ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how crime was explained and dealt with in the undisputable modern age and provides an overview of the theories that came to the fore during that period. These can be broadly conceptualized in terms of one of three models of criminal behaviour with each becoming incrementally more sophisticated. First, the rational actor model proposes that people enjoy free will and can freely choose to offend in the same way that they can decide to engage in other activities. Second, the predestined actor model denies the possibility of human free will and proposes that human behaviour is determined by forces – either internal or external to the individual – to which they have little or no control. There are three formulations of this positivist model – biological, psychological and sociological – and these were to become the dominant orthodoxy throughout much of the twentieth century. Third, the victimized actor model proposes that it is the offender who is the victim of an unjust and unequal society. It is the behaviour and activities of the poor and powerless which are targeted and criminalized while those of the rich and powerful are either ignored or not even defined as criminal.
