Neo-Classical School of Criminology and Its Development

Written by Ms Nikita Rai

The word Criminology is deduced from the combination of two Latin words, crimen which means crime, and logos which means study or knowledge in the time 1890. Criminology is a socio-legal study that strives to discover the causes of crime and suggests applicable remedies. Criminological Propositions are an important part of criminology. The proposition is a term used to describe an idea or set of ideas that are intended to explain data or events.

Thus, a proposition is suggested or presented as conceivably true, but that isn’t known or proven to be true, as well as, the general principles or ideas that relate to a particular subject. Criminological Propositions examine why people commit crimes and are veritably important in the ongoing debate of how crime should be handled and averted. Numerous propositions have been developed and delved throughout the times. These propositions continue to be explored, independently and in admixture, because criminologists pursue the consummate explications in ultimately reducing types and intensities of crime.

Following the French Revolution, the Neoclassical Academy was developed as a concession to the Classical and Positivists Seminaries of Criminology. The French Code of 1789 was innovated based on Beccaria’s principles. Just like Beccaria’s principles, the French Code of 1789 called for the judge being the only medium for applying the law, and the law took the responsibility for defining a penalty for every crime and every degree of crime.

There was a problem with this still ago there’s a different condition in each situation that was being overlooked. This allowed for the first time and reprise malefactors to be treated in the same manner, as well as children and grown-ups, stable and insane, and so on being treated as if they were the same.

A new set of liberals argues that the treatment of others as the same was illegal and complained about injustice. Gabriel Tarde suggested that there was a difference between total free will and determinism and argued that no one has free will. He suggested that factors similar as age, gender, social and profitable surroundings, nonetheless everyone is still responsible for their conduct. The Neoclassical Academy of Criminology had a base on the lawbreaker’s character.

Responses to the impersonal features of no discretion came to a point of action to give judges the discretion that was demanded to attain a fair course of action and corrections for malefactors. The judges were suitable to use discretion in cases where age, internal capabilities, and other justifying circumstances were of issue. These conditions and variations came to be known as the Neo-Classical School of Criminology.

The Neo-Classical School of Criminology allowed for mollifying factors to be reviewed by a judge and allowed for discretion to be used. Before the Neo-Classical School, all malefactors have treated the same no matter what age, internal condition, gender, and so on. This was seen as illegal and unjust and allowed for chance change. The Neo-Classical School called for judges to have discretion which is necessary in some cases. The Neo-Classical School was also suitable to blend the Classical School of Criminology with the Positivist School of Criminology.

According to this proposition, there’s a difference between total free will and determinism and argues that no person has free will. The neo-classical academy allows for mollifying factors to be reviewed by a Judge as per his discretion.

Before the arrival of this academy, all the malefactors were treated likewise no matter what age, internal condition, gender, and so on. Neo-Classicalists saw this as illegal and unjust and therefore allowed for chance change. This proposition allows for the consideration of mollifying factors like physical and social terrain where the existent was placed. The main tenets of the neo-classical academe of criminology can be epitomized as follows

 1. Neo-classists approached the study of criminology on scientific lines by recognizing that certain extenuating situations or internal conditions deprive a person of his normal capacity to control his conduct. Thus they justified mitigation of equal discipline in cases of certain psychopathic malefactors. Editorializing on this point, Prof. Gillin observed that neo-classists represent a response against the strictness of the classical view of equal discipline for the same offense.

 2. Neo-classists were the first in point of time to bring out a distinction between the first malefactors and the recidivists. They supported the individualization of culprits a treatment styles which demanded the discipline to suit the psychopathic circumstances of the criminated. Thus although the act ‘or the crime’ remained the sole determining factor for adjudging crime without any regard to the intent, the neo-classical academe concentrated at least some attention on internal occasion indirectly.

 3. The attorneys of this academe started with the introductory supposition that man acting on reason and intelligence is a tone- determining person and therefore, is responsible for his conduct. But those lacking normal intelligence or having some internal depravity are reckless in their conduct as they do not retain the capacity of distinguishing between good or bad and therefore should be treated differently by the responsible malefactors.

 Thus it would be seen that the main donation of the neo-classical academe of criminology lies in the fact that it came out with certain concessions in the free will proposition of classical academe and suggested that an existent might commit lawless acts due to certain extenuating circumstances which should be duly taken into consideration at the time of awarding discipline.

Therefore, besides the lawless act as analogous, the personality of the lawless as a whole, his antecedents, motives, former life- history, general character, etc., should not be lost sight of in assessing his guilt. It may be noted that the origin of the jury system in lawless justice is an outgrowth of the response of the neo-classical approach towards the treatment of malefactors. As to the failing of the neo-classical academe of criminology, it must be stated that the interpreters of this proposition believed that the lawless, whether responsible or reckless, is menace to society and therefore, needs to be barred from it.

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