Classical school (criminology) Classical school (criminology) In criminology, the Classical School usually refers to the 18th-century work during the Enlightenment by the utilitarian and social-contract philosophers Jeremy Bentham and Cesare Beccaria. Their interests lay in the system of criminal justice and penology and indirectly, through the proposition that "man is a calculating animal", in the causes of criminal behavior. The Classical School of thought was premised on the idea that people have free will in making decisions, and that punishment can be a deterrent for crime, so long as the punishment is proportional, fits the crime, and is carried out promptly. The system
Jeremy Bentham Laws at University College London occupies Bentham House, next to the main UCL campus. Bentham's name was adopted by the Australian litigation funder IMF Limited to become Bentham IMF Limited on 28 November 2013, in recognition of Bentham being "among the first to support the utility of litigation funding". Ivan Vazov, national poet and man of letters of Bulgaria (then recently liberated from Ottoman rule, but divided by the Treaty of Berlin) refers to Bentham in his 1881 poem (in English: "People with Diplomas"). Jeremy Bentham Jeremy Bentham (; 15 February 1748 [O.S. 4 February 1747] – 6 June 1832)