18th Century Enlightenment

Routine activity theory presents a systematic approach to comprehending the dynamics of criminal behaviour. According to this theory, three key elements must align for a crime to take place: a motivated offender, a suitable target,

How did crime and punishment change from 1000-1450? (12 Marks) In this essay I will be explaining how crime and punishment changed over the time period of 1000 to 1450, which inolves many contributing events and factors. These factors will be explored and presented in this essay. The question asked is an open-ended question, and I am aware of the length of an answer a question such as this may merit.

The act of civil punishment started from the influence of European practices. The very first execution was in 1608. Following the first death, the death penalty became more frequent in the court. During the colonial period, Beccaria (an Italian criminologist during the Age of Enlightenment) started influencing ideas of preventing and abolishing the death penalty. Leading up the the Civil War, the death penalty was diminished.

The history of capital punishment in America can be traced as far back as the early 17th century when George Kendall of Virginia was executed in 1608 for allegedly committing treason. Daniel Frank, also from Virginia, was executed in 1622 for theft. Whereas some English colonies (Virginia, Massachusetts, New York) were parochial in their application of the death penalty for crimes ranging from murder, sodomy, burglary, arson, rape and treason, others (South Jersey, Pennsylvania) were less so. By 1776, most of the colonies had roughly comparable death statutes with hanging being the usual sentence. Not until the Italian jurist Cesare Beccaria published On Crimes and Punishment in 1767 did the reform movement gain strength.

As indicated, the influence of his slim book was apparent from Russia, where Catherine the Great praised the work, to the American colonies, where Thomas Jefferson and John Adams quoted from him. The success of the treatise is explained by the author Maestro (1942) who stated, "Moreover, the great merit of Baccaria’s book — and this explains its great success and the practical impact that it would soon have in many countries lies in the fact that for the first time the principles of a penal reform were expressed in a systematic and concise way, and the rights of humanity were defended in the clearest terms, with the most logical arguments" (Maestro, 1942, p., 34). “On Crimes and Punishments” was published in many languages all over the world and was influential in the creation and reform of penal systems across the globe. The popularity of the book may well have centered around the fact that Beccaria discussed issues that were being widely expressed at that time. In addition, more than one country or, in the case of America, group of colonies, were moving toward overyghrowing monarchies and instituting a republican form of government.

The United States remains in the minority of nations in the world that still uses death as penalty for certain crimes. Capital punishment is seen by many as barbaric and against American values, while others see it as a very important tool in fighting violent pre-meditated murder. One of the supporters of the Death penalty was a man named Walter Berns (a professor of American constitutional law and political philosophy.) He wrote clearly about his view on the death penalty in his Crime and Delinquency article, “Defending the Death Penalty.” He argued that the “Opposition to capital punishment is a modern phenomenon, a product of modern sentiment and modern thought” (p. 504) and with the help of historical references and logical reasoning throughout

1. The central theme of Beccaria’s “On Crimes and Punishments,” is that if criminals are prosecuted and punished for committing a crime, others are deterred to commit to same crime to avoid the punishment. If continued in a pattern, crime and punishment will be connected mentally, meaning that people would assume that if a crime is committed, a punishment will soon follow. 2. Beccaria’s theory rests on three assumptions, which are that the individual possess freewill, rational manner and manipulability.

Cesare Beccaria was seventeenth century writer, who wrote about his views and opinions of the criminal justice system. One of Beccaria 's beliefs was that the court system and laws should be used to keep safety and order. In order to make the judicial system better, Beccaria wanted to fix the corruption of the judges. In addition to this, Beccaria believed that knowing you would get punished was better than knowing that the punishment were terrible. Another of Beccaria 's beliefs was that the punishment should fit the crime.

During the early colonial times, the death penalty could have been used for any offense, big or small. One man in 1767 named Cesare Beccaria wrote an essay called On Crimes and Punishment that changed the view of capital punishment for everyone.

While we prefer life in jail, they preferred death. To conclude, a significant extent of the nature of crime and punishment changed between social classes and over the years since the Medieval Period. This is seen through the significant groups that were involved in medieval crime and punishment, the effects of a person’s social class on crime and punishment, the sort of crime each punishment was used for and the difference between crime and punishments between the Medieval Period and today. The Medieval Period lasted from 476 CE to 1453 CE, with different punishments for each crime committed by different social

The deterrence hypothesis is frequently associated with the notion of harsh, disproportionate punishment since the fear of external punishment is a significant motivator in crime deterrence. Threats or limited use of force by one person can persuade another party to forgo taking other action, according to the deterrence theory, which is a branch of theory and practice. According to Beccaria in particular, classical crime theory is predicated on the idea that people are free of choice and hence entirely accountable for their actions, as well as having the capacity to consider their options in a reasonable manner. Within the framework of the criminal justice system, Beccaria emphasized personal dignity.

These three ways that were presented to organize the power of punishment all shifted who would essentially possess the ability to dictate punishment and was in a sense preparing society for our present day penal

This freewill element of the criminal justice system disallowed that which had predominantly been governed by religion. The idea was seen as a choice of individual decision and did not stand for the social situation and its effect on individual behaviour. Classicism suggested that criminal acts were committed by rational beings, which discourages state intervention to crime rather than being punished, that potential criminals should be made know the gravity of the offence and the consequences of their acts (by clearly defining legal boundaries), that discretion was to be prevented (judges were responsible for enforcement of the law, not construe it) and the penalty of offence for the punishments should be based on the crime and not the individual. Willan Publishing, pp.12 & Joyce, P. (2009).[3]. Classicism nevertheless, is not without its criticisms.

Even in the 21st century, the question of why people get involved in criminal behavior is a difficult one to answer because individuals doesn’t just randomly decide to commit a crime. In the past there have been several opposing theories of crime and punishment. According to the textbook, Corrections an introduction, by Richard P. Seiter, “The positive school was created by Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909), with the suggestion that people sometimes commit acts beyond their control (11).” This theory is correct because crime is not necessarily the result of free will like the classical school suggests it is, and even if it was, according to the neoclassical school no one has complete free will (Seiter, 12). This reason for this is because it suggests

important role in the judicial proceedings that anything that was not within its moral standing was seen as a crime. Crime was viewed as completely unnatural under the ‘natural law’ of God which prevailed during the feudalistic era (Vold 1958). This law assumed that each individual had a natural tendency to do good rather than evil where the violation of this law through the commitment of a crime would be considered a sin and punishable as a sin. Crime was punished very harshly as it was seen as influence from the devil. Under Beccaria and Bentham, all humans were capable of making rational choices, whose punishment was to be rationally applied (White et al 2012).