Scientific JusticeI. Big Questions

A. What causes crime?B. Do we have free will?

II. The New CriminologyA. PositivismB. SociologyC. PsychologyD. Heredity

III. Pseudoscientific OriginsA. PhrenologyB. Social DarwinismC. Race

IV. Reforming Criminal JusticeA. PolicingB. AdministrationC. InvestigationD. Punishment

Big Questions

• What causes crime?

• Do we have free will?

Expulsion from the Garden of

Eden Masaccio

1427

The New Criminology• Positivism

– Auguste Comte (1798-1857)

• Scientific knowledge is the only real knowledge

• Truth can only be determined by positive affirmation of theories through strict scientific method.

The Beauty Myth• Cesare Lombroso

– Criminal Man (1876)

• Ideal types

• Brows

• Earlobes

Other branches

• Sociology

• Psychology

• Heredity

Troubling origins

• Phrenology

• Social Darwinism

• Race

Detection

• Ballistics

• Fingerprints

• Bertillon system

Police Efficiency

• Technology• Professionalism

Bridgeport (CT) Police, 1913

Administration

• Probation

• Parole

• Special Courts

Juvenile Court, St. Louis, 1910

Research

• JCLC, founded 1910– Distinct branch of social

science

• Crime surveys– Cleveland (1922)– Illinois (1929)

• Uniform Crime Reports (1930)

Punishment

• Death Penalty

Electric chair, Sing Sing (before 1930)

Sterilization

• Between 1907 and 1921, US hospitals performed 3,233 forced eugenic sterilizations

Buck v. Bell

• 17 year-old girl

• Mother institutionalized

• Illegitimate daughter

Carrie Buck