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Criminal Justice

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The question of what causes people to exhibit criminal behavior is a question that continues to puzzle and intrigue scholars of criminology even after centuries of study. Many theories of crime exist. A couple of these concepts are the Classical, whose supporters insist that humans freely choose to commit crimes, and those which maintain that biological, psychological, and social characteristics influence criminal behavior. All philosophies attempt to explain the causation of criminal behavior, in different ways.
Classical Theory The classical school of crime causation came about in the eighteenth century as a result of the Enlightenment and emphasized free will and reasonable punishments. Classical thinkers from this time period strongly believed that in order for punishment to be effective, it must outweigh the pleasure that may be derived from crime. There are certain basic assumptions associated with the Classical school. Among them are the individual action of free will, and most human behavior comes from the process of rational thought coupled with the ability to act freely. Another one of these assumptions were that punishment defined as a necessary evil required to deter law violators from repeating their crime as well as to present an example to potential criminals. Cesare Beccaria ( 1738-1794) was one of the first classical thinkers i noted in my studies. His publication of “Essays on crime and punishment” was an immediate success in it’s release in 1764, and stirred up controversy about the treatment of criminals. He believed his propositions to change the law of his day would act to make them more “humanitarian”. He wanted to put an end to physical punishment and the death penalty. Although his ideas of justice did little to change how law is carried out today, his ideas spawned the emergence of many thinkers to challenge his theories in the

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