The Free-Will-Deterrence Model
The "classical school" (so-called because the divergent ideas of many scholars with similar ideas during this epoch were called that by history) was a social movement that existed during the late 1700s and the early 1800s. The "classical" part of it is derived from the similarity in thinking between those scholars and early Greek philosophy (Aristotle, Plato, etc.) which also put forth the importance of free will. However, "free will" is NOT the only defining feature of something that is "classical", and in fact, there is a "neoclassical school" that is based on the idea of character (as a compromise between free will and determinism) and a rational choice school of thought which has similar but not the essential features of "classical," Rational choice is the idea that there are many more complex decision making variables in the reasoning process of offenders than the simple free will - deterrence model makes out.
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The concept of rationally preventing crime by punishment (what they meant by deterrence at the time) was considered a great humanitarian reform, superior in many ways to cruel and unusual medieval torture practices that existed. It is best understood against the backdrop of what history calls the Enlightenment. This broader movement (encompassing rationalism, naturalism, and humanitarianism) was the pinnacle of naturalism's rejection of all things spiritual, all things divine (such as divine right of kings, or in criminology, all explanations along the lines of
The concept of rationally preventing crime by punishment (what they meant by deterrence at the time) was considered a great humanitarian reform, superior in many ways to cruel and unusual medieval torture practices that existed. It is best understood against the backdrop of what history calls the Enlightenment. This broader movement (encompassing rationalism, naturalism, and humanitarianism) was the pinnacle of naturalism's rejection of all things spiritual, all things divine (such as divine right of kings, or in criminology, all explanations along the lines of