Criminology
The roots of modern criminology can be found in the writings of social philosophers, who addressed Hobbes's question: "How is society possible?" Locke and Rousseau believed that humans are endowed with free will and are self-interested. If this is so, the very existence of society is problematic. If we are all free to maximize our own self-interest we cannot live together. Those who want more and are powerful can simply take from the less powerful. The question then, as now, focuses on how is it possible for us to live together. Criminologists are concerned with discovering answers to this basic question.
Locke and Rousseau, philosophers who are not considered criminologists, argued that society is possible because we all enter into a "social contract" in which we choose to give up some of our freedom to act in our own self-interest for the privilege of living in society. What happens though to those who do not make, or choose to break, this covenant? Societies enforce the contract by punishing those who violate it. Early societies punished violations of the social contract by removing the privilege of living in society through banishment or death. In the event of minor violations, sanctions such as ostracism or limited participation in the community for a time were administered.
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