Week 4 Flashcards
(49 cards)
Criminological positivism
Philosophical origins in Auguste Comte’s famous proposal that we should have a “science of society”
Proposed “positivism” as a way to move from metaphysical claims of social knowledge to scientific knowledge of the social world
“The positivist approach represented an ‘antithetical critique of classical attempts to explain crime as the willful, premeditated and controllable act of a rational human being’.”
Positivism in depth
- A system of philosophy elaborated by Auguste Comte from 1830 onwards, which recognises only positive facts and observable phenomena
- objective relations and laws abandoning all theological and metaphysical stages of thought
- superseded a religious system
- every rationally justifiable assertion can be scientifically verified or is capable of logical or mathematical proof
- philosophy can do no more than attest to the logical and exact use of language through which such observation or verification can be expressed.
Early pathological explanations of crime
19th century sees a shift from classical explanations to biological (and later psychological) explanations of deviance
Cesare Lombroso publishes The Criminal Man in 1876
Lombroso studied the cadavers of executed criminals, as well as spent time researching prisoners, and determined that serious criminal activity was probably an inherited trait
Pathological perspective
Early positivist approaches largely “biological” in seeking to demonstrate how human behaviour, including crime, was physiologically determined
- Cesare Lombroso’s -> Atavist
- Franz Joseph Gall’s -> phrenology
Lombroso’s atavism
Lombroso’s work is often called atavistic theory or simply atavism, for the notion that criminals could be identified by physical traits that in part explained their life of crime
Classified as a form of biological determinism, an approach that eventually fell out of favour, but has recently again made some headway with the study of genetics.
Lombroso’s traits
large jaws and chins forward projection of jaw low sloping foreheads high cheekbones flattened or upturned nose handle-shaped ears very prominent in appearance hawk-like noses or fleshy lips hard shifty eyes scanty beard or baldness long arms
Pathological perspective - determinism
Criminologists and sociologists who use trait theories see deviance and crime as the product of natural processes or causes.
- Crime and deviance become dependent variables
Pathological perspective - Herbert Spencer
Determinist perspectives saw the influence of Darwin’s Origin of the Species (1859), notable for his notion that differences between species in a result (in part) of successful adaptation.
Herbert Spencer’s phrase “survival of the fittest” is often confused with Darwin, and Spenser’s social Darwinism won wide popularity for the idea that genetics and proper breeding was the primary difference between social classes.
Pathological perspective today
Today, “positivism” and “post-positivism” refers to a number of methods and methodologies that rely on scientific observation and inquiry to explain crime. It is BEST defined as an epistemology.
Those who seek scientific explanations for criminal or anti-social behavior as a result of biological and/or psychological pathologies often group these under the rubric of trait theories
Early biological theories - Earnest Hooton
Prominent Harvard anthropologist who elaborated on Lombroso’s basic premises
Concluded in The American Criminal (1939) that criminals evidenced signs of physiological organic inferiority
Suggested that as crime was biological in origin, and probably incurable, the best option was to remove criminals from society
Early biological theories - William Sheldon (1898-1977)
Famous for his theory of endomorphs, ectomorphs, and mesomorphs and their relationship to social (including criminal) behavior
Coincidently, Sheldon himself was later accused of engaging in some less than upright behaviour
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Early biological theories - Charles Goring
- Work The English Convict (1913) carried out on convicted prisoners
- Unlike Lombroso, used a control groups of non-criminals; critical of Lombroso’s methods
- Critical of Lombroso’s emphasis on abnormal physical characteristics (although did find physical differences)
“the physical and mental constitution of both criminal and law-abiding persons, of the same age, stature, class, and intelligence, are identical. There is no such thing as an anthropological criminal type”
Charles Goring’s findings
- Found high correlations between criminality of parents and children, and between siblings
- Argued there was a “criminal” correlation between father and son, and brothers
- Thought criminal tendencies present in the parents’ genetics would be passed to children – a heredity of criminality.
