Radical Theories of Crime

Introduction:

‘Crime’ a word often used to describe an action, words, behaviour or something which causes harm, pain, grieve with or without any valid reasons this act must be against the norms of society or community as a whole[1]. This act tends to be termed as Crime. The word crime has various meaning and definition, this meaning may change from place to place and with time as well. In the 13^th century of medieval Europe, significant changes have brought forward in the legal science development in phrasing legal norms. This development in criminal law was the rising sun in its development of diverse. Some European Rulers during the year 1530 started making their own code of criminal procedures and statutes[2].

The whole objective of this code was to reduce and regularized the local crime rates with the hope of prosperity regulated with desirable behaviours. The application of law having secondary and subsidiary because the universal code of rules, whereas European legal code was mostly particular. legal code generally terms were at that point unified source where the norms have regulated description of crimes, determining sanctions for crimes and therefore the court procedures. Division of the legal code generally terms began in the 17th century. CONSTITUTIO, a word that originated and derived from Latin which means “the Ruler’s/king’s decision, official order or something proclaimed to be. This Term CONSTITUTIO today signifies the choice of Executive Office of the President, by which its jurisdiction is adequate as per laws, but the time period is limited to the extent of 1 year.

European continued with their development of legal conduct and code during the 17^th and 18^th century respectively. The most known code of criminal procedure of that period was: Constitutio criminalis thersiana, Constituio criminalis Leopoldina, Constituio criminalis josephina and lastly code de napoleon which was effective and valid till the year 1992 in France.

The most important and subsequent question was: what’s the explanation for a crime? The explanation for crime is usually associated with religious beliefs and values considered as an evil act of influence. Philosophers like such as Aristotle and Plato with their ideology have explained crime in a socio-economic environment with the development of Philosophy. Until 1700s perspective of prevailing religious explanation of crime remained at its peak. After the prominence of the classical theory of criminology as a primary school of recent research in the fields of criminology for the first time focused on the serious attempt of explaining the Logical and Philosophical reasons of any crime.

The philosophical method of explaining crime causality or the outcomes was too general to fathom. During that period of time, more focused was given to sociology for making the founding theories of crime. The positive method of criminology directed its research mostly on the criminal with the effort analyse the life of criminality in how, this changed the overall method of finding the relevant ways to form a theoretical model of crime but also changed the views on crime as well, by the way of processing data for scientific research and measurements.

Although with countless variable and causality there was a shortage of proper understanding of the experiment, even after bringing individual like Cesare Lombroso to implement his thesis. it’ll take tons of your time for scientists to seek out flaws of their thesis and conclusions, the complexity of mind to act and the time to research will increase with depth analysis requires time for the scientist to find out faults in the findings, research and conclusion to obtain an optimal method of classifying various methodology which in turns chances to form mistakes are reduced significantly.

With the growth of civilization ethics and moral compass within the society changed drastically. Few acts which were acceptable back in history now considered as grave and heinous offence of serious nature like slavery on the grounds of skin colour. As we advanced from the dark ages to the era of technological advancement perception of righteous and evil changed as well. As a civilised society, laws were framed to define right and wrong, every wrongful act has a fair share of punishment. the idea of crime is deeply rooted in the minds of every individual’s bounds by the belief and faith in ethics. In the minds of ordinary people that have been used to make sense of observations with intention of doing something. In an attempt to control the twisted mindset of people having, various methods were used to identify the working behind the minds of an offender. To understand the basis and working of a criminal one must understand the ideology of working inside that person. Under the laws how the revolution took place to analyse the crime and individual.

Crime Classification

The person who commits an act or series of actions which amounts to legal consequences is termed as crime and the offender would be called as a criminal. Most crimes are segregated on the basis of their consequences and damages caused overall by the person or a group of individuals. This method of classifying crime is used to grade or scale on the severity of the criminal’s action punishment will be given. There are 4 different kinds of the offender which are as follows:

1. Violators: these acts are merely infraction, least serious in nature having no harsh punishment. These offences are merely punishable with a fine or a term of sentence at the option of the offender. Few of these offences for e.g. spitting at public places, not wearing a helmet while riding bike etc, such as offence under Motor Vehicle Act which is generally punishable with fine if such penalty or dues are denied then such penalty may convert into jail sentence[3].
2. Misdemeanours: these kinds of offences are basically having punishment attracting penal provisions with long tenures of jail. Cognizance of the offence has a far wider reach in comparison of violators, any affected individual can enforce the law as stated by the country’s Statute. Offences such as Rash Driving, Cheating, Theft etc. usually offence would attract punishment up to 7 years or in some circumstances 10 years maximum.
3. Heinous/Serious: these offenders often considered as threats to society having an impact on a larger scale, usually these offenders put society, government and lawmakers under question with respect to their norms, regulations required for a change in those laws. Offences such as Murder, rape or any such offences having punishment of 10 years or more may include life imprisonment and the death penalty as well.

