SOC 1500 Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Psychopathy, Y Chromosome, Impulsivity
1 Jun 2018
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SOC 1500
CHAPTER 4
The Demonic Era
• riials uderstood y the ause of
o Deos, eil spirits, ideteriate fore of eil
• Spirit possessions were seen to be a primary cause of anti-social behaviour
• Archeologists found skeletons bearing indications of aoral ehaiour
o Cranial surgery
o Trepanation
▪ Holds drilled into the skull
o Thought that deos ould e released ad soul ould retur to a oral state
o Unlikely many would have survived this procedure
Magna Carta
• Important historical document
• Foundation of modern laws and procedures in English law
• Guaranteed individual rights and liberties
o A person could not be imprisoned or extradited by British unless they were lawfully
judged to be guilty of an offence
• Enlightenment
o Powerful intellectual movement
o Changes were gradually put into judiciary based on ideas of philosophers
• Hobbes
o Theory
▪ People would choose a state with a government over a state without one
▪ People are better off in a state where only the government can legitimately
exercise aggression
▪ Believed it was unnatural for people to put themselves under control of the
state, it is rational for people to do so
• Locke
o Natural human condition at birth was skin to a blank slate
o Social interaction and human experience wrote the principle contributions to the
growth of personality
o All hildre oe ito the orld ith a fully futioal operatig syste
▪ To understand basic concepts and ideas required to get through life
o Nurture, not nature was the force that shaped the human personality
o Concerned about the relationship between individual and society
o Through social contract humans compromise their natural state of freedom
▪ The state proides ertai rights ad protetio to soiety’s eers
o While the state has power over the individual, the state is obligated to provide citizenry
with life, liberty, and health
o Informs modern ideas of citizenship
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o Belief in the scientific method and in rational thinking was being hailed as an alternative
approach for understanding the social world
o Superstitious beliefs and religious dogma became seen as barrier to the truth
o No special attention was given to sex or gender as important to understanding the
nature of crime
o Males were most likely to be involved in criminal behaviour than females
o Free will and rational thought were deemed the basic building blocks of human activity
and social organization
The Classical School of Criminology
• Beccaria
o Punishment should be formulated for the purpose of deterrence
o Further offending should not be imposed in such a way that further offending would not
be committed by offenders themselves
▪ Ideas are known as individual and general deterrence
o To achieve this goal, punishment of criminals should be swift and certain
▪ The more promptly and closely punishment follows commission of a crime, the
more useful it will be
▪ Based on the Enlightenment principle that human beings are rational thinkers
o Punishment issued by the state should be only severe enough to outweigh the personal
benefits derived from the commission of the crime
▪ Additional punishment would be unnecessary
▪ Punishment should fit the crime
o Systematically expostulating his conviction that criminals are rational, free-willed
decision makers
▪ We choose to commit crimes
▪ Can be deterred by the threat of punishment
• Bentham
o Utilitarian movement
o Utilitarianism
▪ Belief that reason requires decisions to be made according to what will procure
the greatest good for the greatest number
o Humans are rational actors
o Society should be based on a social construct whereby liberties are exchanged freedom
o A person contemplating a crime were sure of being caught and punished, then the crime
would not be committed
▪ General deterrence
o Punishment could serve the function of individual deterrence
▪ A criminal punished would not commit a further offence
o Judges should not have the power to exercise complete discretion in passing a sentence
▪ The sentence should be about equal to the crime
▪ Known as determinant sentencing
• John Howard Society
o Dedicated to the humane treatment of prisoners
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