Cesare Beccaria & Classical Theories of Crime and Punishment - Research Paper Example

?Cesaer Beccaria & ical Theories of Crime and Punishment Introduction Cesaer Baccaria, an Italian politician and philosopher, is very well knownfor his crimes and punishment treatise that condemned capital punishment and torture. In 1964, Beccaria, (1764) published a just and brief treatise that addressed crime and punishment. This publication was highly celebrated, besides leading to the marked Milan advancement of the highest point. His work on penology called for full reforms in the system of criminal law. His work called for conformational of rational principles in criminal justice. Crime is any action that violates basic believes and values of a society. These beliefs are values are the laws that the society observes, in maintaining peace and order. A person who violates these laws has to face its consequences and this is referred to as punishment. Crime and punishment classical theories are based on the philosophy of utilitarian. Cesare Beccaria was a classical school philosopher who argued that people are free to decide on how to act, and secondly, human beings are hedonists, who look for pleasure while avoiding pain and the weight of benefits and costs of the actions consequences. This theory, however, ignores motivational factors’ possibility like unconscious drives and irrationality of individuals. The theory states that: punishment of sufficient severity is the only way of stopping people from committing crime because its costs are more than the benefits. However, punishment severity should be proportional to the crime. The more certain and swift the punishment is, the more effective it’s likely to be in preventing behaviors of crime. However, his views contrast and compare to the contemporary theory of Rational Choice Theory. Classical Theories The theory states that individuals freely choose their own actions and that avoiding such acts is only possible if the benefits that the individual expects are less than the costs, for example facing severe punishment. Therefore, the assumptions of classical theory are; all people are by nature self seeking, and hence are responsible to committing crimes. An agreement to protect private property power among others, and people deliberately enter into social agreements with the government in order to maintain peace, law is only a sign of moral agreement coherence as all people are rational and finally, every individual is responsible for his own actions. The theory also states that the behavior of law breaking is as a result of irrational actions of some people, who because of their shortcomings are unable to uphold an agreement with their nation or state. According to the classical theory of crime, people who disobey the law are punished in order to stop them from destructing other peoples’ rights, and this gives the government a choice to punish them and implement the penalty, since the society is independently established by people. Furthermore, the theory says that penalties must equal the interest that the crime violates and concentration should be centered on the act (Beccaria, 1764). The classical theory argues that laws should be few and execution settled down on time. Penalty should also aim at compensating valuable activity and reprimanding destructive activities. According to these theories, a penalty application should not fail when based on the committed crime and excusive cases or moderating conditions should not exist. Betham observes that anything done should aim at providing the greatest happiness to as many people as possible. Furthermore, he says that penalty strictness was so high, to give rise to death punishment. Theory Policies Beccaria appealed for reasoning principle where he called for state understanding as a kind of contract, and utility principle, above all, as of the biggest happiness for the biggest number. He openly condemned penalty of death on two grounds: first, he argued that the state has no right to take away lives and secondly, he said that capital punishment is not a useful form of punishment. Therefore, he developed a number of influential and innovative principles in his treatise. First, he said that the function of punishment is to prevent and not retributive. On the other hand, he added that punishment should be proportional to the committed crime, the punishment should yield preventive effects, not its severity, and criminal conviction procedures should be made public. Finally, for punishment to be effective, it should be prompt. In his theory, he also argues against laws that control guns. Many penal co de reforms in the European nation’s principals are as a result of Becccaria’s treatise, but few contemporaries encountered convictions from his death penalty argument. Abolishment of capital punishment in Tuscany followed Beccaria’s argument, that state has no right to execute its citizens. The theory of crime and punishment by Beccaria relates to the economists English school in that, they are both strictly based on utilitarian they are also both published in the Italian writers collection on political economy. Rational Choice Theory and Classical Theories This theory is utilitarian based, together with Cesare Beccaria philosophies of classical schools. The theory argues that if punishment can only be successful if it is administered certainly, swiftly, and proportionately to crime, with risks being more than benefits to the offender. He therefore advocated for rational punishment, thus opposing death penalty and torture. This philosophy was however replaced by Chicago schools and positivist theories. Rational choice theory, like classical theory observes that a criminal first weighs the benefits and risks of committing a crime, before acting, and hence thinks economically. Then they try to minimize risks and maximize benefits by considering place, time plus other situational factors (McLennan, 1980). From this perspective, crime can be prevented or reduced by increasing the efforts that are required to commit like hardening the target. Unfortunately, criminals value the benefits of their act, more than the cost, for example apprehension possibility, punishment, conviction and their set opportunities, and hence are usually ready to take the risk. The perspective public policy states that, since fine increasing cost is marginal to surveillance increasing cost, then, the best policy is the one that maximizes the fine and minimizes the surveillance. Satz, (1994) assesses that rational choice theories further suggest that increasing offending risk and likelihood of coming under arrest by increasing police, surveillance, street lighting, and security guards, among others are effective crime reduction measures. The difference between Baker’s theory and Jeremy Bentham’s theory is that, if Jeremy’s theory considered that it was possible to annihilate crime completely, Backer’s theory acknowledged the fact that society could not completely do away with crime beneath a give level. For example, if 26% of a company’s products were stolen, it would be possible to reduce the rate to 20%, somehow easy to reduce it to 10% but very difficult to reduce the rate below 5%, and impossible to make it 1%, because it would be very costly to the supermarket to conduct any