SOCIOL 2CC3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Salem Witch Trials, Cesare Lombroso, Cesare Beccaria
30 Apr 2018
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Tuesday, February 20, 2018
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Lecture 2: Early Positivist Theories of Deviance
Midterm Review Checklist
• Responsible for understanding these concepts within the Early Explanations of Deviance:
O Supernatural and Demonic Explanations of Deviance
O Classical School Theory Response and Assumptions
O First Scientific Theory of Deviance
O Biological Approach and Assumptions
O Lombroso’s Theory of Degeneration, Criminal Man and Theory of Devolution
O Physiognomy and Mapping of the Face
O Craniometry and Skill Measurements
O Phrenology and focus on Personality Traits
O Sheldon’s Theory of Soma-typing and Body Types
O Theory of the Monster Male (XYY)
Early Positivist Explanation of Deviance
• Earliest recorded attempts of explaining deviance were NOT scientific since causes of
deviance were not sought in empirical world or world of everyday experience
- Instead deviance seen as a result of supernatural forces along with everything at the time such
as the work of God, the Devil, witches, sorcerers or demons
• These forces had the ability to cause harm to people and to things
- For example, illness, failed crops or 2-headed calves
• Forces believed to act through CERTAIN human beings allowing for them to be deemed as
possessed
- For example, epileptics, seen as being possessed and punished by God for being chronic
masturbators
- For example, older women and individuals from other countries seemed as being possessed
Deviance and The Supernatural
Supernatural Perspectives of Deviance
• Supernatural perspectives of deviance believe in unseen forces that are universal — existing
across human history and culture
• Supernatural perspective of deviance remains popular within secular West
- Especially popular within areas that have high religious consciousness such as the Bible
Belts, small towns and rural communities
- Demonstrated through the 1980s and 1990s moral panic of ritual satanic worship and sexual
abuse in US and Canada
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Tuesday, February 20, 2018
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• Prominent within popular culture such as movies, TV shows and documentaries that focused
on the supernatural and occult
- For example, superheroes saving us from an evil entity
Supernatural Perspective within Christianity
• Supernatural within Christian belief system focused on cosmic struggle between good and evil
- Personified by God and the Devil: God made individuals good while the devil made
individuals deviant, caused bad behaviour and possessed their souls
- Individuals committed harmful acts to overthrow Gods power or natural order which caused
bad behaviour and possessed souls
• During late 1600s there was:
1. 100,000s of people executed for consorting with devil such as Salem Witch Hunts
2. Many individuals tortured and punished through their body such as being burned at the stake
or stoned to death to extract a confession of evil behaviour
• Supernatural explanations declined but remained during the mid-18th century
- Due to rise in faith of science to provide answers to the social and natural worlds where God
had failed
- Leading to emergence of Classical School Theory to explain deviance and criminal activity
Classical School of Deviance (18th and 19th Century)
Emergence of Classical School of Deviance
• Established as a response to irrationality of supernatural explanations:
- For example, horrors of witch hunts and executions
- For example, the absurdity and cutely of punishments, such as torture, which did not fit the
crime and were inhumane
• Also established as a response to chaos of societal revolutions
- For example, French and US Revolution, overthrowing monarchies and becoming a republic
• Emerged out of various profound societal changes:
1. Challenges to and restricting power of monarchies and the church that charge individuals a
vast amount of money
2. Widespread social and economic changes due to rise of Capitalism where individuals were
kicked of their land and moved to densely populated areas
3. Shift way from social relationships of Feudalism such as reciprocalism to labour work
within factories
• Emerging liberal philosophies and ideas of justice, freedom and rights of wealthy, white and
property owning men due to period of Enlightenment
Classical School Theory
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• Developed by Cesare Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham as a reaction against cruel justice system
before French and American revolutions
• Belief that deviant behaviour was a result of rational choices
- Individuals are rational and thinking beings who possess the free will to choose to act in a
criminal/deviant manner
• The choice to engage in right or wrong is governed by the principle of obtaining pleasure and
avoiding pain
- Leads to legal and judicial reforms to curb crime by assuming penalties of pain act as a
deterrence that offsets pleasure experienced from crime
- Idea of deterrence remains popular
• Approach assumes:
1. Individuals will refrain from crime when they calculate penalties involved — fear of
pain of punishment and penalty act as deterrent
2. Punishment should fit the crime — applied equally to all regardless of social class or
status and this is not reality
Scientific Theories of Deviance
Emergence of Scientific Theories of Deviance
• Emerged in the late 1800s through the work of doctor, philosopher and criminal anthropologist
— Cesare Lombroso — where he wrote about the born criminality where criminality is linked
to psychobiological conditions
* Deemed ‘father of criminality’
• Focus of Lombroso’s scientific method:
1. Acknowledge role of biology/physiology in criminality and deviance
- Individuals body constitution, intelligence and heredity played important determining role
and ability of deviance
- Ignores individuals agency and active ability to think and act
Theory of Degeneration
• Based on Lombroso’s work and ideas that were popular throughout Europe
- Also influenced by Darwinian evolutionary theory and Larmarkism (pre-scientific ideas
about hereditary)
• Social context of 18th and 19th West Century characterized by:
1. Increased anxieties among powerful and rising middle classes
2. Massive social change leading to increase in immigration, urbanization and industrialization
• Believed that civilization was on the decline due to devolution or biological nature of certain
groups within society such as criminals, immigrants, poor individuals and non-whites
- Degeneracy and criminality were viewed as being inherited which led to degeneration and
devolution
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Document Summary
Midterm review checklist: responsible for understanding these concepts within the early explanations of deviance: O lombroso"s theory of degeneration, criminal man and theory of devolution. O sheldon"s theory of soma-typing and body types. Early positivist explanation of deviance: earliest recorded attempts of explaining deviance were not scientific since causes of deviance were not sought in empirical world or world of everyday experience. For example, illness, failed crops or 2-headed calves: forces believed to act through certain human beings allowing for them to be deemed as possessed. For example, epileptics, seen as being possessed and punished by god for being chronic masturbators. For example, older women and individuals from other countries seemed as being possessed. Supernatural perspectives of deviance: supernatural perspectives of deviance believe in unseen forces that are universal existing across human history and culture, supernatural perspective of deviance remains popular within secular west. Especially popular within areas that have high religious consciousness such as the bible.
