Demonology
Definition
The belief that crime and other deviant conduct results from possession by evil spirits or divine punishment for sin, rather than from human reasoning, biology, or social conditions.
Related terms
- Individualisation of Punishment
- The sentencing principle that the penalty should fit the particular offender and the particular circumstances of the offence, not only the category...
- Mitigating Circumstances
- Facts about an offence or an offender, such as youth, provocation, or lack of premeditation, that a court may weigh to reduce...
- Neo-Classical School
- A nineteenth-century correction to classical criminology that retained free will as its starting premise but recognised that age, mental incapacity, and circumstance...
- Spiritualistic Explanation
- A broad label for pre-scientific accounts of crime that locate its cause outside the natural, observable world, of which demonology is the...
- Trial by Ordeal
- A medieval procedure for establishing guilt through a physical trial, such as carrying heated iron or submersion in water, on the premise...
- Garofalo (Jurist)
- Raffaele Garofalo, a jurist associated with the later positivist school, not the neo-classical school. Papers sometimes test this distinction directly.
- Rossi
- Pellegrino Rossi, the Italian-born jurist who taught criminal law in France and is the theorist most cited for the neo-classical argument that...
Explained in these topics
- Demonology and the Neo-Classical School
- Demonology and the Neo-Classical School (Unit III)The belief that crime and other deviant conduct is caused by possession by evil spirits or divine punishment for sin, rather than by human reasoning or social...