Controlling Crime: The Classical Perspective in Criminology

The classical conception of human action, with its emphasis on freedom, rationality and choice, has in recent times found new favour with the rise of monetarist economics. It has also been influential in criminology. Like its monetarist relation, the criminological version has :ended to be associated with a politically conservative stance. It has focused on effective crime control, assuming humans to be free, rational and choice-making and hence best kept in order by increasing the risks of committing crime. In emphasizing deterrence through punishment and the reduction of impunity, it can legitimately claim to be heir to the original classical position, laid down in the eighteenth century.
Yet, in the late 1960s and early 1970s there was a brief flirtation with classical ideas in a rather different context. The interactionist and 'societal reaction' theorists of that time resurrected the basic classical view of human action. But in this version criminals and deviants were seen as rationally responding to oppressive forces of social definition and reaction and, in the early `radical' criminology that grew out of it, as being `free' to fight back against these forces. Since then, the radical impulse behind the resurrection of classicism seems to have become dissipated. All that is now left is the intensely practical concern with crime control through street-level crime prevention programmes.
Bob Roshier re-explores that radical impulse, re-examining the foundations, subsequent fate and undeveloped potential of classical ideas. He develops that potential into a 'post-classical' perspective which can help to make sense of many of the findings, and help resolve some of the contradictions, of criminological research into crime and its control.

Bob Roshier is a Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Durham.