Contribution of Classical and Positivist Criminological theories

Criminological theories provide people with a profound understanding of crime and its causation. According to David Garland, the emergence of the scientific approach to criminological studies originated in the early stages of enlightenment when the society gradually started not to recognise crime as the product of evil (Newburn, 2013:114-116). Garland claimed that the advent of the current form of criminology was the consequence of the convergence of two major criminological theories, namely classical and positivist criminology (Newburn, 2013:114). This article will critically analyse the contribution of classical and positivist theories of crime. A brief introduction to these two theories will be given, followed by a critical analysis of the theories. It will be concluded that although both classical and positivist thoughts include serious defects, the contributions of these two theories are significant because the core arguments of the theories are still valid within the current form of criminological studies and numerous counterarguments to the theories facilitated the development of criminology.    

The classical school of criminology, for instance, accentuates “the nature of crime as a rational choice” and the study concluded that, “people commit crimes when they can maximise their gains and be relatively sure of not being punished” (Macionis, 2012:602-603). Therefore, people usually make advance decisions based on their rational minds on whether to perpetrate crimes or not. However, prior to the enlightenment extremely brutal methods of punishment have been widely used in medieval societies, particularly in feudal societies, where feudal lords have tried to forcefully strengthen their absolute authority, which was believed to be a divine gift from God, by routinely imposing abusive punishment on citizens (Newburn, 2013:115). Newburn states that under such circumstances, “whether or not people were prosecuted, were likely to be found guilty, and how they were punished, was highly variable and far from predictable” (Newburn, 2013:115). Cesare Beccaria, one of the key researchers in the field of classical criminology, was highly critical of unregulated penalties and claimed “excessive punishment is insufficient in that it not only fails to deter, but is also likely to increase crime” (Newburn, 2013:115). Interestingly, however, the correlation between severe penalties and crime rates can still be confirmed in the contemporary British society that the official statistics on proven re-offending of ex-criminals, which has recently been publicised by Ministry of Justice, clearly indicates the trend that the more severe penalties they get the more risk of recidivism occur (Ministry of Justice, 2013). According to Beccaria, in order to deter people from offending, the criminal law should clarify what human behaviour were forbidden, “as well as the different sanctions imposed for committing each crime” (Newburn, 2013:116). Hence, punishments should be commensurate with the crime perpetrated and the assessment of criminal culpability needs to be standardised since “one of the most effective brakes on crime is not the harshness of its punishment, but the unerringness of punishment” (Beccaria, 1767; 1995: 9-113). Beccaria emphasised the point that “the certainty of even a mild punishment will make a bigger impression that the fear of a more awful one which is united to a hope of not being punished at all”, which means if people fully understood the ramification of their actions, it would be easier for them to stop breaking the law (Beccaria, 1767; 1995:91). It can be suggested that the core argument of classical criminology is based on the assumption that the criminal is someone exercising free will and rational calculation. Therefore, the methods of punishment should be standardised and proportionate to the crime in order to elicit a prudent decision from them (Newburn, 2013:114-122).  

The positive school of criminology, by contrast, is based on the notion that criminals are born, not made. Enrico Ferri stated that unlike the classical criminologists who recognise the phenomenon of criminality as an accomplished fact, the positive criminologists alone make “an attempt to solve in every case of crime the problem of its natural origin, of the reasons and conditions that induced a man to commit such and such a crime” (Ferri, 1913:49-94). Indeed, the positivist criminologists believed that there are various factors that determine human behaviour and they assumed that it would be able to elucidate the characteristics and causes of crime by analysing these factors (Macionis, 2012:603-604 & Newburn, 2013:120-122). According to Macionis, these factors can be categorised into three types, namely biological, psychological and social factors, and more precisely, positivist criminologists attempted to indicate particular characteristics of criminals, such as physical abnormalities and mental disorders (Macionis, 2012:603 & Newburn, 2013:123). Cesare Lombroso, the leading positivist theorist, focused on biological factors and delineated the physical characteristics of criminals that criminals have some distinctive physiques, such as low foreheads, prominent jaws and cheekbones (Macionis, 2012:603). However, Lombroso’s study has been hugely discredited in the field of contemporary criminology since it is completely incorrect to conclude that the people who have such physical abnormalities also have criminal tendencies (Goring, 1972; 1913:370-371). As stated by Macionis, “we now know that no physical attributes, of the kind described by Lombroso, distinguish criminals from non-criminals” (Macionis, 2013:603). However, not just Lombroso’s work but also the entire concept of positive criminology have been severely criticised because an etiological approach to criminology developed by the positivist criminologists was impossible to generalise in the context of understanding crime (Newburn, 2013:121). Despite the fact that positive criminology has been largely disgraced in the field of criminology, as stated by Clive Hollin, “the key attribute of positivism is its insistence on the unity of scientific method” (Morgan and Reiner, 2012:92) and one of the major contributions of positivism is the introduction of the science-based crime analysis (Ferri, 1913:101). Therefore, the core feature of the positive criminology is, unlike the classical criminology, which did not concern itself much with etiological questions in relation to crime causation (Morgan and Reiner, 2012:304-306), “it always focuses upon the criminal as a specific type of person” in order to distinguish criminals from non-criminals (Macionis, 2012:603).  

