During the Age of Enlightenment, many philosophers argued that humans were rational, thinking agents who possessed free will. In this manner, they went against the church that claimed crime was often the result of demonic possession. This new approach brought about a significant paradigm shift in the way people looked at criminal behavior. If crime was the result of rational decision making, it would not be solved through religious intervention or sham trials in which the offender could feel confident the jury would not convict them. A better, more reliable system needed to be developed. It is in this setting the classical school of criminology was established.

The classical school of criminology is not a physical place, but instead refers to the roots of criminological thought in the writings of the philosophers and social reformers who became prominent during the Age of Enlightenment. This was when western societies were revolutionized by the emergence of new institutions of governance and old traditions were replaced by modern values and ideals. These theorists shared the belief that humans were reasoning beings who engaged in conscious deliberation—in other words, their decision-making was guided by self-interest, rationality (weighing the costs and benefits of various courses of action), and hedonism (the desire to maximize pleasure and minimize pain). The classical school of criminology also focused on methods of making the administration of justice, including criminal sanctions, more rational, effective, and efficient.

One of the most important concepts to arise from the Age of Enlightenment was the notion of the social contract. The social contract is the voluntary relinquishment of some freedoms in exchange for order and safety provided by a sovereign, or ruler. It is the social contract that allows the state to govern over individuals. Simply put, we agree to follow laws (giving up our freedom to do whatever we want) for the overall benefit of society. When someone breaks one of the agreed upon laws, they are essentially breaking the social contract.

3.4.1 Cesare Beccaria

One of the most well-known writers from the era of classical criminology is Cesare Beccaria. Beccaria was an Italian nobleman who belonged to an academic salon, or literary society, that debated issues of the day and sought to bring about legal reforms. In 1764, Beccaria published his treatise On Crimes and Punishments, in which he advocated for reform of the criminal justice system, including the elimination of torture, secret accusations, and the death penalty. One of Beccaria’s most important contributions to criminology, however, was his argument that punishment should be utilitarian—in other words, that punishment should serve the greater good rather than simply exact revenge or administer justice.

More specifically, Beccaria believed that the purpose of punishment was to deter crime, an argument that forms the foundation of deterrence theory (further discussed in Chapter 6). Deterrence relies on the fear of punishment to prevent individuals from engaging in criminal behavior. It is one of several utilitarian purposes of punishment, along with rehabilitation (reforming the offender) and incapacitation (physically preventing an offender from committing further offenses by isolating them from society). Utilitarian purposes of punishment contrast with symbolic purposes such as retributive justice (revenge), or the idea that punishment should be inflicted in service of vengeance, often referred to as an “eye for an eye”, or someone getting their “just desserts.”

Beccaria begins by describing the social contract. He claimed punishments are necessary to restrain the innate passions of all individuals, who would otherwise commit crimes to serve their own interests. Punishment, therefore, was necessary to defend the social contract. Any punishment inflicted without a clear utilitarian purpose, however, was considered by Beccaria to be tyrannical.

Beccaria also highlighted the importance of a system of checks and balances. He argued for the separation of powers between executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government. He stressed that the role of judges should be to determine guilt or innocence and apply sentences within the penalties established by the law. Furthermore, he emphasized the importance of codifying laws into written statutes and ensuring the general population could read and comprehend the laws in order to follow them. Ultimately, Beccaria believed that the surest way to prevent crimes was through educating the population. He claimed that as societies increased the literacy and education of their citizens, punishments would naturally become less severe, as more educated citizens would require lesser punishments to be deterred from crime.

The core of Beccaria’s arguments about deterrence is that punishment should be (1) swift, (2) certain, and (3) proportionate to the crime. The immediate nature of punishment (the swiftness) was important for at least two reasons. First, Beccaria believed that deterrence would be more likely if the punishment was paired more closely in time with the commission of crime. Second, Beccaria believed that the anticipation of punishment was nearly as painful as the punishment itself. Thus, a long drawn-out trial period was considered cruel (or as stated by former United Kingdom Prime Minister William E. Gladstone, “Justice delayed is justice denied.”). Beccaria also considered the certainty of punishment the most important element of deterrence—far more important than the severity of punishment. Someone had to believe they really would be punished if they were caught, and that there was no longer a chance the jury would let them off the hook to prove a point. Several research studies show that the actual or perceived certainty of punishment is a greater deterrent to crime than the actual or perceived severity of punishment.

