science

The Roots of Evil

The Roots of Evil is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand The Roots of Evil rather than just read about it. In short: The Roots of Evil: A Social History of Crime and Punishment is a book written by Christopher Hibbert in 1963 which traces the development of the social justice system, mostly from an English perspective, though information about the continent and the United States is also included. Overview Cruel punishments have an inevitable tendency to produce cruelty...

Key takeaways

The Roots of Evil belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect The Roots of Evil to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of The Roots of Evil from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Roots of Evil: A Social History of Crime and Punishment is a book written by Christopher Hibbert in 1963 which traces the development of the social justice system, mostly from an English perspective, though information about the continent and the United States is also included.

Overview Cruel punishments have an inevitable tendency to produce cruelty... With this conclusion, Hibbert traces the development and decline of cruel punishments, the guillotine in France and the modern prison in England, which still used hanging when the book was first published. The chapter Causes and Cures contains the salient point that "There seems, indeed, no surer way of keeping a boy [or girl] from a life of crime than providing him with a happy and worthwhile childhood in a family which loves him and which he loves", and suggests that while "a crime is only a crime when a law ... makes it so", pointing out that by the nineteenth century nine of the ten laws which Hebraic law punished with stoning "had ceased to be offences in civilized European societies". Although "Drink and drugs and speed and sex are exciting, and so is crime and in cities the opportunity for crime are extensive and the rewards are high, the chances of escape are greater and most of the police are overworked and some of them may be corruptible." While it is suggested that to change crime requires changing society, the last sentence of the chapter is "No completely satisfactory answers have yet been found." The last chapter, Progress and Palindrome, points out that "the solution lies not in making punishments more severe, but in making them more certain and in relating them to each individual criminal, so that if he is reformable he may be reformed." Also, "there are germs of evil in the best of us and seeds of good in the worst", and there are no quick and inexpensive solutions to the problem of crime, which requires changing the soil, more than changing the seeds.

Contents Part I: The Growth of Punishment 602 - 1750 The Age of Chivalry The Age of Learning The Age of Elegance Part II: The Beginnings of Reform 1750 - 1945 The Law Reformers The Police Reformers The Prison Reformers Part III: Criminal Man L'Uomo Delinquente Causes and Cures The Criminal's Psychology Part IV: The Crime Cult Part V: The Detection of Crime Part VI: The Great Melting Pot The New World Gangs and Syndicates Cops and G-Men Part VII: Present Problems Capital Punishment Corporal Punishment Prisons Police The Young Offender The Sexual Offender Part VIII: Progress and Palindrome

References

The Roots of Evil 1963 524 pages Little Brown and Company LOC 63-8961 The Roots of Evil 2003 Paperback ISBN 0-313-20198-6

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The Roots of Evil

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The Roots of Evil claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to The Roots of Evil before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about The Roots of Evil ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of The Roots of Evil

In research: The Roots of Evil appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses The Roots of Evil in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: The Roots of Evil is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1963 non-fiction books, Books by Christopher Hibbert, Criminology, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The Roots of Evil outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study The Roots of Evil in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what The Roots of Evil means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain The Roots of Evil out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is The Roots of Evil in simple terms?

Why does The Roots of Evil matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study The Roots of Evil?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on The Roots of Evil.