ABSTRACT
The previous chapter examined the emergence of criminology with the classical school, heavily identifi ed with the Italian reformer, Cesare Beccaria. This school of thought emerged in the context of the Western world’s revolution against the dominance of royalty and the church with burgeoning Enlightenment thought. As the fi rst natural explanation of crime, it represented what Thomas Kuhn (1970) called a paradigm revolution . This is a dramatic shift in the theoretical orientation, and especially the underlying assumptions, for explaining a phenomenon. This rational choice or free will outlook dominated criminological thought for about a century before another paradigm revolution occurred. This chapter begins with a review of the social context that set the stage for a paradigm shift into positivism .