Finally, Beccaria believed that the severity of punishment should be scaled to the severity of the crime. To make the punishment proportionate to the crime, one must consider the level of harm, or injury, to society. In other words, the punishment should “fit” the crime. At the same time, Beccaria also believed that a punishment should only be as severe as necessary to achieve the purpose of deterring crime. Anything beyond that was considered cruel.

Beccaria made many other arguments and his treatise was widely influential to the founding fathers of the United States. He is credited with helping to rationalize systems of justice and law and eliminating barbaric practices. His most important ideas can be condensed with the final entry in his treatise:

That a punishment may not be an act of violence, of one, or of many against a private member of society, it should be public, immediate and necessary; the least possible in the case given; proportioned to the crime, and determined by the laws.

Like other classical thinkers of the Enlightenment era, Beccaria assumed individuals had free will. He also believed that humans were rational, self-interested actors who sought to maximize their pleasure and minimize their pain. These assumptions imply that Beccaria held a specific theory of human (and criminal) behavior. However, Beccaria’s goal was to advocate change, specifically social and legal reforms rather than develop a theory of human behavior.

3.4.2 Jeremy Bentham

Following the popularity of Beccaria’s work in 1764, English philosopher Jeremy Bentham published his own proposal for how to address crime and punishment based on the new perspective promoted by Beccaria. In An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789), Bentham outlined his own utilitarian philosophy, arguing that “nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure.” According to Bentham, humans were indulgent and self-interested, but also rational. In other words, they would seek whatever promoted their pleasure and prevented their pain. The sources of pleasure/pain were broad; they could be physical (e.g., violence), political (e.g., legal sanctions), moral (e.g., reputation), or religious (e.g., damnation). These ideas would form the basis for Bentham’s theory to understand and explain human behavior.

Rational choice theory is consistent with deterrence theory and deals more explicitly with the various factors that govern human decision-making. Specifically, it is the idea that people will think through a cost-benefit analysis (weighing the pros and cons) to determine whether a particular option is right for them. Legal consequences are only one of many considerations that individuals might think about as they decide whether or not to consider committing a crime. The potential benefits—or pleasures—of crime might outweigh any potential legal consequences, especially if the risk of getting caught is low.

Rational choice theory is, therefore, a broader framework than the notion of deterrence because it emphasizes the negative consequences (both formal and informal) of crime as well as the potential benefits. For example, if someone is very hungry and has no money to buy food, they may see a chance to steal from a market when no one is looking. They weigh the options of remaining hungry versus committing theft with only a small chance of getting caught. In this case, they rationally determine the benefits are worth the minimal risk for potential negative consequences.

In addition to laying out this theory of human behavior, Bentham is well-known for a model of prison design referred to as the Panopticon (figure 3.3). The term “panopticon” literally translates to “all seeing” and is a bit of a mind trick devised by Bentham to keep people in order. Afterall, if the hungry person believes someone is watching them, they will not steal any food.

The Panopticon created by Bentham is a prison that is built on this very notion. It was designed so that a central tower was surrounded by a larger circle of cells. The central tower would house correctional authorities from where they see into every cell at all times and view residents of the prison constantly. The trick was that the people in the cells could not see into the tower, so they never actually knew whether they were being watched. They simply assumed they were being monitored at all times and behaved accordingly.

Bentham believed that this kind of design would lower the likelihood of misbehavior in prisons because residents would always feel under surveillance. This is consistent with his emphasis on rational choice. By raising the risk of apprehension, the design of the Panopticon could affect the decision-making of inmates.

Figure 3.3 Elevation, section and plan of Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon prison, executed by Reveley, 1791.

Although the philosophers who belong to the classical school of criminology made many assumptions about human nature and criminal behavior—for example, that humans had free will, were rational and hedonistic—their ideas preceded modern social scientific methods for testing these ideas. In addition, these texts were published as philosophical treatises focused on legal and social reform, and included no attempt at scientific explanation. Thus, the ideas in Beccaria’s and Bentham’s writings were not considered actual criminological theories until nearly 200 years later when researchers began testing them empirically.