Classical Criminology
(1750s – 1850s)
Bentham & Beccaria
The Rise of the Prisons &
Penitentiary
Social Contract
◦ Rise of Citizen & State
◦ Common good
Massive population growth
◦ Populations less homogeneous
◦ Social bonds weakened
◦ 1830s Sir Robert Peel (Britain)
Cash for Labour
◦ Individuality (economic & political)
◦ Citizens & the rise of the Nation State
◦ Private v. collective property
Reformation
French Revolution
French Revolution
Reign of Terror
“devoured its own
children”
1793 until 1794
Association of Terror
with Virtue
Napolean
Emperor of the
French from 1804 to
1815
◦ Taxation
◦ Family names
◦ Millitaristic ends
Napoleonic Code/Civil
Code 1804
 ‘All citizens’ were equal
before the law*
 right to property was
inviolable
◦ Civil death (1854)

Article 544
◦ No regulation for
labourers/wages
◦ Unions illegal
Civil Code
1804
Following the tradition of Roman law, a
woman found guilty of adultery could be
imprisoned for between 3 months and 2
years depending on the inclination of the
husband.
A husband convicted of adultery (a
husband had to introduce the mistress into
the home to meet the requirement of
adultery) was only subject to a fine of from
100 to 2,000 francs.
A man who, in a fit of passion, murdered
his spouse in flagrante delicto was guilty of
no crime. A woman in the same situation
was subject to the rigors of the law.
(Holmberg)
Women & The Family Code
1974 in Canada (case law)
2013 First Nations women…
Law promoted
rational control by the
central government at
the cost of moral
emancipation

Individual freedom in
so far as one was
free to help the state
in its pursuit of
power.
Bentham - Utilitarianism
Freedom unless harm to others
-John Stewart Mill & Harriet Taylor
expand upon Bentham’s quantific
...since the world is not harmonious, yo
must choose the least bad, the grea
happiness of the greatest number.
Individual freedom is limited to social
Response to paternalistic and moral
governance
Classical Criminology
Cesare Beccaria
Essays On Crime and Punishment,1764
Jeremy Bentham
Principals & Morals of Legislation,1789
“If there is no demonstratable victims, there
should be no punishment”
Cecare Beccaria (1738 – 1794)
Upper class Italian
 Dissidents in Milan
◦ “School of Fists”
◦ Legal reformers
Response to:
 Demonic Social Control
 Corruption & independent
judges
Essay in Crime and Punishment 1764
“...a systematic plan for making
legal social control more
humane and rational”
(Pfohl, 1985:55)
Wide appeal
 Harsh arbitrary punishment
loses favour
Principles of Crime and Punishment
Necessity of Rational
Punishment
Preservation of social
contract
 Remind individuals of
common interest in social
order
 Defense of public liberty
(not tyranny)
Principles of Crime and Punishment
Legislated Law & Judicial Guilt
Legislators:
 Define acts that violate common good
 Assign appropriate punishment
Judges:
 Determine guilt/innocence
Principles of Crime and Punishment
Purpose of social control:
Deterrence
Specific and general
Swift & certain justice



when a punishment quickly follows a
crime, then the two ideas of “crime” and
“punishment” will be more quickly
associated in a person’s mind.
Principles of Crime and Punishment
Control the Act not
Actor


Problematic to thesis
All actors assumed to
have same ‘free will’
& hedonistic
calculators
Jeremy Bentham (1748 -1832)
Detailed classification of
pleasure and pain
1. Intensity
2. Duration
3. Un/certainty
4. Proximity
5. Fecundity (chance of it
being continued)
6. Purity (chance NOT
continued)
7. Extent
Sir Bentham loses his
head...
Bentham: The Panopticon
The Total Prison
Developed idea living in Russia (1785)
 Constant surveillance
 Manipulative & Communicative
Exercising power
Performance of power
 Never
constructed (Bentham) although its
effects can be found in prison architecture..
Widespread appeal of prison – practical
implementation of classical thinking....
Foucault’s Critique of Panopticon

Docile Bodies
◦ natural/normal

Exercising power
◦ Rehabilitation
Critiques....
French Penal Code 1791
Applied classical thinking
Overreliance on incarceration
◦ Inconsistent with utilitarian thesis (Foucault)
Neoclassical Modifications
Discretion
◦ Premeditation
◦ Mitigating circumstances
◦ Insanity
We become ordered through...
Surveillance
 Efficiency
 Bureaucracy
 Expertise
