Development of Criminology Science - Assignment Example

Running Header: Criminology has gone the Full Circle from Focusing on the Body, then the Mind, then the State (in various ways) and, More Recently, on Socio-Biological Interpretations of Crime Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course Name & Code: Date of Submission: Criminology has gone the Full Circle from Focusing on the Body, then the Mind, then the State (in various ways) and, More Recently, on Socio-Biological Interpretations of Crime The historical criminology widely referred to as classical criminology came up as a result of cry against discriminating and prejudiced legal practices that was rampant in the environment of the early 18th century. The major stakeholders in the reform and development of criminal justice were Bentham and Baccaria who fought for major changes in the procedure and law. Focus on criminology, in the interpretation of criminality and crime, has been evolving over a period. The criminology school of thoughts have been changing from environmental to psychological, classical to physiological and sociological to interactionist advances among others. Criminology has been viewed as the crime study, the crime causes, crime meaning in terms of legal perspective, and society response to crime. In the recent past, study of crime branched from its parent discipline, sociology, and however there exist few historical continuities, it has since came up with methods and habits of thinking about criminal behavior and crime that are unique in their own (Bajpai 2006). Development of criminology has always sought to advance in explaining the problem of and reaction to crime while utilizing all fundamental disciplines in behavioral and social sciences. In the development of criminology for almost two centuries, social scientists have put more efforts in trying to find out connection between human body physiology and crime, an approach mostly referred to as biological positivism. Nineteenth century phrenology and physiognomy that established connection of criminal propensities with either bumps on the skull or facial features, as well as early 20th century degenerative evolution or atavism (Lombroso’s approach) are presently scientifically disapproved. Approach of Lombroso was pivotal to Goring Charles research carried out in 1913 that revealed a connection between a combination of little body weight and short stature and criminality. Although he disapproved notion of Lomroso that there was a noticeable physical criminal type, conclusion of Goring, too, are presently rejected since he concluded that small body size showed an unobserved underneath genetic inferiority that resulted to criminality. In 1925 William seldom and Ernst Kretschmer developed theories founded mainly on body types instead of specific measures. However, the Sheldon and Kretschmer approaches vary in some respects, though each categorizes persons into 3 wide body types: endomorphs (fat), ectomorphs (thin), and mesomorphs (athletics) (Bodenhorn & Price 2009). Both criminologists agreed that persons with more athletic bodies were more probably to involve in criminal acts, though both did not establish a convincing reason for the association. None of biological positivist theory has prevailed for long without strong criticism mainly because they does not offer strong current prove connecting crime with predispositions of genetics and also due to their nature that none of these theories give an approach of criminality that develops vividly expressed testable hypotheses. Without a hypothesis, positivism approach is viewed as a continuous assessment of lists of probable constitutional, anatomical, and physiological variables that may or may not be related with behavior. Sigmund Freud claimed during his last days on earth that psychology should take its position as a natural science like any other, and psychoanalysis is branch of science of the psychology mental. For many years, Frued’s theories were widely embraced in criminology and psychology fields where psychoanalysis turned to be a major paradigm. Its acceptance slowly started to wither, as various methodological and theoretical competitors came to existence. Positivists challenged psychoanalysis for using an approach that was both vulnerable to subjective misinterpretation and empirically unverifiable (Michaelmas 2004). Other main camps in criminology, including, feminist criminology, right realism, administrative criminology, left realism, left idealism, challenged the psychoanalysis approach to criminology. By the end of the 20th century, psychoanalysis had turned to a ridicule object to both clinicians and academics. Additionally, in the last decade, forensic and criminologists psychotherapists have revamped psychoanalytical research on various issues, such as the act of punishment, fear of crime, and criminal motivation. Criminology psychoanalysis has weathered various methodological, theoretical and practical challenges, and is currently re-emerging from a long time of inferiority as a mainstream and legitimate criminology approach. Freud wrote his work in 1900 by the title The Interpretation of Dreams and welcomed in a century of clinacians and theorists focused to the unconscious inner operations of the human mind. Freud continuously wrote his research until his demise in 1939 and afterwards