Urbanization And The Enlightenment Era

The laws of the land from the beginning of time were written from the word of “God” but only written from aristocrats, the Church, and Kings. It was seen that “God's Law” was enough. This was known as the Classical School and was the way of thinking from the 1500’s and continued into the 1700’s when philosophers began reevaluating criminals, crime, and punishment: The Enlightenment Era. During the Classical School Era, the criminal justice was controlled by the church, kings, and aristocrats with little due process for those accused. A king could sentence someone to death with a wave of his hand with little regard for the details of the crime and evidence itself. This was the first development of organized thoughts on crime, criminals, and

That is until the paradigm shift of the industrial revolution erupted and changed where and how people lived and worked. Suddenly, the once simple rural people were grouped together in tight condense spaces of living, near downtown so they did not have to travel far by foot. In 1768, followers, and lower class members, of John Wilkes campaign began to stir publicly for the equal civil liberties to Englishmen of all classes (Rudbeck, 2012). Urbanization and the Protestant Work ethic were on the rise. This work ethic believed that the harder you worked, the better the person you were compared to attending church frequently. This change was fairly quick and people who only saw other people occasionally, now were exposed to their fellow man on a daily basis. This interaction brought with it, a greater sense of empathy for the people around them. Because the common man was now able to earn more than they had before they where not willing to take a step back into the dark ages they had just left. This is, in some small part, thanks to people like Voltaire and Montesquieu: they had an audience through their writing and were able to show everyone that the world, despite moving forward due to technology parts of our society, was still living and thinking in the dark ages (Allen, Latessa, & Ponder, p.12) In contrast to the way people lived before the industrial

Through the establishment of how a crime is judged and a sentence is carried out, this would allow society to better understand how the punishment of criminals works, thus creating the ideals that if someone was to commit a crime that persons’ punishment would fit the crime. Along with that, he defined crime as an injury to society, and the social actions must fulfill the utilitarian concept of the greatest happiness for the greatest number, that prevention of crime is more important than punishment and not to extract revenge, fair and speedy trial is a must, and lastly prisons should have better quarters and separating everyone by age, sex, and the degree of crime. Beccaria and Bentham had a humanistic philosophy meaning that all men were free and have natural rights. The philosophy of the social justice was on a macro and micro level. The critique came around that the government was harsh and barbaric and therefore reforms were encouraged. It came around that the focus of how crime should be addressed by law and what kind of political structure should be created. The important task for this time was making punishment just, fair, and proportionate. Some of the elements of the legal reform were as follows: punishment be the same for the same crime, there