Classical Theory Of Crime: The Classical View And Positivist Theories

The Classical View and Positivist Theories

The classical theory of crime says that "humans have free will and are responsible for their own actions" (Hess, 2013 p.66). The formal study of criminology began in Europe in late 1700’s as theories on crime and punishment started to materialize. Italian attorney Cesare Beccaria is recognized as a founding father of the Classical School, which is based on that most human behavior results from free will and rational force. The positivist view holds that humans are shaped by their society and are the products of environmental and cultural influences.

Ironically another man of the name, Cesare Lombroso, was an early proponent of the Positivist School. This criminology theory brought the need for evidence

It may culminate in authority avoidance by staying out late, truancy or running away. The authority conflict path applies to young males before the age of 12, because after that age some minors are likely to enter this pathway at the highest levels with behaviors such as truancy and staying out late at night. The covert behavior pain includes lying, shoplifting, and setting fires, damaging property, and joyriding, pickpocketing, stealing from cars, burglary, writing illegal checks and using illegal credit cards. (Hess, 2013 p. 106). So this second path starts out with minor covert acts and ends with serious forms of property crime. The final path, overt behavior path, includes annoying others, bullying and fighting. It may culminate in violence, including attacking someone, strong arming or rape. These pathways also show evidence of these serious forms of crime are preceded by lesser forms of crime as described above

These early reformers believed juveniles could be rehabilitated by giving them moral education. This is how these early reformers came to be known as the child savers. These Child Savers were just wealthy, “civic-minded citizens [who] tried to “save” unfortunate children by placing them in houses of refuge and reform schools” (Hess, 2013 p. 37).

The child savers philosophy is that the child was basically good and was to be treated by the state as a young person with a problem. The child savers ' advocacy also resulted in the establishment of the first juvenile court in Cook County, Illinois, in 1899. The court was established under the British legal doctrine of parens patriae (Child or Adult?). This term or doctrine, basically states that the care of children ultimately defaults to the government in case for whatever reason the parents are unfit to care for the wellbeing of the child (Parens Patriae).

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