Rtc, I Love Bad Bitches

Public Offender Units
REHB3062 Public Offenders Criminality and Rehab.
REHB5068 Public Offenders and rehabilitation
Module 1 topic 2

Module Content 1. Classical Criminal Theory 2. Rational Choice or Displacement theory
Traditional Classical Theory
For an introduction to traditional classical theory see chapter 1 by Piers Beirne in Cornish and Clarke. This approach founded by the Famous 18th/19th century criminologist/scientist Cesare Beccaria is that which underlies our common understanding of criminality and philosophically underpins the development of the criminal law (which is based on free choice, the notion that people have the ability to freely choose or not choose to commit a crime). Classical theory includes a number of related approaches - classical theory, neoclassical theory and the more recent version of these approaches referred to as Rational Choice Theory. http://www.julianhermida.com/crimclassical.htm http://uir.unisa.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10500/2544/13chapter6.PDF

Classical Theory (Liberal Theory) and Neo classical Theory:
Classical theory espouses the following principles of human behaviour in general:
• The notion that all human beings possess the ability to make choices and decisions about their own actions. People are aware of what is right and what is wrong – thus the emphasis on the importance of reason in understanding human behaviour.
• The law presumes that those who commit crime choose to do so, with the knowledge that they are so acting to commit a crime. Crime involves choice, the weighing up the advantages/disadvantages of an action.
• The punishment for breaking the law must fit the crime. "An eye for an eye... "). The more heinous the crime the more severe the punishment.
• It is accepted by some of classical theorists that some human beings are (all the time or intermittently) less rational than others. Thus a crime committed by a "less" responsible/less rational is less guided by reason (the knowledge of right and wrong) and is therefore worthy of some reduction in punishment. The punishment can be reduced according to what are judged as the limitations of the person or the limitations on the person when they commit the crime. These are called "mitigating circumstances" - and they allow the courts to reduce the punishment for a crime. Less rational persons can be children, those with mental illness or intellectual handicap and lapses of responsibility of "normal persons". All can be taken into account when meeting out punishment.
• The notion of mitigating circumstances was a later introduced into Classical Theory and it was then referred to as Neo Classical Theory

Classical and Neoclassical Theory
(from; http://crime-study.blogspot.com.au/2011/05/neoclassical-crime-theory.html)
Classical crime theory is represented by the theoretical study of Jeremy Bentham and Cesare Beccaria. Jeremy Bentham was a founder of English utilitarianism. Bentham thought that human beings are hedonistic and act only in their own self-interest. Utilitarianism also considered rational courses of action when people pursue own interests. Utilitarian teachings are an important part of criminal-justice ethics today. Neoclassical crime theory is a continuation of classical crime theory tradition. Development of neoclassical crime theory will continue in 1980 with a forming of new sociological theories, i.e. differential association and identification. Although sources that mention neoclassical school and crime theory of criminology are merely sparse, it main contribution to the field of criminology is reflected through the understanding of individual differences of the perpetrators. While classical school was wholly concern with an explanation of crime, neoclassical crime theory saw some flaws in Beccaria's theory of crime. Classical crime theory completely concentrated on the criminal act and positivist crime theory concentrated on the perpetrator. Positivists were obsessed with behavioural prediction and classicist with a crime explanation. Neoclassical crime theory sought to improve the stances towards perpetrators who should have an impact on the level of guilt and severity of punishment. Not all perpetrators should be treated in the same fashion, because the evident differences exist among them. Crime is a result of many conditions that have ultimately influenced on the perpetrators to commit it. Representative of neoclassical criminology theory, Gabriel Tarde published the book "Penal philosophy" in 1890. Gabriel Tarde was a French sociologist and founder of neoclassical criminology school. In his book Tarde criticizes classical and positivist criminology and takes the best from both criminology. Neoclassical criminology theory considers age, gender and social class of the perpetrators. The perpetrators are people who think, feel, act and that criminal behaviour is learned within groups by imitation and identification.
Also see links below for a more detailed account of Classical and Neo-Classical theory . http://www.julianhermida.com/crimclassical.htm http://voices.yahoo.com/theory-crime-individual-choice-societal-responsibility-11110.html

Rational Choice and Routine Activity Theory
(See Derek B. Cornish and Ronald V Clarke from H&E)
Henry and Einstadter (see the reading), state that in the 20th century certain assumptions were made about the committal of crime similar to the classical theory of the earlier centuries but they had the added assumption (in addition to that that the committing of a crime was desirable though risky) that people who would commit crime would also take into account the costs of being caught. "The assumption was that pleasure-seeking, self-interested, rational humans make individual choices about their future behaviour by weighing not only the consequences of criminal justice sanctions should they get caught, but also the barriers and costs in situations and circumstances of criminal opportunity. (p.17) It will be seen this approach does conflict with that of the positivists who propose that criminality is some sort of character trait that manifests itself despite situations and circumstances. Thus a positivist would argue that if 'a criminal' is frustrated or somehow prevented from committing crime they will find another way of committing that crime. Rational choice theorists in contrast argue that as criminal acts can be committed by anyone a person may not commit a crime at all if they feel the cost is too high.
See
http://www.popcenter.org/library/crimeprevention/volume_03/06_cornish.pdf http://www.popcenter.org/Responses/crime_prevention/PDFs/Cornish%26Clarke.pdf http://www98.griffith.edu.au/dspace/bitstream/handle/10072/29359/57201_1.pdf?sequence=1 http://personal.lse.ac.uk/Kanazawa/pdfs/ARS1997.pdf http://www-personal.umich.edu/~lmasri/rational_choice_theory.htm