Charles Goring’s problems
- Theorized “poor mental ability” might be passed on genetically, and thus related to deviance, but did not offer proof that intelligence was related to deviance or that it was inherited.
- Also, Goring did not adequately account for other (obvious) factors that might have played a role in his findings.
Early biological theories - Jukes and Kallikaks
- Early 20th Century Genetic Theories: The Jukes and the Kallikaks
- Research on the “Jukes” and “Kallikaks” (both pseudonyms) in the late 19th and early 20th century found what appeared to be astonishingly high rates of deviant and criminal activity
- Research initially lent support to the “first wave of eugenics” - the idea that behaviour, intelligence, and social success are largely inherited.
- This research has been discredited for both methodological reasons, as well as for the fact that comparative studies of other “non-degenerate” families have shown similar rates of deviance and crime.
Eugenics: the first wave (1880-1945)
- Social Darwinism as part of US , British and Australian progressive movements to improve society
- Ideas originated in Britain, most heavily implemented in US and Germany
- Goal was to increase the “fitness” of a nation by increasing births and immigration amongst the “fit” and decreasing them amongst the “unfit.”
- Methods included segregation, sterilisation, immigration restriction, marriage restriction laws, community education
Eugenics: the first wave - applied
A major factor leading to the popularity of eugenics and forced sterilisation was racism and racist ideologies.
- Applied most commonly to Black Americans, Indigenous Australians, etc.
- Also applied to eastern and southern European and Asian immigrants who were thought to be inferior
- Supported by prominent social scientists, opposed most notably by the anthropologist Franz Boas
- US States repealed sterilisation in the late 1930s and 1940s, when interest in eugenics lessened
- The Nazi’s interest in eugenics, and the subsequent genocide of Jews and murder of homosexuals, communists and dissidents further lessened interest in eugenics in Australia, Britain, and the U.S.
Early psychological theories - Raffaele Garofalo
Raffaele Garofalo (1851-1934)
- Student of Lombroso
- Opposed the belief that criminality was the result of free will; influenced by Spencer
Critical of arbitrary/legalistic definitions of crime
1. Proposed a theory of “natural crime”
2. “Natural crimes” violated two basic altruistic sentiments common to most people; probity (i.e. property) and pity (i.e. violence)
Raffaele Garofalo continued - 4th
- Extended “atavism” to include both psychological as well as physical characteristics
- lack of solid evidence for anthropological criminology
- Argued that crime a result of psychic or moral anomalies
- Heredity probably played a larger role than environment
Raffaele Garofalo criminal categories
a. Extreme (murderer) – altruism is wholly lacking; devoid of probity or pity; should be executed
b. Violent - altruism mostly lacking; opportunistic, should be incarcerated or banished
c. Thieves – different types of thieves, some driven by necessity, others by lack of probity; punishment should follow degree of probity
d. Lascivious – those driven by extreme urges, lacking not pity but moral perception; punishment varies
Psychoanalysis - Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
Founder of psychoanalysis
Theory of personality suggests that the id (the location of the basic drives), the ego (the reality principle), and the superego (the conscience or internalized social control) function in normal individuals by means of the ego mediating “between the internal desires of the id and the external desires of the superego” (Pfohl 1994: 119).
Sigmund Freud and criminology
Crime and deviance operate as a matter of unconscious desires, unresolved conflicts, and unrecognized fears below the level of everyday life.
Deviance, and crime as a part of it, thus represent in a large sense those things that are culturally forbidden, and/or unrecognized traumas usually emerging from childhood experiences.
Freud’s conception of the human psyche
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Psychoanalytic theories of deviance
Freud argued that in some cases the Id may be overdeveloped, or the superego may be overdeveloped, leading to personality disorders, antisocial behaviour, or compulsive behaviours
Overdeveloped or Uncontrolled ID = unsociable and aggressive behavior
Overdeveloped Super-ego = excessive timidity and repression, possibly compulsive behaviors or desires to be punished
