How Did The Enlightenment Influence Classical Criminology

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This essay will evaluate how the enlightenment had influence on the classical school of criminology. This will be firstly done by explaining what the enlightenment actually is and how the social contract evolved from this using key philosophers. This essay will then move on to explain how the classical school of criminology evolved evaluating throughout the ideas and influence of the enlightenment.
The enlightenment began back in the 16th/17th century where the scientific revolution, which was the rise of new science, in explaining the natural world. It was the movement from the traditional religious views, moving away from the ways the church punished offenders, The birth of science. Within the 18th century, the Enlightenment made an intellectual …show more content…

The classical school of thought was made up of the ideas from these two philosophers. They said that punishment should prevent any future crime and they had five principles. These were at first, rationality, it was said that individuals all had free will and they are rational thinkers that choose what they do down to their own morals. The second principle is rational thinking (hedonism) that individuals think about pleasure and avoid pain, that they weigh up the costs and benefits of committing a crime. The third principle is punishment, that the individual has the ability to think about the punishment and the outcome of committing the crime to avoid the pain of having to serve a jail sentence. The forth principle that Bentham and Beccaria introduced with influence from the enlightenment was human rights. That even though an offender has committed a crime, the punishment should still match the crime, also there is no good having harsh pain inflicted on an offender when in fact, they may actually be innocent. The final part of the five principles is due process, instead of just cutting off their hand or hanging them like they used to do, Bentham and Beccaria had put this principle in place so when those who get accused of crime, they are innocent until they are proven guilty, that they have a chance for a fair

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