Psychoanalytic Criminology

Lesson 1.1 — Criminology, science, the subject and the law

In this lesson, students understand the object of criminology and its relationship to crime, the offender, the victim and social control. The psychoanalytic reading adds the question of how the subject, law, guilt, desire, aggression and social life are related.

• What criminology studies
• Crime, offender, victim and social control
• The difference between a legal crime and a social phenomenon
• External law and psychic life
• The superego, guilt and aggression
• The contribution of psychoanalysis to thinking about the subject before the law

Lesson 1.2 — Criminological knowledge, criminal law and internal law

This lesson distinguishes criminology, criminal law doctrine and criminal policy. Students learn that criminal law applies rules, while criminology investigates causes, effects and social responses to crime. Psychoanalysis enters as the study of internalized law.

• Criminology, criminal law and criminal policy
• The role of criminological knowledge
• Punishment, deterrence and subjectivity
• Internal law, the superego and guilt
• Freud, Totem and Taboo, and ambivalence toward the law
• Responsibility and the symbolic limit

Lesson 1.3 — Criminology, criminal policy and psychic responsibility

This lesson deepens the relationship between crime, criminal policy and responsibility. The focus is on understanding how to hold someone responsible without turning punishment into revenge or subjective understanding into an excuse.

• Criminal policy and public choices
• Legal guilt, ethical guilt and psychic guilt
• Freud and Civilization and Its Discontents
• To explain is not to justify
• Recidivism, repetition and responsibility
• Limits, reparation and reduction of further harm

Lesson 2.1 — The pre-scientific stage, the body and the danger of determinism

This lesson presents the pre-scientific stage of criminology, including physiognomy, phrenology, early anthropology, moral statistics and the Cartographic School. The aim is to show the danger of trying to locate crime in bodily marks or external signs.

• Physiognomy and phrenology
• The body as a supposed sign of danger
• Moral statistics and criminal cartography
• Social fear and projection
• Determinism, labeling and selectivity
• Psychoanalytic critique of the fantasy of absolute control

Lesson 2.2 — The Positive School, Lombroso and the psychoanalytic critique of the born criminal

In this lesson, students study Lombroso, Garofalo and Ferri, understanding the historical importance and limits of the Positive School. The central critique concerns the idea of the born criminal and the risk of turning science into stigmatizing classification.

• Positive School
• Lombroso and the born criminal
• Garofalo, Ferri and social defense
• Atavism, heredity and determinism
• Psychoanalytic critique of the criminal essence
• Body, history, identification and subjectivity

Lesson 2.3 — Intermediate schools, environment and relational defense

This lesson shows attempts to move beyond biological positivism through environmental, social and relational explanations. Psychoanalysis, especially through Karen Horney, helps explain the relationship between insecurity, hostility and defense.

• Intermediate and environmental schools
• Social environment, education and opportunity
• Horney and basic anxiety
• Relational defense and hostility
• Identity, belonging and environment
• Individual, society and complex causality

Lesson 3.1 — Criminal biology, the body and the limits of organic causality

In this lesson, students study criminal biology and the limits of organic explanations of conduct. The course recognizes the importance of the body, impulsivity, trauma, development and substance use, but rejects any biological determinism.

• Criminal biology
• Anthropometry, biotypology and neurophysiology
• Body, impulsivity and development
• Influence is not destiny
• Freud, drive and repetition
• Body, history and subjectivity

Lesson 3.2 — Criminal psychology, psychoanalysis and the limits of interpretation

This lesson distinguishes criminal psychology, psychoanalysis, psychopathology, psychiatry, diagnosis, expert assessment and interpretation. Students learn that psychoanalysis can offer hypotheses about meaning, defense, guilt and repetition, but must not be used for improvised diagnoses.

• Criminal psychology and psychoanalysis
• Diagnosis, expert assessment and interpretation
• Freud, anxiety, symptom and repetition
• Horney, defense and pride
• Ethical limits of interpretation
• Understand without acquitting, and hold responsible without simplifying

Lesson 3.3 — Criminal sociology, groups, belonging and identity

In this lesson, crime is studied through criminal sociology, the Chicago School, anomie, conflict theories, critical criminology and subcultures. Psychoanalysis contributes to thinking about groups, identification, belonging and identity.

• Chicago School
• Social disorganization and the city
• Anomie and blocked social goals
• Groups, subcultures and belonging
• Freud and Group Psychology
• Erikson, identity and recognition

Lesson 3.4 — Social control, the labeling approach, shame and identity

This lesson presents theories of social control and labeling. Students learn how society defines deviance, applies labels and produces subjective effects on those named as dangerous, deviant or irredeemable.

• Formal and informal social control
• Labeling approach
• Howard Becker and labeling theory
• Goffman, stigma and identity
• Shame, the superego and negative identity
• Hold responsible without humiliating

Lesson 4.1 — Socialist criminology, inequality and social discontent

In this lesson, students study critical and socialist criminology, focusing on inequality, penal selectivity, capitalism, power, property and criminalization. Psychoanalysis contributes to thinking about social discontent, humiliation, resentment and the collective desire for punishment.

• Critical and socialist criminology
• Inequality and penal selectivity
• Baratta and Vera Regina Pereira de Andrade
• Freud and Civilization and Its Discontents
• Horney and competitive culture
• Violence as a symptom of a violent social order

Lesson 4.2 — Crime prevention, the Social State and recognition

This lesson presents crime prevention in the Social State governed by the rule of law, distinguishing primary, secondary and tertiary prevention. The focus is on building bonds, recognition, limits, belonging and protection without labeling.

• Primary, secondary and tertiary prevention
• Social State governed by the rule of law
• Recognition, limits and care
• Erikson, development and identity
• Winnicott, deprivation and delinquency
• Prevent without humiliating surveillance

Lesson 4.3 — Modern criminal policy, the symbolic limit and harm reduction

The final lesson discusses the foundations of a modern, rational, democratic and humane criminal policy. Students learn to distinguish limits from cruelty, accountability from revenge and prevention from abusive control.

• Modern criminal policy
• Symbolic limit
• Harm reduction
• Victim protection
• Accountability of the offender
• Reparation, prevention and critique of punitivism
• Crime, the subject and society considered together