Criminal justice and the nineteenth-century paradigm

This article examines the influence of psychological individualism on nineteenth-century law and criminal justice policy. The nineteenth century—a formative period both for American law and for human sciences—was dominated by a single overarching conception of human behavior. This article explores the implications and consequences of that domination by first examining the general conditions under which individualism flourished in the United States, and then focusing on specific criminal justice policies that were pemised on this individualistic paradigm. It suggests that individualistic assumptions about human behavior were incorporated into what became intractable legal and institutional forms. The article also develops the relationship between law and human science during this period, and the way in which criminal justice policies were advanced as scientific doctrines. Finally, it concludes with a brief discussion of the role played by psychology in criminal justice policy since the nineteenth—century, and the recent resurgence of psychological individualism.