CRIM 300W Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: True Crime, Human Behavior, Rationality
21 Nov 2013
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Document Summary
Historically crime was caused by supernatural/religious factors: crime caused by forces of evil, devil, thunderstorms, full moon. Notion remains today: catholic church offers course on exorcisms, academics still use term evil, true crime books evil. Types of punishments for evil offenders: beheadings, tortured, burned, stoned, quartered. Understanding of crime as supernatural continued n mid 1600"s. Constantly state of fear of everyone else. At war with one another: however, individuals are rational. Fear and aggression turns individuals groups (nations: fear needed conformity to rules, fear important factor. Division of labour, finding mates, providing protection. Also caused conformity: few rights during this period. <1% of people controlled land and agriculture: until people had respect never fully buy in to authority. Government protection in exchange for abiding by rules: social contract people should have a say in government. Formation of democracy: people had say in government and cjs, emphasized fairness in sentencing/punishing.
