Criminal Justice and Law - Essay Example

Mosaic Law forms a major core of interpretation of earlier criminal justice. Mosaic Law is implicit in the foremost five books of the Bible (Walklate 2007, p. 15). These laws were referred to as the Torah by the Jewish. It is discernible that the Ten Commandments have formed the core of notable law systems in the western world. In the Mosaic Law, crime was equated to sin thereby making a crime a sin against God. Besides, the Exodus concept of eye for eye meant that punishment could be in tandem with the crime that a person performed.

In the 18th century, individuals perceived criminals, in England, as courageous and heroic. Criminals shared significant celebration in the popular culture thereby making crime a significant concern. Before the advent of police officers, prosecution of criminals was majorly in the hands of the victims. Punitive measures for crime were extreme forms of torture that could entail death. In 1764, Cesare Beccaria wrote a book regarding crime and punishment which was also the same title. The book summarized its idea in the statement that highlighted certainty as more vital than severity in punishment.

In addition, he invented the idea of severity to crimes that ranged from the least to the most serious. In turn, punishments could range from the least to most severe. Classical criminology This is an approach to criminal justice and the legal system that arose during the 1700’s Enlightenment age. Philosophers, such as Cesare Beccaria, Jeremy Bentham and John Locke employed the social contract theory to explain why individuals commit crime and how communities mitigate crime (Levinson 2002, p. 56). It is crucial to comprehend the context in which this concept was borne.

In the enlightenment age, many European nations were changing radically as they emerged from feudal monarchies and reformed their laws. In Europe law was majorly inconsistent as legal officials and judges lacked extensive training. In the search, for a more effective and uniform justice system, classical criminology became a result. According to the principal ideas about classical criminology, individuals are self-interested and extremely rational individuals. In as much as individual conduct things as regards to their own self-interest, they realize that certain actions conflict with societal and self-interest.

This suggests that a society develops a social contract whereby human beings behave according to certain confines and responsibilities as they avoid actions that harm the society. The two main contributors to this concept of criminal justice were Cesare de Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham. By using different philosophical stances, they strove to cut back on the harshness of 18th century judicial systems. Positivist criminology This is a school of criminology thought that employs scientific quantification and objectivity for the measurement of crime.

Positivist school divides into psychological, social and biological perspectives (Padhy 2006, p. 89). The positivist school shares some assumptions as regards the concept of rationality, freewill and behavior. Besides, it strives to present the fundamentals of the nature to crime, primary crime motivational factors and reasons for committing crime. As classicism, positivism emerged out of the late eighteenth century that drew towards the early nineteenth century. This thought system was analytic in the sense that it value intelligence and scientific reasoning as a