What drives a person to commit a crime? Are murderers unique, peculiar beings, or is there a potential murderer within all of us, waiting for the right conditions to emerge? Throughout the history of criminology, both views have been supported.
We have wrongly associated this science with the solving of complex and intricate crimes, mainly due to popular TV shows and movies. In reality, criminology seeks to interpret the reasons why people turn to crime, viewing criminal behavior as a social phenomenon.
Starting in 18th-century Europe, where the law was omnipotent and punishments were inhumane, Cesare Beccaria laid the foundations for the Classical School of criminology and modern Criminal Law in general. The core principle of these theories is the existence of a social contract, which assumes that what holds society together is a common understanding and consensus on certain principles and values that define what is good and bad. This common agreement leads to social harmony and order and establishes unacceptable behaviors.
In turn, each individual seeks personal satisfaction and avoids displeasure. As a result, every criminal act is committed when the pleasure it offers outweighs the displeasure of the punishment. In other words, the criminal, knowing what is right and wrong, chooses to commit a crime for something they consider more important than the penalty they may face. Consequently, crime prevention is achieved through strict penalties.
This belief was criticized for its rationalism, as it does not acknowledge social or psychological factors that contribute to the commission of a crime.
A century later, the Positivist School emerged as an opposing force to the Classical School. The focus shifted from the crime itself to the criminal. With Cesare Lombroso as a key figure, the concept of the born criminal was introduced. This unique anthropological type was believed to have a predisposition to crime, alongside certain physical characteristics or stigmata, such as facial asymmetry, a prominent jaw, or excessive wrinkles. Lombroso recognized the significance of psychological and environmental factors and, therefore, identified additional types of criminals, such as psychopaths or occasional offenders.
Beyond the obvious objections to the work of the Positivist School, its practices have been deemed ethically unacceptable and dangerous for systematic extermination, as they rely entirely on genetic factors.
In the late 20th century, the effort to interpret crime shifted towards investigating economic and social causes, highlighting the concept of class struggle and conflict. New criminological theories centered their analyses on social stratification, power, and the state. Karl Marx had identified the capitalist system as a root cause of criminal behavior, viewing crime as an inherent function of society. Simply put, the capitalist system, having commodified all goods, creates artificial needs and social goals for individuals, making criminal behavior a response to the exclusion of lower-class strata from the institutional means to achieve these goals.
Criticism of these theories focuses on the fact that their views are not substantiated by empirical data. Situating crime within this framework could serve the creation of a comprehensive sociological theory of deviance.
In conclusion, perhaps the central question has not been clearly answered up to this day, but it has been replaced by others. What are the appropriate methods of correction, and how can they protect the citizen from the criminal and the criminal from the state? Is a crime-free society possible, or have we organized society (with properties, police, and Justice) based on the existence of crime?
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