Theories of Criminology

• Think of as many possible reasons for the following:
• Why do people commit crime? What are the common characteristics?
• Who are the people who are victims of crime? What are the common characteristics?

• Read page 240- 242 2000 National Council of Welfare-
Justice and the Poor
• List the characteristics of the people who actually commit crime in Canada

• 19 th - 20 th centuries- What was a major concern in Canada?
• Who are the “underclass”?
• How is SES typically measured?
• Summarize John Hagan’s speech from 1992.
• How does a high SES lead to criminal behavior?
• What has been proven in New Zealand, Great Britain and the
USA regarding crime and education?
• What is IPV?

Classical Theory-
• people broke the law because they thought that doing so would advance their own self interests
• Deviance was the natural result of our rational self interest
• Prior to this, essentially before the mid 1700’s- criminal deviance was the result of supernatural or demonic forces

Classical Theory-
• Set up a system of punishment that would deter people from breaking it
• Since humans were rational- weight the balance of positive and negative outcomes of their behaviour- the more serious the punishment, the more likelihood of deterrence
• Punishment should fit the crime- it should be proportional to the harm done to society
• Remember before the mid 1700’s, people were executed and mutilated for very minor offenses

• What are the Pros of this theory?
• What are the Cons?

Positivist School-
• Influenced by evolutionary theory (Darwin)
• Controlled observation methods to the study of criminology
• Widely accepted in the 19 th century despite almost all of the science being terribly flawed
• Identifying criminals became a simple matter of searching for characteristics of humans who were less developed/advanced in evolutionary terms

Murderer Sean Penn
See any similarities!?
Does this mean Sean Penn is a Criminal?

• Positivist School-
• Not totally a biological application- more an anthropological application
• Putting a native American within a European civilization would equal criminal behaviour
• You can still commit crime if you are more advanced, but that becomes a different concern
• The natural next step of this school is biological school- which attached various genetic characteristics to criminality, not evolutionary status
• The biological school has terrible consequences

• So what about people we call serial killers…

• Classical School
• Early Biological Theories (20 th century)
• Psychological Theories- Freud
• Psychological Theories- Moral Development (Kohlberg)
• Eysenck- Personality Theories
• Antisocial, Social Learning and Psychopathy
• Strain Theories (Anomie)
• Cultural Conflict Theory
• Marxist Conflict Perspective
• Contemporary Critical Criminology
• Interactionist
• Social Control Theory