Classicalism vs. Positivism
Classicalism vs. Positivism What is crime? What makes people commit crimes and how can we stop it? These, and many other questions similar to these, are asked by criminologists everyday. Criminology is an ever growing field, mainly because there is more and more research occurring and new theories linking people and crime coming out everyday. Below the main field of criminology there are many subfields that have different theories and philosophies on what they believe link criminal behavior. Two of the main criminology perspectives are Classical Criminology and Positivist Criminology. Although these two are both studied in the criminology field, their views are distinctly contradictory from each other. These two theories and many others like them all collaborate together and make the field of criminology what it is today. Criminology is basically “the scientific approach to studying criminal behavior” (Siegel 4). It refers to the study of the nature of crime or way that crime occurs. There are many facets of criminology and this definition is the broad umbrella term that covers the main idea. There are three main areas of significance to criminologists: the development of criminal law and its use to define crime, the cause of law violations and the methods used to control criminal behavior (Siegel 4). Since criminology is a science, it is studied in a scientific way using appropriate research tools and the scientific method. As well as criminology being a science, it is interdisciplinary, meaning that it involves two or more academic fields. Criminology intertwines with sociology, criminal justice, political science, psychology, economics and the natural sciences. One can not come up with the subject of criminology without mentioning what constitutes a crime. A “crime is an act that violates a political or moral law” (Wikipedia). These crimes may or may not be deviant. There are many ways to describe criminology, some include, an objective vs.
Cited: Bohm, Robert M. A Primer on Crime and Delinquency Theory, Second Edition. California: Wadsworth, a division of Thomson Learning, Inc., 2001. “Crime (disambiguation).” Wickipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 6 June 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_%28disambiguation%29>. Siegel, Larry J. Criminology, Ninth Edition. California: Thomson Wadsworth, 2006.