YouTube Lecture Notes — Theoretical Perspectives (Classical & Positivist) — Criminology

Source

Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQe8ZUZBIxt-X1qRVwO8XUck3IeCuUVZE

Notes extracted from the CSS Criminology YouTube lecture series, Topic 4 — "Theoretical Perspectives" (per FPSC syllabus). This subpage covers the Pre-Classical, Classical, and Positivist (biological & psychological) schools; see the companion subpage under Chapter 4b for the Sociological schools and the Islamic perspective on crime, both covered in the same lecture.

Lecture Notes — Pre-Classical, Classical & Positivist Schools

Pre-Classical School of Thought

Earliest attempts to explain criminal behaviour, rooted in superstition and religion rather than reason
Explanations included possession by evil spirits/demons, witchcraft, and the influence of the body's "humors"
Crime was widely believed to occur under supernatural influence; punishment was accordingly harsh, arbitrary, and often physically brutal, with no concept of proportionality

Classical School of Thought

Emerged during the Enlightenment (17th–18th century), led by criminologists Cesare Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham
Core idea: humans are rational actors who exercise free will, weighing the potential pleasure/reward of an act against its potential pain/risk before acting (a cost-benefit calculation)
If the perceived reward outweighs the risk of punishment, a rational person may choose to offend — "the risk is worth it"
Policy implication: punishment must be certain, swift (immediate), and proportionate to the crime in order to effectively deter rational offenders
This school laid the foundation for deterrence theory and for proportionality principles in modern sentencing

Positivist School of Thought

Reacted against the Classical School's abstract free-will assumption; instead uses scientific, empirical methods to study the actual causes of crime
Three main branches: biological, psychological, and sociological perspectives
Central debate: determinism vs free will — positivists argue criminal behaviour is shaped/determined by biological, psychological or social factors rather than being a pure free choice
Cesare Lombroso is regarded as the founder of modern (positivist) criminology, treating criminology as a science

Biological Perspective

Seeks physical/biological differences between criminals and non-criminals — anatomy, psychiatric disorders, genetic factors, and learning difficulties as possible causes of criminal behaviour
Lombroso's theory: criminals were evolutionary "throwbacks" (atavistic, primitive) compared to ordinary citizens, identifiable by physical stigmata — cranial/skull shape and size, sloping/receding forehead, prominent jaw, unusual eye/eyebrow shape, size of ears, asymmetric facial features — an approach later discredited but historically foundational (phrenology-adjacent craniometry used to try to predict criminal tendency)
Body-type (somatotype) theory (William Sheldon): three physical builds linked to temperament — endomorph (soft/rounded build, relaxed/sociable temperament), mesomorph (muscular/athletic build, aggressive/assertive temperament, linked to higher offending), ectomorph (thin/fragile build, introverted/sensitive temperament)
Chromosome theory: studies proposing a link between an extra Y chromosome (XYY) and heightened aggressive/criminal tendency in a small subset of male offenders

Psychological Perspective

Charles Goring: studied the relationship between crime and "defective intelligence," arguing criminality correlated with lower measured intelligence rather than physical stigmata
Sigmund Freud (psychoanalytic theory): an individual's personality is shaped by unconscious mental processes rooted in early childhood experience; offenders are often frustrated, unhappy, and antisocial, sometimes reflecting an underlying personality disorder
Cognitive theory: views cognitive processes (thinking patterns, moral reasoning, information processing) as the central driver of behaviour, thought, and emotion — poor/distorted cognitive development in early childhood can produce antisocial or offending behaviour later in life

Past Paper Angles

"Explain the Classical School of criminology and its policy implications for punishment."
"Discuss Lombroso's biological theory of crime and its criticisms."
"Compare the Classical and Positivist Schools of criminological thought."

🎥 YouTube Lecture Notes — Theoretical Perspectives (Classical & Positivist)