psychoanalytic approach grew via the research of Erich Fromm, James Lacan, Alfred Alder, and Carl Jung among others. The discipline established its deep roots on many social sciences fields and most notably criminology. In 1916 Freud wrote another work titled Criminality from a Sense of Guilt where his maintained that crime is carried out by persons with overdeveloped superegos and huge unconscious guilt who seek to be caught and reprimanded. This unclear hypothesis never grew into fully developed crime theory; however, the idea was adapted by various neo-Freudians like David Wineman and Fritz Redl in 1950s, and Melanie Klein and August Aichhorn in the 1920s (Valier 2000). Early marriage of criminology with psychoanalysis started to fade. Researchers indicate that it is not a surprise that the major texts on criminology from the early time of 20th century embraced an approach of psychoanalysis. , since majority of author on criminology from this time were working in the penal system. Player Elaine indicates that until World War II, Britain criminology was prevailed by a medic-psychological approach that focused on the pathology of the offending person and was particularly focused in direction of developing a correctionlist penal policy. Regrettably, the psychoanalysis theoretical rigidity aided to bring about its decline, as psychoanalysis pioneers made bizarre and overreaching claims. For instance, Klein claimed that psychoanalysis has proved that the Oedipus complex was pivot in the total development of personality and that every shadow of character difficulty, from the faintly neurotic to the criminalistic, is determined by it. The socio-biological interpretation of crime has been brought to light by Wilson James who is major player in criminology in US. His work titled Thinking About Crime (1975) shaped policy and political thinking largely, his effort with Herrnstein Richard Crime and Human Nature (1985) gives a well defined theoretical version of what make the main causes of crime. Herrnstein and Wilson defined crime as an undertaking disproportionately executed by youthful men dwelling in big cities (Walklate 2007). There exist old criminals, small town and rural ones, and female ones, but to a higher probability than would be expected by chance, criminals are youthful males in urban. This definition can be understood in various ways. In one perspective, it can be suggested that it reveals a very vivid understanding of what makes the main obstacle for all those in industry of criminal justice: the very problematic nature of behavior of urban youthful males. This means that is concurs very clearly with the research of those involved in criminology of gender. Although individuals concentrating on criminology of gender see as a problem on the issue of youthful men in regard to the expression of their masculinity as a process that is socially construed, Herrnstein and Wilson continue to elaborate the young men behavior by reference to their just that: youthful men. They chose to bring in front in their work the variation between the sexes criminal behaviors what is referred as constitutional factors. These are factors have biological origin but not necessarily genetic. This explains further by show that it is highly possible that youthfulness and maleness effect on the tendency to carry out a crime has both social and constitutional origins: that is, it is influenced by how youthful male has been handled by society, friends, and family, and with the biological status of being a youthful male. A person learns how to react to situation in regard to how his behavior has been punished and rewarded on the previous instances. In conclusion, criminology development has put emphasis in explaining the problem of and reaction to crime while utilizing all fundamental disciplines in behavioral and social sciences. Social scientists have put more efforts to establish connection between human body physiology and crime, an approach mostly referred to as biological positivism. This theory does not give an approach of criminality that develops a vivid testable hypothesis. Psychoanalysis is branch of science of the psychology mental that was widely embraced in field of criminology. Positivists challenged psychoanalysis for using an approach that was both vulnerable to subjective misinterpretation and empirically unverifiable. Freud work highly welcomed by clinicians and theorists who concentrated unconscious inner operations of the human mind. Wilson James is one of the major players in the development of socio-biological interpretation of crime. His defines crime as an undertaking disproportionately executed by youthful men dwelling in big cities. References Bajpai, G. S. (2006), Criminology: An appraisal of present status and future directions, Journal Criminology & Forensic Science, 5 (3), 417-474. Bodenhorn, H., & Price, G. (2009), Crime and body weight in the nineteenth century, Journal of National Bureau of Economic Research, 2 (5), 57-84. Michaelmas, T. (2004), The re-emergence of psychoanalytical criminology, Journal of Criminological Theories, 3 (5), 321-382. Valier, C. (2000) ‘Looking Daggers: A Psychoanalytical Reading of the Scene of Punishment’, Punishment and Society, 2(4): 379–94. Walklate s (2007), Understanding criminology: current theoretical debates, Berkshire, McGraw- Hill Press.   Read More