The Classical School of Criminology

During the middle of eighteenth century Beccaria, the pioneer of modem criminology expounded his naturalistic theory of criminality by rejecting the omnipotence of evil spirit. He laid greater emphasis on mental phenomenon of the individual and attributed crime to ‘free will’ of the individual.

Thus, he was much influenced by the utilitarian philosophy of his time which placed reliance on hedonism, namely, the “pain and pleasure theory”. As Donald Taft rightly put it, this doctrine implied the notion of causation in terms of free choice to commit crime by rational man seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. The main tenets of classical school of criminology are noted below:

(i) Man’s emergence from the State’s religious fanaticism involved the application of his reason as a responsible individual.

(ii) It is the act of an individual and not his intent which forms the basis for determining criminality within him. In other words, criminologists are concerned with the ‘act’ of the criminal rather than his ‘intent’. Still, they could never think that there could be something like crime causation.

(iii) The classical writers accepted punishment as a principal method of infliction of pain, humiliation and disgrace to create ‘fear’ in man to control his behaviour.

(iv) The profounder of this school, however, considered prevention of crime more important than the punishment for it. They therefore, stressed on the need for a Criminal Code in France, Germany and Italy to systematise punishment for forbidden acts. Thus, the real contribution of classical school of criminology lies in the fact that it underlined the need for a well defined criminal justice system. Beccaria, in his historic work on CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS denounced retributive basis of punishment and observed that the aim of punishment should only be to prevent the criminal from committing new crimes against his countrymen, and to keep others from doing likewise. Therefore, the punishments and the method of inflicting them, should be close in proportion to crime so as to make the most efficacious and lasting impression on the mind of men and the least painful impressions on the body of the criminal.

(v) The advocates of classical school supported the right of the State to punish the offenders in the interest of public security. Relying on the hedonistic principle of pain and pleasure, they pointed out that individualisation was to be the basis of punishment. This in other words meant that punishment was to be awarded keeping in view the pleasure derived by the criminal from the crime and the pain caused to the victim from it. For the punishment to be efficacious, it is enough that the disadvantage of the punishment should exceed the advantage anticipated from the crime; in which the emphasis should be on the certainty of punishment and the loss of the expected benefit. Everything beyond this, accordingly, is surplus and, therefore, tyrannical.

(vi) The exponents of classical school further believed that the criminal law primarily rests on positive sanctions. They were against the use of arbitrary powers of Judges. In their opinion the judges should limit their verdicts strictly within the confines of law. They also abhorred torturous punishments. Thus, judicial discretion is of seminal value while awarding the maximum punishment, reasons must be detailed and specific.

Thus, classical school propounded by Beccaria came into existence as a result of the influence of writings of Montesquie, Hume, Bacon and Rousseau. His famous work Essays on Crimes and Punishment received wide acclamation all over Europe and gave a fillip to a new criminological thinking in the contemporary west.

He sought to humanise the criminal law by insisting on natural rights of human beings. He raised his voice against severe punishment, torture and death penalty. Beccaria’s views on crime and punishment were also supported by Voltaire as a result of which a number of European countries redrafted their penal codes mitigating the rigorous barbaric punishments and some of them even went to the extent of abolishing capital punishment from their Penal Codes.

The contribution of classical school to the development of rationalised criminological thinking was by no means less important, but it had its own pitfalls. The major shortcoming of the classical school was that it proceeded on an abstract presumption of free will and relied solely on the act (i.e., the crime) without devoting any attention to the state of mind of the criminal.

It erred in prescribing equal punishment for same offence thus making no distinction between first offenders and habitual criminals and varying degrees of gravity of the offence. However, the greatest achievement of this school of criminology lies in the fact that it suggested a substantial criminal policy which was easy to administer without resort to the imposition of arbitrary punishment.

It goes to the credit of Beccaria who denounced the earlier concepts of crime and criminals which were based on religious fallacies and myths and shifted emphasis on the need for concentrating on the personality of an offender in order to determine his guilt and punishment. Beccaria’s views provided a background for the subsequent criminologists to come out with a rationalised theory of crime causation which eventually led the foundation of the modem criminology and penology.