Neo-Classical School
Definition
A nineteenth-century correction to classical criminology that retained free will as its starting premise but recognised that age, mental incapacity, and circumstance could diminish an offender's responsibility.
Related terms
- Demonology
- The belief that crime and other deviant conduct results from possession by evil spirits or divine punishment for sin, rather than from...
- 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...
- 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...