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Positivism, empiricism and criminological theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Don Weatherburn  and
Mark Findlay
Don Weatherburn
Affiliation:
New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research
Mark Findlay
Affiliation:
Centre for Justice Studies, Mitchell College, New South Wales
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Extract

The discipline of criminology has been dominated since the turn of the century by an explanatory paradigm known as ‘positivism’. The distinctive features of that paradigm have been both substantive and methodological. On the substantive side ‘positivist criminology’ has been marked by a commitment to the explanation of criminal behaviour (and deviance generally) in terms of characteristics of the individual. Thus positivist criminology has been notable for its explanations of criminal behaviour in terms of gross bodily features, patterns of child-rearing, genetic defect, and idiosyncratic personality traits. On the methodological side positivist criminology has been marked by a preference for scientific method in the evaluation of theory and scientific ideas in the formulation of that theory. By and large these methodological predilections have meant assigning a primacy both to the role of systematic observation in the evaluation of theory and to the avoidance of theoretical assumptions whose validity could not be checked by recourse to observation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Legal Studies , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , July 1985 , pp. 191 - 204
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Legal Scholars 1985

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References

Notes

1. The term ‘paradigm’ is borrowed from Thomas Kuhn's seminal work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and is used here to describe any set of substantive assumptions and procedures which unite a group of explanations in a common tradition.

2. See the account of Lombroso's theory given by Ferrero, Gina Lombroso Criminal Man According to the Classification of Cesare hombroso. (1911), pp 10–24 Google Scholar as summarised by John Lewis Gillin in Criminology and Penology, (1945, 3rd edition).

3. See the Differential Association Theory of Edwin H. Sutherland Principles of Criminology (1947, 4th edition).

4. See, for example, the XYY Theory of Criminal Violence put forward by Price, W. H., Strong, J. A., Whatmore, P. B. and McClemont, W. R. in The Lancet, 1: 565–566 Google Scholar (March 1966).

5. See, for example, Eysenck, H. Crime and Personality (1964), pp 100–119 Google Scholar.

6. The dominant ideas were those deriving from medicine such as ‘normal’, ‘pathological’ and the general notion that crime might be symptomatic of physical and/or mental disturbance.

7. See I. Taylor, P. Walton and J. Young The New Criminology (1973).

8. Op cit n7 above, p 11.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid.

11. See Taylor, I. in Cohen, S. (ed) Images of Deviance (1971), p 154 Google Scholar.

12. Ibid pp 219–243.

13. See Quinney, R. in Taylor, I., Walton, P. and Young, J. (eds) Critical Criminology (1975) P 194 Google Scholar.

14. See Sykes, G. Criminology (1978), p 11 Google Scholar.

15. Ibid ch I.

16. See for example the series Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science Vols I, II and III and the bitter debate between Karl Popper and the Vienna Circle over the possibility of a demarcation criterion between science and non-science.

17. The doctrine finds its modern origin in the classic philosophic work by David Hume (ed L. A. Selby-Bigge) A Treatise on Human Nature 1739–1740 (1888).

18. The school was known as the Vienna Circle and at one time or another comprised the philosophers L. Wittgenstein, M. Schlick, R. Carnap and O. Neurath.

19. This was the period in which the psychological school known as ‘behaviourism’ developed most rapidly. See E. Boring A History of Experimental Psycholoy (1960), ch 24.

20. See W. V. O. Quine Word and Object (1960) ch 2.

21. See Carnap, R. Der Logisch Aujbau der Welt (The Logical Syntax Of Language) (Berlin, 1928)Google Scholar, translated in 1937 by Harcourt, Brace Inc.

22. Above, n 19.

23. This approach reached its purest expression in the work of B. Skinner. For a useful discussion of his approach see R. Boakes and M. Halliday in Explanation in the Behavioural Sciences (1970, ed R. Borger and F. Cioffi).

24. Ibid.

25. The three most potent attacks have come from K. Popper's The Logic and Scientific; Discovery (1972), Craig's, W. Replacement of Auxiliary Expressions’ in Philosophical Review 65 (1956) 38–55 Google Scholar, and W. V. O. Quine's From a Logical Point of View (1963), ch 2.

26. See above n 25.

27. An explanation from which no implications (concerning the observation or observations it is meant to explain) can be drawn affords no basis for evaluating its adequacy. See discussion below.

28. Downes, D. and Rock, P. Understanding Deviance (1982), p 75.Google Scholar

29. Taylor, , Walton, and Young, op cit n 7 above, p 19 Google Scholar.

30. Op cit n 7 above, p 31.

31. Op cit n 7 above, p 28.

32. Op cit n 7 above, p 26.

33. Op cit n 7 above, p 26.

34. Op cit n 7 above, p 21.

35. Cohen, A. Deviance and Control (1966) p 1 Google Scholar.

36. Merton, R. Contemporary Social Problems (1966) p 805 Google Scholar.

37. Gibbons, Q. and Jones, J. The Study of Deviance (1975) p 44 Google Scholar.

38. Crime and Personality above, n 5.

39. G. Trasler The Explanation of criminality (1962).

40. Social norms generally being defined as shared social expectations it follows that deviance defined as a violation of social norms assumes the existence of ‘shared social expectations’ (ie social consensus).

41. If a theory purports to explain deviance or a class of deviance, observations pertaining to deviant behaviour become potential tests of the theory's adequacy. If, however, it is possible to explain away every potential test of a theory by saying, on a purely ad hoc basis, that the behaviour in question wasn't deviant, the theory becomes unfalsifiable.

42. See, for example, P. Wilson and J. Braithwaite (eds) Two FQCCS of Deviance (1978) chs 6 and 10.

43. Ibid p 5.

44. S. Box Deviance, Reality and Society (1981, 2nd edn).

45. See nn 35, 36 and 37 above.

46. Taylor, , Walton, and Young, op cit n 7 above, pp 268–282 Google Scholar.

47. Op cit n 7 above, p 271.

48. Op cit n 7 above, p 273.

49. It is fair to say that even where positivist criminology expressly rejected the view that criminal behaviour was pathological, its preoccupation with developing techniques of deviance control placed it squarely in the medical/interventionist tradition. The distrinction between the normal and the pathological is not purely the province of the positivist criminologist. Durkheim for example, relied on a medical analogy to develop his functionalist rules governing ‘social facts’. See E. Durkheim The Rules of Sociological Method (1964).

50. C. Lombrozo Crime; its Causes and Remedies (1913).

51. This criticism is actually referred to, though largely ignored by, Taylor, Walton and Young, n 7 above, p 46 and 58.

52. See the discussion of Downes and Rock, n 28 above, pp 80–81.

53. Op cit n 1 above, p 72.

54. Op cit n 1 above, p 27

55. The classic illustration of this is given by Heisenberg's, Uncertainty Principle (Δχ.δρχ≥h/4π) according to which it is impossible in principle to state both the position and momentum of an electron with certainty.

56. Op cit n 7 above, ch 9.

57. Op cit n 7 above, p 60.

58. A useful introduction to this material is available in C. Coombs, R. Dawes and A. Tversky Mathematical Psychology: An Elementary Introduction (1970), ch 1.

59. Op cit n 7 above, p 63.

60. Op cit n 7 above, p 60.

61. Ibid.

62. Quine, W. V. O. From a Logical Point of View (1963), p 44 Google Scholar.