Summary Of Cesare Beccaria's Theory Of Biological Determinism

During the 18th century, people were hanged for stealing bread since it was considered as an unlawful act of high treason. At the period of the Enlightenment, Cesare Beccaria was the first philosopher in history to recognize the severity and seriousness of a crime. Therefore, he classified the term of ‘’seriousness’’ by the different types of violent crimes that infringed the liberties of an individual (Hostettler, 2011, p.111). This reasoning introduced the concept of criminal justice where society has for duty to protect each person’s right to security. Beccaria presented as well his theory of Classical Criminology which suggested that people have the free will to choose their actions, decisions, and behaviours. Hence, committing violent …show more content…
Nowadays, this theoretical perspective is no longer taken seriously by criminologists, since they question its validity over environmental conditions and human behaviours that influence blue-collar crimes (Crime and punishment, 2013, p.7). However, the term “Blue-collar crime” was officially recognized in the modern times of the 1910’s (Hostettler, 2011, p.112). It has been classified as a type of crime that is committed by a person who is part of the lower socio-economic class, and who is not involved in a position of power or that has access to upper-class resources such as money. It immediately causes visible damage to society. Consequently, offenders are more likely to be harshly punished than a person committing a white-collar crime. Evidently, they cannot afford lawyers due to their deficient income, therefore the severity of their punishments results as long incarceration sentences. Blue-collar crime contributes to the suffering of the lower class, while guaranteeing the higher class to remain in power as they continue to commit white-collar crimes with milder