Foundations of Crime Control Policy

Paper Summary:

In this article, the writer discusses whether a commitment to science and rationality and their application in public policy was a defining characteristic of modernity. The writer examines this issue and discusses its implications for understanding the nature of crime control policy up until the 1970s in Britain. The writer maintains that it would make sense to differentiate between science and rationality. The writer concludes that belief in rationality has, of course, informed both research and public policy; but belief in science, used as it is narrowly in English, did not seem to have had much impact, at least in Britain, on the crime control policy.

From the Paper:

"Even though traditional understanding of the development of criminology pits the likes of Cesare Lombroso, Enrico Ferri and Raffele Garofalo against the classicists, it makes sense to argue that these positivists were merely extending the logical implications of placing criminology on a more scientific basis. What perhaps made this Italian school unique was its belief, set within the context of a rise in the study of demography and statistics, that the scientific method was beyond reproach, namely that it was free from value judgments upon which policy should be made. Pushing this development still further, Lombroso introduced the method of the natural sciences to criminology, contending that crime was mainly a biological phenomenon. Criminals were, according to criminal anthropologists, 'born' because it was possible to locate common anatomical features to all criminals who had atavistic tendencies that shared much in common with underdeveloped races."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Beirne, Piers and James Messerschmidt eds (1995), Criminology. Second Edition, Fort Worth: Wandsworth Publishing.
• Fattah, Ezzat A. (1997), Criminology: Past, Present and Future. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
• Garland, David (1994), 'The development of British criminology' in Mike Maguire et al (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Criminology. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

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