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Classical School of Criminology

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Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909), was considered as the “father of criminology”. He created the positivistic school of criminology. Lombroso’s basic idea was that many criminals are born criminal, and they are evolutionary throwbacks to an earlier form of life. It maintains that the antisocial tendencies of criminals are the result of their physical and psychic organization, which differs essentially from that of normal individuals; and it aims at studying the morphology and various functional phenomena of the criminal with the object of curing instead of punishing. The Positivist School of Criminology didn’t disagree with the Classical School that most crime could be explained through human nature, they argued that individuals who failed to evolve to a fully human and civilized state committed the most serious crimes. Early positivist believed the shape of the skull was a key determination of behavior. Crime therefore resulted not from what criminals had in common with others in society, but from their distinctive physical or mental defects.

I believe that when it comes to reducing crime, classical criminology is the way to go. It ties in closely with the rational choice theory. . People always act in a way that gives them pleasure rather than pain. If the pleasures of an action outweigh the pains, the result is the action. Criminals are those who judge the pleasures of crime to be greater than their pains. The problem for society, then, is how to weigh the system in favor of law abiding behavior. This is done primarily through punishment, deterring criminal behavior by stacking the painful consequences against it. Both the severity of punishment and certainty of punishment are variables adding to the calculation. Beccaria believed that punishment was most effective soon after commission of the crime; this creates a close mental association between the crime

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