These grading systems are based on the severity of punishment leading to simplification of judgment. One of the aspects with this classification is about learning behaviour of criminals and intention to do the same. Various research has been conducted by numerous research institute to understand the complex thoughts that go inside the minds of the individuals who intend to harm various lives[4].

Theory of Crime

Thought is the key to inception of any action, prof. Hirschi through his research on criminology and criminals pointed out a certain fascinating fact about a person who chooses the path of ill will and wrongdoing. This isn’t the 1st time such research has taken place; these are the foundations of lawmaking. The whole purpose is to focus light on the dark side of the society where people rather than blooming prefer mindless act with a far greater consequence[5]. Thus, the mindset or the decision tends to influenced by some action which as per their belief held of greater importance, criminal behaviour is an act of free will and from their perspective it is completely philosophical. There are various reason upon which a person prefers an act of violation. Few of them are as follows:

1. Psychological Theory

In the year 1913, a psychological theory of crime came into existence. The whole purpose of this theory was to learn the connection between behaviour and intelligence of a person. The link which is the support between them causes a provocative action to initiate the cause. Through extensive research, it was found that apart from intelligence, personality traits also formed a very crucial part of the criminal. As per the Dr Robert hare, personality traits causing a person to go psychopath, the sociopath was a constant element in the psychological factor of the crime. Unacceptance of society or the community where they belong no longer give them a sense of belonging. It is on that moment action arises in a form of philosophical understating where the person feels comfortable to harm others without signs of empathy. Thus, the psychological factor is directly connected with the personality of the individual.

2. Social Theory

By the beginning of the 19th century, it was observed that certain elements also included on the path of crime just because of social impact. Society as a whole consist of different classes of people some privileged some aren’t. there are people who get everything on the fingertip, on the other hand, a person cannot get a single dime. The social theory includes the class of people who follows the path to acquire everything in an instant without following the ladder to life. These factors tend to prove that competing society gave rise to this mandatory social evil. This crime will exist as long as humans exist, certain groups who are less fortunate to achieve the life valued by society is one of the trigger points in the first place[6].

3. Biological Theory

In the early days of human civilisation, wherein occupation was a hereditary part and cannot be interchanged as when desired. During the initial days, biological factors was the 1^st theory ever discovered to analyse the mind of a person moving into crime. The crime was caused due to genetic inheritance by the biological parents to the child. The cause was the Human DNA, surroundings, nutrition, exposure of bad elements such as drugs, smoke, alcohol during pregnancy etc, are few of the factors considered for the biological theory of crime.

4. Classical Theory

The classical theory defines that person does not need any reason or factor to commit any illegal act, it is because that individual out of own free will commits those acts to harm life or property for his/her own personal gain. Thus, there is no denial or protection to such action, would amount to punishment of equal value. Criminal laws with strict statues and prison would be the best solution as per the classical theory.

Conclusion

There is no specific definition of criminal theories it is a vast concept, just like a human brain with complex ideas and completely different from others very unique to its core. To understand such complex nature of the human mind, theories won’t be sufficient to fulfil the void of justice and crime. It is an ongoing process so long the human stays on this earth. There few more theories propounded from time to time other than the above mainstream theories are cultural, deterrence, labelling, self-control, Routine activity etc these basically form the part and parcel of the original ideas of theories of crime with vast detailing to every aspect closely.

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References:

[1] Testing the core empirical implication on crime 1993.

[2] (Constitutio Criminalis Carolina (1532), Constitutio Criminalis Bambargensis (1509) and other criminal codes)

[3] OER Services on criminal law

[4] American Psychological Association 1990 Stanford university press

[5] Crime L. & Criminology 229

[6] Chicago school of criminology