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Elias Nahhas
Professor Craig Rood
CAS 137H
October 30, 2012
Paradigm Shift Paper
Have you ever wondered how crime or criminal activity
was regulated back in the Middle Ages? Maybe you haven’t,
but if you have, you might know that there was no such
thing as a court system, there was no such thing as set
police officers, and there was no such thing called
“criminology”, or the scientific study of crime. In the
Middle Ages, if you committed a crime and were to be
convicted, your punishment was most likely going to be
death. Not even like today’s death penalty, which rarely
happens, but like a brutal and more graphic punishment such
as beheading or a public hanging or the famous guillotine
that was very often used in France. Crime is and will
always be an abstract noun, rather than a concrete noun
because there are so many different meanings to crime; it
doesn’t have just one definite definition. The criminal
justice system has changed a few different times throughout
our world's history. There have been many standards in
crime, but only a few major ones. The paradigm shift
between the criminal justice system in the Middle Ages and
the criminal justice system as it is today has changed
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dramatically because of the different ways trials were run
and the different punishments that were given out to
convicted criminals.
The first paradigm of the criminal justice system was
during the Middle Ages and officially ended in 1764. During
this time, people took a spiritualistic approach on many
different things. They believed that crime occurred because
of supernatural forces such as the devil, demons, or evil.
Primitive people saw natural disasters as punishments and
created sacred rites and rituals to actually appease those
powers. Since people took a spiritualistic approach on most
things in the Middle Ages, they did the same with the
criminal justice system as well. In the Middle Ages, their
form of trial was that they believed in letting God decide
who the innocent and the guilty were. This means that they
had trial by battle and trial by ordeal. Trial by battle
was viewed as pretty problematic, yet very common in the
Middle Ages. In trial by battle, two people who were
suspects in a crime would fight and whoever would be alive
in the end, were free to walk. This was problematic because
the actual criminals were the ones who won the fight
because of their physical stature. Trial by ordeal was
little different, however. In trial by ordeal, they would
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conduct difficult and painful tests. In the Middle Ages,
they believed that people who went through trial by ordeal
would be protected by God through these difficult and
painful tests if they were innocent. A well-known example
of trial by ordeal includes witches being drowned. Witches
were viewed as criminals and if they were guilty they would
drown and if they were innocent, they'd live; such as the
Salem Witch Trials that were constructed in 1692. The
punishments during the first paradigm of the criminal
justice system were brutal and inconsistent. The punishment
itself was basically the conviction because if you were
convicted, you were dead. The real criminal was never
"proven" guilty because the evidence during the first
paradigm of the criminal justice system was a lot less
advanced than it was today. A a proper court system was
non-existent until finally in 1764, a paradigm shift of the
criminal justice system finally happened.
In 1764, a man by the name of Cesare Beccaria marked
the beginning of the new paradigm of the criminal justice
system. Cesare Beccaria transformed the criminal justice
system through a treatise called On Crimes and Punishment
to make if more fair and effective. Thanks to Beccaria, the
criminal justice system from 1764 until today now
eliminates discretion of judges and makes punishment more
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proportionate to seriousness of crime, which is based on
extent of harm inflicted. The goal of punishment is to
deter crime. The death penalty is now condemned and rarely
happens because the state does not possess the right to
take lives and because capital punishment is not a
necessary form of punishment. It is now believed that
punishment is to serve as a preventative function, rather
than a retaliatory or vengeful. The criminal justice system
today believes that "It is not the severity of punishment,
that deters, it is the certainty of punishment”
(Cesare
Beccaria). Thanks to the treatise known as On Crimes and
Punishment by Cesare Beccaria, a significant paradigm shift
in our world’s history had happened.
With this paradigm shift, there are significant
implications. In the old paradigm, more criminals were
believed to have walked free because they would be victors
in the trial by battle format of the criminal justice
system. Furthermore, more innocent people had died and this
created much social chaos during the Middle Ages. From 1764
up until today, in the new paradigm of criminal justice,
people are now put through a proper trial without
discretion of judges and there is much less death being
dealt to the convicted criminals, as opposed to the old
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paradigm. Significant implications include punishments in
the criminal justice system now being less severe, yet more
propionate to the crime committed. The main goal of
punishment to a certain crime serves as a way to prevent
the convicted criminal, or criminals who want to or think
about committing the same act, from doing it again. In the
old paradigm, this prevention goal was achieved by the
severity of the punishment, and in the new one, it is
achieved by the consistency of the punishment. Perhaps the
largest implication to the new paradigm of the criminal
justice system compared to the old one is less death handed
down by authorities and more organization when a crime is
committed. Also, the confidence of the community in the
criminal justice system in today’s paradigm is much higher
than it was during the Middle Ages.
Crime has changed many times throughout our history.
There have been changes in the scientific study of crime
known as criminology. There have been changes in how
evidence is gathered and what type of evidence is permitted
to be presented to authorities. Perhaps, however, the
paradigm shift between the criminal justice system in the
Middle Ages and the criminal justice system as it is today
is the biggest implication in crime for it has drastically
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changed because of the different ways trials were run and
the different punishments that were given out to convicted
criminals.