On Matters Criminological: Criminological Modernism and the Scientific Method

Criminological Modernism implied an approach to crime control which emphasised the importance of scientifically informed strategies of rehabilitation and welfare.

"…a method or procedure that has characterized natural science since the C17th, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses."
(Oxford English Dictionary: Scientific)

The Scientific Method

Goldharber and Nieto define ‘the scientific method’ as “a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge”.  Indeed, as can be seen in the OED definition to be termed scientific, a universally accepted methodological process based on empirical, quali-/quantifiable, replicable and falsifiable evidence subject to “specific principles of reasoning” has to be observed. For Auguste Comte , a pure social science had to both emphasise the use of empirical evidence, and induction of general scientific laws from the relationship (causal or correlational) between these facts.

Scientific Strategies: Welfare and Rehabilitation.

The Gladstone Report (1895) repudiated the Classicist concept of free will as well as it rejected Lombrosian biological determinism. For the Committee, crime was seen as a psychological problem with ‘socio-psychological precipitating and perpetuating factors’. Interestingly, it identified the important role of the family and how the family dynamic and early experiences of the ‘pre-delinquent child in a given family can have serious implications for adult criminality. It was argued that in the case of the pre-delinquent, welfare would address the problems through systemic and systematic support, observation, surveillance and the ‘policing of families’.

In the years leading up to publication of Gladstone’s report, - in particular by sociologists such as the French éminence grise Émile Durkheim – crime was seen as arising from the breakdown in the posited moral values of society, the erosion of social institutions and the annihilation of the social fabric. Indeed for Durkheim (influenced heavily by the sociological positivism of Auguste Comte who was the principal impetus behind the extension and application of the ‘scientific method’ of the natural sciences onto the social sciences), crime was seen as a social fact, requiring a social response -not a legislative or punitive-institutionalised one. The task at hand was to ameliorate the social conditions (Welfare) and restore to “independent co-operation” the individual (Rehabilitation).

(Davide Émile Durkheim, 1858-1917)

Sutherland, however, took quite a different approach. For him, crime existed by virtue of the existence of crimino-conducive ideals and an individual’s exposure to a network of ‘supporting controls’. Yes, the criminal was made and not born, but it was through frequency and quality of association and socialisation with people that rationalised their criminality, and acquired the requisite knowledge and understanding for their particular criminal pathway that the criminal was born.

Classicism and The Reasoned Culpable Offender

“noxiæ pœna par esto”
(Cicero)

In Judæo-Christian philosophy we find the lex talionis: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth etc. (Deuteronomy 19:17-21, and Exodus 21:23-21:27) – in itself not greatly different to the words found in many other ancient texts; a prime example of the ‘fixed tariff penalties’ mind-set that came to exemplify the classicist perspective. Cicero’s exhortation that the punishment fit the crime – that it should be both reasonable and proportionate to the transgression – though first being expressed in Ancient Rome, became one of the fundamental pillars of ‘Classicism’.

(Code of Hammurabi, 1750 BC)

For the Classicists, the only reason people committed crime was out of a rational and reasoned decision so to do. The offender alone (save for perhaps vague, or badly constructed law) was the sole locus of responsibility in regards to criminal transgression – not the social conditions peculiar to the individual, the lack of access to resources, relative deprivation or anything else.

Quisque faber suæ fortunæ
(Appius Claudius)

Every man is the architect of his fortune. Classicism wasn’t concerned with the motivations, underlying causes, or compulsions,  simply that a crime had been committed after some form of thought process had occurred. The offender had to be punished in a way that reflected the nature of his crime and would ensure that the ‘pain’ outweighed the ‘gain’ to rule out further criminality or repeat offending.

Critics of this perspective might naturally raise the question of objectivity in those passing judgement on the nature of punishment. Instead of potentially biased, subjectively ‘proportionate’ punishment such as the predetermined sentencing and fixed tariff penalties based on a particular crime or criminal acts, the response advocated here was one of ‘tailoring to the individual’: identifying what demonstrable issues the offender is presenting with and then ‘treating’ and ‘curing’ the offender of them through the aforementioned ‘scientifically informed strategies of rehabilitation and welfare’. By going one step further and extending and rolling out the Welfare System, it was held that crime and criminality could indeed be prevented.

The Challenge Posed to Biological Determinism

For the Positivists of a biologically deterministic persuasion, criminality was seen as intrinsic to the individual; id est. criminality was seen as a product of their genetic, biological make-up and as a result could not be ‘cured’ – much as an optician cannot cure a ‘patient’ demonstrating cæruleo luscum. Central to this position is the belief that the offender’s ability to perpetuate his criminal career must be removed, be it through measures physical or geographical. As a result they advocated responses such as incapacitation; which can mean the removal of ‘offending limbs and extremities’ (physical)- much as a surgeon would remove a tumour  or being hung for stealing a loaf of bread - or confinement and isolation (geographic) and eugenic interventions.

Knepper, in discussing Malta’s first ever criminologist Insp. Joseph Semini, draws attention to how what was taking place in Britain at the time had implications for the empire and the development of (indigenous) criminology therein, though by his own admission Semini’s approach was closer in line with the ‘Scuola Positiva’: Semini argued for less reliance on legal interventions and criminal sanction (punishment) and more emphasis on social welfare programmes with the potential for prevention, though talked about the criminal classes, ‘congenital delinquent tendencies’ and the ‘low specimens of humanity’ (c.f Lombroso and Atavism).

The totality of Semini’s work, though mildly Lombrosian in its philosophy, greatly reflects and demonstrates the ideals of Criminological Modernism as expressed in Britain in its treatment of offenders: greater emphasis on social policy responses, improved housing, industrial training, services to families, and educational interventions.

The Relationship between Modernity and Science :The Era of Criminology

The publishing of the 1895 Gladstone Report hailed the dawn of Garland’s ‘Era of Criminology’. The exact contents of the report are beyond the remit of this essay, but a basic familiarity of the report is important to bear in mind when considering the philosophical naissance of Criminological Modernism.

 For early British Positivists, Medicine, Psychoanalysis and Psychiatry were the principal influences. Criminality was indeed seen as a psychological and physiological sickness. As it was seen as a ‘medical’ problem of the mind, it was also seen as being treatable. For them, the delinquent was not born, but made. The only way to reverse the presented issues was through some form of psychodynamic, therapeutic rehabilitation.

What Criminological Modernism brought to the table with its penchant for rehabilitation and welfare was a direct challenge to both Classicism and Biological Determinism in that whilst using the very same operational language of science and approaching the issues with ‘scientifically informed strategies’, it sought to emphasise a socio-medical, iatric and therapeutic approach. The causes of crime and offending did not exist within a person-specific vacuum, and could only be successfully resolved through a combination of ‘prevention and cure’.