Theories of criminal behavior include which two traditional schools?

• A. Behavioral and Social Learning
• B. Strain and Anomie
• C. Classical and Positivist
• D. Conflict and Rational Choice

Answer: (C)

This item tests two foundational streams in theories of criminal behavior: the classical school and the positivist school. The classical approach rests on the idea that people are rational actors who weigh the costs and benefits before choosing to commit a crime. Law and punishment are designed to create deterrence—certainty, swiftness, and proportional penalties—that makes crime less attractive by increasing expected costs.

The positivist approach, by contrast, argues that crime results from factors beyond an individual’s free will. It emphasizes empirical investigation of biological, psychological, and social influences to explain offending, aiming more at treatment and rehabilitation than just punishment. It treats crime as something that can be understood through science and data, with attention to underlying causes and situational factors.

These two are considered traditional because they represent the earliest and most influential paradigms in criminology, framing how researchers think about why crime happens and how society should respond. Other pairings mix theories that are not the two classic foundational schools—such as learning-based perspectives or contemporary sociological theories—so they don’t capture the same historical dichotomy.