The Aim of Criminology: Major Theories and Frameworks

Introduction to Criminology

The origins of criminology in the United States can be traced to the founding fathers and the principles enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. As a discipline, criminology is a theory relating to the criminal behavior of individuals. The theoretical framework within this view is straightforward: an individual, upon being informed of a specific penalty for the commission of a crime, will inherently weigh their options. This measurement is based upon the potential present and future pleasure of committing the crime weighed against the potential present and future pain of being caught and punished.

Various theories have been posited in an attempt to identify precisely the theoretical framework that best fulfills the aim of criminology — which is to speak truth to power. This paper examines the degree to which criminology is in reality able to achieve this aim across the range of theories that have been advanced to describe it.

Classical Criminology

Classical criminology is said to have grown from "a reaction against the barbaric system of law, justice, and punishment that was in existence before 1789" (Demelo, 2008). It focused on "free will and human rationality," concentrating on the making of law and the processing of legal matters rather than on the study of the criminal. This was because classical criminology held that crime "was activity engaged in out of total free will and that individuals weighed the consequences of their actions" (Demelo, 2008). Within this framework, punishment was used as a deterrent to crime, and the measure of punishment should be "greater than the pleasure of physical gains." The emphasis in classical criminology fell on a legal definition of crime rather than on what defined criminal behavior itself.

Two writers who were particularly influential in advancing the human rights and free will movement were Cesare Beccaria (1738–1794) and Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832). The classical movement reflects the influence of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Bentham's focus was utilitarianism — a theory premised on the assumption that the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people is the basis of law. Bentham believed that the likelihood of pleasures in the present and future had to be weighed against the likelihood of pain in the present and future. The human being could therefore be likened to a mathematical equation, factoring the choice to abide by or break the law into a form of quantitative analysis — in other words, the individual calculates whether the risk of committing a crime is worth taking.

The work of Beccaria holds that people are not inherently bad; rather, laws are bad. His work On Crimes and Punishment "presented a new design for the criminal justice system that served all people," and the book earned him the title of "father of modern criminology" (Demelo, 2008). The positivists, who came later, sought to explain the world through the biological, social, and psychological traits of the individual. Their perspective was deterministic: the focus shifted to the behavior of criminals rather than to issues of legality, and crime prevention was sought through the reform and treatment of offenders. Positivists were firm believers in scientific methods; data collection was conducted to analyze and explain individual differences, social phenomena, and criminal behavior. The theory of evolution, formulated by anthropologists and naturalists, served as a critical component to the positivist study of human criminal behavior. Within this framework, "humans were responsible for their own destinies" (Demelo, 2008), and systematic, objective research within a deductive framework was the standard approach.

Determinism and Positivist Criminology

The work of Cesare Lombroso (1835–1909) introduced the notion of determinism — a theory posited by him and his followers that led the positivist school to seek understanding of criminal behavior through scientific research and experimentation. This theoretical framework held that the individual is born predisposed to criminality, or is "criminal born," and furthermore that certain physical features associated with apes were human features that had simply not fully developed. Lombroso conducted research in which he measured thousands of prisoners, both living and deceased, in an attempt to prove his theory. He noted that "criminals lacked moral sense, had an absence of remorse and used much slang." Lombroso later added social and economic factors to his list of crime causation, but maintained that these were secondary in importance to biological, predetermined factors. "His theory, however, has been kept alive, not by agreement but by much criticism" (Demelo, 2008).

Conclusion: The Evolving Aim of Criminology

It is clear that the aim of criminology has changed over time, with some degree of variation dependent upon the most popularly applied theory at a given point in the discipline's history. The aim has shifted from viewing punishment as a simple, commonsense deterrent to a far more nuanced, scientific understanding of criminal behavior. The founding fathers sought to deter individual criminal acts by relying on the rationality of the individual — the assumption that a person would weigh the benefits of committing a crime against the likely consequences of being caught and punished. As the fields of sociology and psychology have advanced, the factors that shape individual character — including family, school, community, environment, and genetics — have been more fully identified and incorporated into criminological thinking.

Awareness has grown within criminal science that the simple provision of punishment as a deterrent is, in some cases, simply not sufficient to ensure that an individual will choose not to commit a crime. The aim of criminology can be broadly described as the scientific study of criminal behavior in an effort to identify the most effective means of diverting society from criminal acts. Through a process of trial and error, the field of criminology has produced useful and important discoveries. Most recently, criminology has had to contend with the finding that mandatory sentencing guidelines in crack cocaine cases have not curtailed drug sales or possession but have instead resulted in the incarceration of a disproportionate number of minority and lower-income Americans.

At this juncture, criminology — as the scientific study of criminal activity — should direct its focus toward the root causes of crime and engage more deeply with minority and lower-income communities to understand the structural sources of this sentencing disparity. That course of action would keep the aim of criminology true to its scientific foundations: the pursuit of effective and equitable crime deterrence in society.