The Development of the Crime Control Model, Essay Example

The roots of the crime control model can be traced back to the writings of   Italian social thinker Cesare Beccaria. A utilitarian, Beccaria called for fair and certain punishment to deter crime. Because people are egotistical and self-centered they must be motivated by the fear of punishment, which provides a tangible motive for them to obey the law and suppress the “despotic spirit” that resides in every person.

To deter people from committing more serious offenses, Beccaria believed   crime and punishment must be proportional; if not, people would be encouraged to commit more serious offenses. For example, if robbery, rape and murder were all punished by death as they were during his day, a robber or rapist would have little reason to refrain from killing his or her victim in order to eliminate them as a witness to the crime.

Beccaria’s ideas and writings inspired social thinkers to believe that criminals choose to commit crime and that crime can be controlled by judicious punishment. His vision was widely accepted throughout Europe and the United States. Beccaria’s writings have been credited as the basis of the elimination of torture and severe punishment in the nineteenth century. The practice of incarcerating criminals and structuring prison sentences to fit the severity of crime, still in use today, was a reflection of his ideas.

By the end of the nineteenth century, the popularity of this approach began to wane as it became more popular to view criminals as damaged people who could be saved the judicious application of treatment and care and not punishment. We will return to that concept later in the class. But for now, it should be noted that from the early 20^th century to as late as 1980, most experts believed it foolish and cruel to punish people for behaviors beyond their control.

Then, more than twenty years ago political scientist James Q. Wilson made the persuasive argument that most criminals are not poor unfortunates who commit crime to survive but greedy people who choose theft and/or drug dealing for quick and easy profits. Because he was one of the most famous and well-known academics in the nation and chair of the Political Science department at Harvard, Wilson’s views were quite influential then and remain so today.

According to his approach criminals are people whose personality and character make them lack inhibition against misconduct, value the excitement and thrills of breaking the law, have a low stake in conformity, and are willing to take greater chances than the average person. In another words, they are not like you and me, nor are they “victims” who should be pitied, helped or rehabilitated. In fact, it is just as likely that the reasons that people commit crime can never be altered (e.g., they have a low IQ), than it is for the cause of crime to be successfully combated by some form of government intervention (e.g., they are poor).   Even if crime was caused by some social ill, such as poverty or lack of opportunity, there is little we can do to improve. While it would be great to change the world, abolish poverty, hatred, class conflict, jealousy, and athlete’s foot, those goals are expensive, fanciful and illusory. While we are working on them for the long term we still want to control crime in the near term. What to do? If they could be convinced that their actions will bring severe punishment only the totally irrational would be willing to engage in crime. Restraining known offenders and preventing future offenders from contemplating misdeeds is a much more practical goal of the criminal justice system than trying to eradicate the root causes of crime: poverty; poor schools; racism; family break-up.