimes against the person rise in warm regions and seasons, crimes against property in cold ones.
- André-Michel Guerry (France): Essay on the Moral Statistics of France (1833); among the first crime maps.
- Émile Durkheim: crime is normal and even useful to society; anomie (normlessness).
Explained
1. Scope of criminology. Modern texts list these areas:
- causes of crime (biological, psychological, social);
- nature and forms of crime (white-collar, organised, cyber, crimes against women);
- criminal behaviour and types of offenders;
- law-making and the criminal law;
- criminal justice system: police, courts, prisons;
- penology and corrections: punishment, prisons, probation, parole, after-care;
- victimology: victims, compensation;
- crime prevention and policy;
- juvenile delinquency.
2. Criminology, penology and victimology.
| Field | Studies | Key name | Question asked |
|---|---|---|---|
| Criminology | crime and criminals as a whole | Sutherland | why crime happens, how society reacts |
| Penology | punishment, prisons, treatment | Lieber (word) | how offenders should be dealt with |
| Victimology | victims and their role | Mendelsohn, von Hentig | who is harmed, what is owed to them |
| Criminalistics | physical evidence | Hans Gross | how crime is detected and proved |
Sutherland treats penology as a part of criminology; some European writers treat it as a separate subject. Victimology began as a branch of criminology and is now often taught on its own.
3. Pre-classical (demonological) school. Crime was seen as the work of evil spirits or sin. Guilt was tested by trial by ordeal (fire, water) or by battle. Punishments were harsh, public and arbitrary: mutilation, burning, death for small offences. Judges had wide, unequal discretion. The classical school was a reaction against this.
4. Classical school (second half of the 18th century, Enlightenment).
- Man is rational and has free will: he chooses crime when its pleasure outweighs its pain.
- So punishment should be just enough pain to deter; the aim is deterrence, not revenge.
- Punishment must fit the crime (the act), not the criminal; the same crime gets the same punishment.
- Laws must be written, clear and made by the legislature; judges only apply them (the root of nulla poena sine lege).
- Certainty of punishment deters more than severity.
- Against torture, secret accusations and (Beccaria) the death penalty.
- Influence: the French Penal Code of 1791.
- Weakness: it ignored individual differences: a child, an insane person and a first offender were punished the same as a hardened adult.
5. Neo-classical school (early 19th century). Kept free will but allowed exceptions:
- children and the insane (and later, the feeble-minded) lack full responsibility;
- mitigating circumstances (provocation, first offence, situation) allow a lighter sentence;
- judges get some discretion.
Seen in the French Code of 1810 and its 1819 revision; writers include Rossi, Garraud and Joly. Modern penal codes (the IPC of 1860 and now the BNS) follow this mix: guilt depends on a guilty mind, with defences for age and insanity.
6. Positivist (Italian) school (from 1876).
- Used the scientific (empirical) method: measure, observe, compare.
- Crime has causes (biological, psychological, social); free will is denied (determinism).
- Focus shifts from the crime to the criminal; punishment should fit the offender (individualisation of treatment). Probation, indeterminate sentences and juvenile courts grow from this idea.
- Lombroso: measured prisoners' skulls and bodies; the born criminal shows stigmata (large jaw, sloping forehead, long arms, insensitivity to pain, tattoos). Later editions admitted other types: insane criminal, occasional criminal (criminaloid), criminal by passion. Also wrote The Female Offender (1893, with Ferrero).
- Ferri: added social and physical factors to Lombroso's biology. Classes: born, insane, habitual, occasional and passionate criminals. Favoured social measures to prevent crime ("penal substitutes").
- Garofalo: a lawyer; natural crime; held that criminals lacking pity and probity should be eliminated or controlled.
7. Cartographic (geographical) school (about 1830–1880). Used official crime statistics and maps to show that crime is regular and follows place, season, age, sex, poverty and education. Quetelet found that the number and kind of crimes repeat year after year with "frightening regularity", so crime is a social fact, not just individual choice. Guerry mapped crimes against person and property across French departments. In England, Henry Mayhew described London's criminal areas. This was the first statistical criminology and led to the ecological studies of the Chicago school.
8. Sociological school (late 19th and 20th centuries). Crime is caused by social structure and social processes.
- Gabriel Tarde (France): laws of imitation (1890): crime is learnt by imitating others.
- Durkheim: crime is normal in every society; anomie when norms break down.
- Chicago school (Park, Burgess, Shaw and McKay): crime is highest in the zone in transition of a city (social disorganisation).
- Sutherland: differential association (1939, 1947); white-collar crime (1939).
- Merton: anomie / strain theory (1938).
Details of these theories: the next notes on theories of crime.
9. Other schools (one line each).
- Typological / constitutional: Kretschmer (body types: pyknic, asthenic, athletic), Sheldon (endomorph, mesomorph, ectomorph; mesomorphs most delinquent), Goddard (feeble-mindedness, The Kallikak Family, 1912).
