Sociology 2266A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Montesquieu, Jeremy Bentham, Feminist School Of Criminology
6 Feb 2018
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Document Summary
Involves distribution of questionnaire to a sample of people, asking them whether they have committed a crime in a particular period of time. Important to criminological research; attempt to overcome weaknesses of police report data. All theories and the theorists who propose them are a ected by their social, political, economic, and historical circumstances. Consisted of group of european social philosophers/social reformers who lived during the 18th-century enlightenment. Three most well-known members: french philosopher baron de montesquieu (1689-1755, italian philosopher cesare beccaria (1738-1794, english philosopher jeremy bentham (1748-1832) Challenged the way criminals were dealt with: criticized absence of due process, and argued against death penalty and use of torture to extract confession. Beccaria: argued against secret accusations and use of torture, opponent of the death penalty, arguing that punishment should be proportional to the crime. Bentham: humans are rational, free-willed actors, human behaviour is governed by hedonistic (pleasure-pain) calculus, punishment should be restricted only to amount required to achieve deterrence.