surveillance as the costs would be more than the benefits. This means that utilitarianism goals and classical liberalism need to be reduced and tampered with to proposals that are more modest to practical applicability. Rational choice theories are closely linked to neoliberals, are basically concerned with crime prevention through market reduction approach to reduce theft and environmental designs (Satz, 1994). Evaluation of Cesaer Beccaria & Classical Theories and rational Choice Theory Compliments and Criticism Many philosophers believe that rational choice theory is the strongest theory that explains well on the causes of crime. It illustrates a broad scope and strong logical consistency because nearly every kind of crime (violence, drug use, and theft) is explainable by rational choice. For instance, burglary and robbery are committed with the aim of acquiring goods and property that can economically benefit the offender through selling. When going to steal, thieves properly arm themselves to ensure maximum protection, as well as arrange for a means to transport and store stolen goods, whether it is a vehicle or a bag. Violent crimes like murder and rape also utilize rational decision-making process. Rational thinking helps the offender to select his victim time, place and crime location. An article’s supporting this theory observes that rational views validity shows that even then the most violent criminal offences like rape and murder exhibit a substantial level of rationality. Using qualitative data, obtained by descriptive interviews, the article carried the research on 67 serial sex offenders in its behavior analysis of their crimes. In the study, offenders described hunting process that they used in their suitable victim search and attack method before and during act commission, covering a victim’s mouth to avoid arousing others and being caught, which is a self preserving behavior. Another study conducted by Sutton, & Hetherington, (2001) testing tax evasion and shoplifting offenses against rational choice model indicated that the expected probability of being punished and apprehended prevented many people from committing the crime, even in cases where the person expected great economic benefits (Sutton, & Hetherington, 2001). One major criticism to rational choice theory is that, it does not incorporate societal factors like poverty, broken marriages underprivileged childhood, and unfavorable living conditions, besides over exaggerating individual choice into a person’s potential to commit crime. This makes it impossible to fully explain and account for criminal behavior causes. The other criticism is that it has a very wide scope in its attempt to explain all criminality causes, and therefore it becomes tautological. On the other hand, it is somehow parsimonious because it only states that an individual decision whether to commit a crime or not is based on rational choice and free will, yet there are many other factors that an individual considers before committing a crime. Strong proponents of this theory still believe that there are few questions that the views of this law cannot answer. If people make rational decisions on if or if not to commit an offense based on their situational and personal evaluation, then crime of passion becomes hard to explain. For instance, if a man comes home and finds his wife in bed with another man, he could possibly kill them or severely attack them without considering the consequences and benefits of his actions. The theory is argues on an individuals’ decision making model which assess that a crime could only be committed if the benefits were expected to be more than the consequences to the offender. Then, if this is the case, people would not be joining gang’s because benefits f a gang crime benefits the entire gang. However, engaging in other activities that are related to gangs like enduring beatings for initiation purposes would increase the vulnerability of a member to commit violence and crimes and hence never benefitting the individual. Many of the member gangs do not individually benefit themselves, physically or economically, thus contradicting rational choice model’s central concepts. Crime Theories Theories of crime are based on the theoretical perspective of functionalism, econometrics, internationalism, Marxism, and systems theory, among others. Theories of crime include social structures theory, social disorganization, social ecology, strain theory, and sub cultural theory. Social structure theories are applied to a wide range of criminology approaches as structural perspective or conflict theory. This perspective is broad enough as it embraces diverse positions (McLennan, 1980). Critical Criminology and Contemporary Cultural Cultural and critical criminologists oppose rational choice theories, and classical theories like that of Beccaria. They perceive to rest on conception of ontologically simplicity, where human beings are hedonistic whose actions can easily be manipulated by adjusting the benefits, costs, opportunities and technology. These theories try to look into the ways that criminals are incorporated in fantasies and consumerism value-systems Robert Reiner (2007) argues in his law and order book, yet it was initially excluded from social lives and economics. Combining classical theory approach with cultural and strain theories, Young (1999) uses bulimia metaphor to show the intense opposition between exclusion and inclusion. Conclusion Cesare Beccaria is the founder father of criminology classical school in the 1700s. Rational choice theory sprawled from his ideas, and has in a large extent tried to explain the causes of crimes in the society. These ideas were later developed and modernized to incorporate factors like morality, emotions, and values. The rational choice theories try to explain causes of crime. Rational choice theory assumes that an offender first considers situational and personal factors and then uses his rational and free will in making a decision on whether or whether not to commit the crime However, Beccaria’s classical theories argued that people are free to decide on how to act, and secondly, human beings are hedonists, who look for pleasure while avoiding pain and the weight of benefits and costs of the actions consequences. This theory ignores motivational factors’ possibility like unconscious drives and irrationality. The theory states that punishment of sufficient severity is the only way of stopping people from committing crime because its costs outweigh the benefits. However, punishment severity should be proportional to the crime. The more certain and swift the punishment is, the more effective it’s likely to be in deterring behaviors of crime. Despite facing major criticisms from the opponents and proponents, the theories have influenced historical documents and landmarks which are very significant and the oldest standing crime explanations up to date. References Beccaria, C. (1764). On Crimes and Punishments, and Other Writings. Cambridge University Press. pp. 64. McLennan, G. (1980). Crime and Society: Readings in History and Theory. Rout ledge. pp. 311. Reiner, R. (2007) Law and Order, Cambridge: Polity Press Satz, D . (1994). “Rational Choice and Social Theory.” The Journal of Philosophy,91:71-87. Retrieved August 1, 2007 Read More