The classical school of criminology is based on Beccaria and Bentham. The main idea was that every person is only an animal when it comes to criminal affairs. Beccaria and Bentham considered that a person has a free will to do everything one wants. Hence, is a crime is committed, it was only a person’s will to commit it. In such a case, a punishment for every case will be determined only by the crime. Besides, the graveness of the punishment should be determined not by the harm caused to a victim, but by the harm caused to the society.
The positivist school of criminology is based on theories of Lombroso, Garofalo and Ferri. These criminologists tried to explain why people commit crimes from biological, psychological and social points of view. Lombroso, in his book “The criminal man” divided all criminal in three categories and explained how to punish every category. The point is that the main idea of the positivist school of criminology is that there is no free will; there are either biological or psychological, or social reasons for committing a crime.
The main common feature between both schools of criminology is that they try to explain why people commit crimes. However, as we see even nowadays, there is no single explanation. On the contrary, the school have many differences. The main difference between them is that the classical school of criminology is based on the idea that every human being decides alone what to do. On the other hand, the positivist school of criminology is based on the idea that a human being cannot decide anything; everything is decided by nature, environment and psychological peculiarities of every human being.
Shaw and McKay’s disorganization theory
Juvenile delinquency is one of the sharp problems in modern criminology. Many scientists tried to explain its origins and reasons. However, even nowadays there are too many theories of why juveniles commit crimes. Shaw and McKay were the representatives of the Chicago school of criminology. The main achievement of the school was the creation and development of the disorganization theory of criminal behavior. The disorganization theory of criminal behavior is based on the conclusion that the environment matters when it comes to crime rates. According to the environmental theory, a person from a poor disadvantaged district is most likely to commit a crime than the one who lives in a wealthy neighborhood.
Shaw and McKay implemented this theory into the juvenile criminology. Their concept of "social disorganization" suggests that many types of deviation occur, when the cultural values, norms and social bonds are absent, weakened or become inconsistent and not adequate. Shaw and McKay proved that juveniles tend to commit crimes in city or district centers, whereas the closer to suburbs they are, the less crimes they commit. Besides, they proved that regardless the ethnic group, the crime rate would always remain high in a district center. However, their theory has many weak points. The main disadvantage of the theory is that it does not take into account the ethnic and cultural differences between people. Although, the crime rate may remain higher in district centers regardless the ethnic group living there, the point is that crimes may vary (one ethnic group may murder whereas the other ethnic group rob only).
