In this lecture I introduced one of the key questions for criminology, and three ways of thinking about an answer. (If you haven't heard this enough already, there really are no 'right answers' in criminology. Except to questions like "in what year was the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 passed?" or "how do you spell 'criminology'?", of course.)
The question is deceptively simple: who commits crimes? To put it another way, can we know who is likely to commit crimes? By the end of the day, a certain number of crimes will have been committed that hadn't been committed when we all got up this morning. If, this morning, you'd had a complete profile of every individual in the country, would you have been able to predict who would commit a crime today?
The two oldest and best-established ways of thinking about criminology are Classicism and Positivism (I'll get to the third approach I mentioned later). One of the key differences between Classicism and Positivism is how they answer that question - can we know who is likely to commit crimes?
Classicism says: No, we can't. According to the classicist view, anyone could commit a crime at any time. Everyone is more or less the same: we're all rational beings, we're all motivated by pleasure and pain, and we all calculate rationally what we can do to maximise pleasure and minimise pain. Laws are rules that societies put in place to make them run better; crimes are committed when people rationally calculate that they can get more pleasure than pain by breaking those rules. It follows that the way to deal with criminals, and the way to deter potential criminals, is to raise the cost of crime. People steal handbags, on the classicist view, because their desire for the pleasure of acquiring money outweighs their fear of the pain of getting caught and going to prison. Sending a bag-snatcher to prison will make that person more afraid of prison in future and make the less likely to do it again.
In short: the classicist view focuses on crimes rather than criminals; it sees everyone as equally rational, equally driven by pleasure and pain, and equally likely to break the law; it regards laws as arbitrary rules, which should be enforced for the sake of social order; it sees the job of punishment as enforcing the law by increasing the cost of crime; and its ideal is a law-abiding society in which everyone can participate freely.
Positivism, by contrast, says: Yes, we can predict who is likely to commit crimes. According to the positivist view, some people are much more likely to commit crimes than others. Some people are more rational than others; more importantly, some people are less attached to society's values than others. Laws are based on society's values; crimes are actions that violate those values, and which most of us find repugnant. Crimes are committed (mostly) by people who don't share those values and don't care about violating them. The way to deal with criminals is to educate the ones who can be reformed (rehabilitation) and lock up the ones who can't (incapacitation). Positivism can be either personal/biological or social: biological positivism says that offenders are just wired differently, social positivism says that offenders have been brought up with anti-social value systems. People steal handbags, on the positivist view, because they haven't adopted society's norm against stealing.
In short: the positivist view focuses on criminals; it sees values as fundamental, and sees some people as less committed to society's values than others; it regards laws as expressions of society's values, which should be enforced so as to uphold them; it sees the job of punishment as reforming or confining anti-social people; and its ideal is a safe society for the law-abiding majority.
Social positivism is related to a third and very different group of explanations, which can be grouped together as social explanations of crime. According to these perspectives, some people are less attached to society's values than others, and they may have good reasons for this: society's values may reflect injustices which run through society (class divisions, extremes of wealth and poverty, sexism, racism, etc). Crimes are actions which violate society's values, but they may not be particularly repugnant; society's values may be wrong, or the offender may have values which outweigh them. A social explanation of bag-snatching would be that people steal handbags because an unjust society has deprived them of the money they need to live - and not starving is a higher value than not breaking the law.
In short: the social view focuses on crimes, and questions whether they should be crimes. Like the positivist view, it recognises that some people are less committed to society's values than others; however, it regards society's values as arbitrary, and questions whether its laws need to be enforced. It sees material factors as fundamental in deciding whether someone who breaks a law should be seen as a criminal. Its ideal is a just society, in terms of wealth and power as well as crime and punishment.
Suppose that burglars rob a jewellers' shop, taking the diamond-encrusted Rolexes which had been on display in the window. A classicist would say, "Something like that was bound to happen sooner or later - anyone would be tempted." A positivist would say, "People like that want locking up." Someone taking the social view would say, "It's a shame for the shopkeeper, but it's disgusting that they were asking people to spend that kind of money."
Hope that helps. Good luck with the essay - the questions are on Moodle, in case you haven't spotted them.
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