Synopsis of Criminological Theories

Critical Criminology

CLASSICAL THEORY

Origin About 1764 Founders Cesare Beccaria, Jeremy Bentham Most Important Works Beccaria, On Crimes and Punishments (1764); Bentham, Moral Calculus (1789) Core Ideas People choose to commit crime after weighing the benefits and costs of their actions. Crime can be deterred by certain, severe, and swift punishment. Modern Outgrowths Rational Choice Theory, Routine Activities Theory, General Deterrence Theory, Specific Deterrence, Incapacitation.

MARXISM/ CONFLICT THEORY

	Origin About 1848 Founders Karl Marx, Willem Bonger, Ralf Dahrendorf, George Vold Most Important Works Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (1848); Bonger, Criminality and Economic Conditions (1916); George Rusche and Otto Kircheimer, Punishment and Social Structure (1939); Dahrendorf, Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society (1959).
Core Ideas Crime is a function of class struggle. The capitalist system's emphasis on competition and wealth produces an economic and social environment in which crime is inevitable. Modern Outgrowths Conflict Theory, Radical Theory, Critical Criminology, the New Criminology, Radical Feminist Theory, Left Realism, Deconstructionism, Peacemaking

BIOLOGICAL POSITIVISM

Origin 1810 Founders Franz Joseph Gall, Johann Spurzheim, J.K. Lavater, Cesare Lombroso, Enrico Ferri, Raffaele Garofalo, Earnest Hooten, Charles Goring Most Important Works Lombroso, Criminal Man (1863); Garofalo, Criminology (1885); Ferri, Criminal Sociology (1884); Goring, The English Convict (1913); William Sheldon, Varieties of Delinquent Youth (1949); Eleanor Glueck and Sheldon Glueck, Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency (1950)

Core Ideas Some people have biological and mental traits that make them crime-prone. These traits are inherited and present at birth. Mental and physical degeneracies are the cause of crime. Modern Outgrowths Biosocial Theory, Psychodynamic Theory, Cognitive Theory, Behavioural Theory, Evolutionary Theory.

SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

Origin 1897 Founders Emile Durkheim, Robert Park, Ernest Burgess, Clifford Shaw, Walter Reckless, Frederic Thrasher Most Important Works Durkheim, The Division of Labor in Society (1893), and Suicide: A Study in Sociology; Park, Burgess, and John Mackenzie, The City (1925); Thrasher, The Gang (1926); Shaw et. al., Delinquency Areas (1925); Edwin Sutherland, Criminology (1924)

Core Ideas A person's place in the social structure determines his or her behavior. Disorganized urban areas are the breeding ground of crime. A lack of legitimate opportunities produces criminal subcultures. Socialization within the family, within school, and the peer group controls behavior. Modern Outgrowths Social Ecology Theory, Strain Theory, Cultural Deviance Theory, Learning Theory, Social Control Theory.

CRITICAL CRIMINOLOGY

Origin 1973 Influences Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, Giorgio Agamben, and Jacques Derrida. Most Important Works Foucault, Discipline and Punish (1975), and Society Must be Defended (1975-1976); Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (1977); Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (1998) and State of Exception (2005); Derrida, Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences (1966).

Core Ideas An approach to criminology that challenges exclusionary social conditions of poverty, racism, and sexism. It emphasizes the importance of interrogating conventional criminological discourses and the preconceptions of law, justice, crime and order contain therein.   Modern Variants Cultural Criminology, Left Realism, Post Structuralism, Feminism.