However, as mentioned above, both classical and positivist theories have been confronted with numerous criticisms. Classical thought, for example, “in treating all individuals as rational, is argued to overlooked the problems of incapacity of various form”, such as a psychiatric disorder and a pervasive developmental disorder (Newburn, 2013:120). In addition, no scientific evidence has been found to support the presupposition that human beings always act rationally (Macionis, 2012:602). Positivist theory, on the other hand, failed to establish the comprehensive etiology of crime by analysing physical and psychological characteristics of offenders since the theory explains only a small portion of the phenomena (Newburn, 2013: 128-129 & Macionis, 2012:602-603).   

Although it is true that the theories include serious defects, it does not necessarily mean that they are worthless. Indeed, according to Newburn, these theories have had “a significant impact on criminological theory and, arguably, an even greater impact on criminal justice practice” and the methods of crime prevention (Newburn, 2013: 118). For example, as stated by Marcel Alexander Niggli and Stefan Maeder, one the core principles that has been used in modern and contemporary criminal law, particularly in the Bavarian criminal code, is nulla poena sine lege, meaning “there can be no punishment without a prior and precise rule stating so” (Niggli and Maeder, 2014:190) and it is assumed to be derived from the fundamental theorem of classical criminology that proposed the importance of having written law (Newburn, 2013:116). Interestingly, Ludwig Feuerbach, the German philosopher who developed the concept of nulla poena sine lege, is believed to have had a very similar idea to the classic criminologist since he once claimed that “for the effective control of crime there should be a well-defined criminal code as well as definitive penal code” (Sharma, 1998:20). Indeed, as stated by Niggli and Maeder, “Feuerbach proposed what is nowadays universally accepted, namely that we need to define beforehand what one is allowed to do and what not” (Niggli and Maeder, 2014:190). On the other hand, widespread use of psychological approach to crime, such as forensic psychology and criminal profiling, is also the case that not just classical thought but also the essence of positive criminology is still applicable to the current Criminal Justice System (GOV.UK, 2014). These examples robustly support the argument that these two theories are still playing a crucial role as the theoretical foundations of criminological studies. Furthermore, even the resurrection of classical thinking has been widely observed in the recent studies of penology since researchers and policy makers are now refocusing on the importance of deterrence, which has repeatedly been demonstrated in the field of classical criminology, in order to fulfill people’s expectations for better security and to produce reliable methods of crime prevention (Sack, 1994:15). However, more importantly, it can be argued that the theoretical incompleteness, which was embedded in these theories, gave birth to the many different types of criminological theories, which attempt to explain the causations of crime more comprehensively, such as strain theories, labeling theory and conflict criminologies (Macionis, 2012:605-612).   

In conclusion, two major criminological theories, namely classical and positivist theories have been established since the age of enlightenment. It can be argued that one of the most important achievements of enlightenment was the emergence of the academic approach to criminological studies. As stated by Garland, Although the theories have been faced with severe criticisms since the they have only succeeded in explaining a portion of criminal phenomena, the contribution of classical and positivist theories is significant and it should not be underestimated because the core arguments of the theories are still applicable to the current form of criminology, particularly in the field of criminal justice system and crime prevention.