- Socialist (Marxist): Willem Bonger (Criminality and Economic Conditions, 1905; English 1916): capitalism breeds egoism and crime.
- Clinical / multiple-factor: William Healy (USA), Cyril Burt (The Young Delinquent, 1925): crime has many causes; study each case.
Common traps
- ✗ "Lombroso wrote On Crimes and Punishments." ✓ Beccaria (1764); Lombroso wrote **Criminal Man (1876)**.
- ✗ "Beccaria is the father of positive criminology." ✓ Beccaria founded the classical school; Lombroso is the father of positive (modern) criminology.
- ✗ "The positivists believed in free will." ✓ The classical school did; the positivists (Ferri most of all) rejected it.
- ✗ "Law of criminal saturation: Garofalo." ✓ Ferri. Garofalo = natural crime (pity and probity).
- ✗ "Thermic law of crime: Guerry." ✓ Quetelet. Guerry = early crime maps (1833).
- ✗ "Sutherland's three branches are criminology, penology and victimology." ✓ Sociology of law, criminal etiology, penology.
- ✗ "The classical school individualised punishment." ✓ It fixed punishment to the act; individualisation came with the positivists.
- ✗ "Hans von Hentig coined the word victimology." ✓ Mendelsohn coined it; von Hentig wrote The Criminal and His Victim (1948).
- ✗ "Goring proved Lombroso right." ✓ Goring (1913) found no physical criminal type.
Quick revision
- Criminology: making laws, breaking laws, reacting to law-breaking (Sutherland, 1924).
- Branches (Sutherland): sociology of law, criminal etiology, penology.
- Word: Topinard 1879; Garofalo Criminologia 1885; penology: Lieber; victimology: Mendelsohn.
- Demonological → classical → neo-classical → positivist; cartographic and sociological alongside.
- Classical: Beccaria 1764, Bentham (hedonistic calculus, Panopticon); free will, deterrence.
- Neo-classical: French Code 1810; age, insanity, mitigating circumstances.
- Positivist: Lombroso 1876 (born criminal, atavism), Ferri (saturation, no free will), Garofalo (natural crime).
- Cartographic: Quetelet (thermic law, 1835), Guerry (crime maps, 1833).
- Sociological: Tarde (imitation), Durkheim (anomie), Chicago school, Sutherland, Merton.
- Goring (1913) disproved the Lombrosian type.
Go deeper: Deeper (beyond what APPSC Paper I usually asks)
Deeper Advanced
- Origins of the idea vs the discipline. Thinking about crime and punishment is ancient (Hammurabi's code, Manu, Kautilya's Arthashastra, Plato, Aristotle). As a scientific discipline criminology dates from the 18th–19th centuries (Beccaria 1764, Lombroso 1876, the word in 1879–85). The 2023 APPSC key accepted "ancient period" for "origins can be traced to"; read what the stem asks.
- Goring's test of Lombroso. Charles Goring, The English Convict (1913), compared about 3,000 English convicts with soldiers and students and found no physical criminal type; he still held that criminals had lower intelligence. Earnest Hooton (1939) later revived a biological view; it too was criticised.
- Why the classical school still matters. Modern rational choice and deterrence theories, routine activity theory (Cohen and Felson, 1979) and situational crime prevention are called neo-classical or "new classical" criminology. Due process rights, legality and proportionality in sentencing also come from Beccaria.
- Sutherland's caution. Sutherland held that criminology was not yet a full science because its findings were not exact or universal, though it used scientific methods.
- Mendelsohn's victim typology (1956): from the completely innocent victim (a child) through victims with minor guilt, victims as guilty as the offender, more guilty than the offender, to the most guilty victim (one who attacked first and was killed in self-defence) and the imaginary victim. Marvin Wolfgang (1958) used victim precipitation for homicides the victim started; Stephen Schafer spoke of the victim's functional responsibility.
- In India. LNJN National Institute of Criminology and Forensic Science, New Delhi (1972, Ministry of Home Affairs) trains police, judicial and correctional officers. Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D, 1970) handles police and prison research. Crime statistics come from the NCRB, Crime in India (Unit III notes).
Example 1. Which school of criminology is built on the idea of free will? Solution. Free will and rational choice are the base of the classical school; the positivists denied it. Answer: Classical school
Example 2. Match: (a) Lombroso (b) Quetelet (c) Beccaria (d) Ferri with (1) law of criminal saturation (2) thermic law of crime (3) On Crimes and Punishments (4) atavism. Solution. Lombroso–atavism, Quetelet–thermic law, Beccaria–1764 book, Ferri–saturation. Answer: a-4, b-2, c-3, d-1
Example 3. According to Sutherland, the branch of criminology that studies the causes of crime is Solution. Sociology of law = law-making; penology = control; causes = etiology. Answer: criminal etiology
Practise this topic. Questions on Criminology: meaning, scope, history and schools, with answers explained.
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