lOMoARcPSD|14985576
CMY 1501 – SUMMARY
Learning Unit 1.2
Schools of thought in criminology
Key concepts
• Classical criminology
o Based on concept of free will and hedonism
o All human behavior is purposive & based on pleasure-pain
principle
o Punishment should reflect the above
o Fixed sanctions for all offences
o Not open to interpretation, discretion or presiding
officers
o Law must apply equally to all
o All found guilty of same offence must suffer same
penalty
o Punishment should outweigh pleasure derived from criminal
activity
• Positivism
o Focuses on criminal
o Assumes people are driven to crime by forces out of their control
(determinism)
o People are not free and wholly responsible for own actions
o Behaviour is product of social, biological, psychological or
economic forces
o Calls for treatment, not punishment
• Critical criminology
o Crime is defined in terms of concept of oppression
o Crimes of working class are insignificant compared to those of
powerful
, lOMoARcPSD|14985576
• Feminist theory
o Challenges male-centeredness of criminology
o Main weakness of traditional criminological theory is failure to
understand significance of gender & sex roles
• Rational choice
o Humans choose to commit crime after weighing up costs &
benefits of illegal act
o Can be deterred through threat of punishment
• Postmodernism
o World is seen as too eclectic & provisional to be understood by
any single theory
o No ‘one general theory of crime’
• Social process approach
o Crime is a function of people’s interactions with various
organisations, institutions & processes in society
• Social structure approach
o Concentrates on social structure & organization of community
o Disadvantaged economic class position = primary cause of crime
The purpose of criminological theory
• Theory is a set of logically interconnected propositions
o Explains how observed facts within domain of interest are related
• A number of hypotheses can be derived and tested
• Provide logical explanations of an area of interest
Classical criminology
• Cesare Beccaria & Jeremy Bentham
o Late 18th century
o Period known as ‘Enlightenment’
• Immense changes of conventional thinking about human nature in society
CMY 1501 – SUMMARY
Learning Unit 1.2
Schools of thought in criminology
Key concepts
• Classical criminology
o Based on concept of free will and hedonism
o All human behavior is purposive & based on pleasure-pain
principle
o Punishment should reflect the above
o Fixed sanctions for all offences
o Not open to interpretation, discretion or presiding
officers
o Law must apply equally to all
o All found guilty of same offence must suffer same
penalty
o Punishment should outweigh pleasure derived from criminal
activity
• Positivism
o Focuses on criminal
o Assumes people are driven to crime by forces out of their control
(determinism)
o People are not free and wholly responsible for own actions
o Behaviour is product of social, biological, psychological or
economic forces
o Calls for treatment, not punishment
• Critical criminology
o Crime is defined in terms of concept of oppression
o Crimes of working class are insignificant compared to those of
powerful
, lOMoARcPSD|14985576
• Feminist theory
o Challenges male-centeredness of criminology
o Main weakness of traditional criminological theory is failure to
understand significance of gender & sex roles
• Rational choice
o Humans choose to commit crime after weighing up costs &
benefits of illegal act
o Can be deterred through threat of punishment
• Postmodernism
o World is seen as too eclectic & provisional to be understood by
any single theory
o No ‘one general theory of crime’
• Social process approach
o Crime is a function of people’s interactions with various
organisations, institutions & processes in society
• Social structure approach
o Concentrates on social structure & organization of community
o Disadvantaged economic class position = primary cause of crime
The purpose of criminological theory
• Theory is a set of logically interconnected propositions
o Explains how observed facts within domain of interest are related
• A number of hypotheses can be derived and tested
• Provide logical explanations of an area of interest
Classical criminology
• Cesare Beccaria & Jeremy Bentham
o Late 18th century
o Period known as ‘Enlightenment’
• Immense changes of conventional thinking about human nature in society
