POSITIVE THEORY OF CRIMINOLOGY

SUBMITTED TO- SUBMITTED BY-

DR. ANJU MAMTA
148/15
B.COM LL.B
SECTION-C

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I wish to express my gratitude to Dr. ANJU for providing me the opportunity to work on this
topic and make the project on the same. I would also like to thank her for guiding and
encouraging me. This project has helped me in gaining knowledge and has been an enriching
experience.

I would also like to thank my family and friends in completion of this project.

Mamta

148/15

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TABLE OF CONTENTS-

Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT.........................................................................................................2
TABLE OF CONTENTS-......................................................................................................3
INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................4
Biological positivism.............................................................................................................4
Physical Characteristics.........................................................................................................4
Cesare Lombroso (1836-1909)..................................................................................................6
Criticism on Lombroso’s Theory-..........................................................................................7
Enrico Ferri (1856-1928)...........................................................................................................8
Raffaele Garofalo (1852-1934)..................................................................................................9
Gabriel Tarde (1843-94)..........................................................................................................10
Major Contributions of Positive School of Criminology.........................................................10
Main Distinctions between Classical School and Positive School..........................................11
BIBLIOGRAPHY....................................................................................................................12

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 INTRODUCTION

Positive criminology is based on the perspective that integration and positive life influences
that help individuals develop personally and socially will lead to a reduced risk of criminal
behavior and better recovery of offenders. Integration works in three levels: inter-personal,
intra-personal and spiritual . Positive influences include participation in recovery programs,
such as those for drug and alcohol abuse. Factors that can make growth difficult include a
long-standing pattern of criminal activity, serious adverse life events, and chronic mental
health illness. With the advance of behavioral sciences, the monogenetic explanation of
human conduct lost its validity and a new trend to adopt an eclectic view about the genesis
of crime gradually developed. By the nineteenth century, certain French doctors were
successful in establishing that it was neither ‘free will’ of the offender nor his innate
depravity which actuated him to commit crime but the real cause of criminality lay in
anthropological features of the criminal. Some phrenologists also tried to demonstrate the
organic functioning of brain and enthusiastically established a co-relationship between
criminality and the structure and functioning of brain. This led to the emergence of the
positive school of criminology. The Positivist School has attempted to find scientific
objectivity for the measurement and quantification of criminal behavior. As thescientific
method became the major paradigm in the search for all knowledge, the Classical
School's social philosophy was replaced by the quest for scientific laws that would be
discovered by experts. It is divided into Biological, Psychological and Social. 1

Biological positivism

If Charles Darwin's Theory of evolution was scientific as applied to animals, the same

approach should be applied to "man" as an "animal".

Physical Characteristics

Historically, medicine became interested in the problem of crime, producing studies

of physiognomy and the science of phrenology which linked attributes of the mind to the
shape of the brain as reveal through the skull. These theories were popular
because society and any failures of its government were not the causes of crime. The
problem lay in the propensities of individual offenders who were biologically distinguishable
from law-abiding citizens. This theme was amplified by the Italian School and through the
writings of  Cesare Lombroso (see L'Uomo Delinquente, The Criminal
Man and Anthropological criminology) which identified physical characteristics associated
with degeneracy demonstrating that criminals were atavistic throwbacks to an earlier
evolutionary form. Charles Goring (1913) failed to corroborate the characteristics but did
find criminals shorter, lighter and less intelligent, i.e. he found criminality to be "normal"
rather than "pathological" (cf the work of Hooton found evidence of biological
inferiority). William Sheldon identified three basic body
or somatotypes (i.e. endomorphs, mesomorphs, and ectomorphs), and introduced a scale to
1
https://www.abyssinialaw.com/about-us/item/446-positivists-school-the-italian-school visited on 31st
March,2020.

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measure where each individual was placed. He concluded that delinquents tended to
mesomorphy. Modern research might link physical size and athleticism and aggression
because physically stronger people have the capacity to use violence with less chance of
being hurt in any retaliation. Otherwise, such early research is no longer considered valid.
The development of genetics has produced another potential inherent cause of criminality,
with chromosome and other genetic factors variously identified as significant to select
heredity rather than environment as the cause of crime (see: nature versus nurture).
However, the evidence from family, twin, and adoption studies shows no
conclusive empirical evidence to prefer either cause.

With the advance of behavioral sciences, the monogenetic explanation of human conduct
lost its validity and a new trend to adopt an eclectic view about the genesis of crime
gradually developed. By the nineteenth century, certain French doctors were successful in
establishing that it was neither ‘free will’ of the offender nor his innate depravity which
actuated him to commit crime but the real cause of criminality lay in anthropological
features of the criminal. Some phrenologists also tried to demonstrate the organic
functioning of brain and enthusiastically established a co-relationship between criminality
and the structure and functioning of brain. This led to the emergence of the positive school
of criminology.2

The main exponents of this school were three eminent Italian criminologists namely: Cesare
Lombroso, Raffaele Garofalo and Enrico Ferri. It is for this reason that this school is also
called the Italian School of Criminology.

2
https://www.academia.edu/323864/Theories_of_criminology visited on 31st March,2020.

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Cesare Lombroso (1836-1909)

The first attempt to understand the personality of offenders in physical terms was made by
Lombroso of the Italian School of criminological thought, who is regarded as the originator
of modern criminology. He was a doctor and a specialist in psychiatry. He worked in military
for sometime handling the mentally afflicted soldiers but later he was associated with the
University of Turin. His first published work was L’Umo Delequente which meant “the
Criminal Man” (1876). He was the first to employ scientific methods in explaining criminal
behavior and shifted the emphasis from crime to criminal. Lombroso adopted an objective
and empirical approach to the study of criminals through his anthropological experiments.
After an intensive study of physical characteristics of his patients and later on of criminals,
he came to a definite conclusion that criminals were physically inferior in the standard of
growth and therefore, developed a tendency for inferior acts. He further generalized that
criminals are less sensitive to pain and therefore they have little regard for the sufferings of
others. Thus through his biological and anthropological researches on criminals Lombroso
justified the involvement of Darwin’s theory of biological determinism in criminal behavior.
He classified criminals into three main categories:

1. The Atavists or Hereditary Criminals Lombroso also termed them as born-criminals. In his

opinion born-criminals were of a distinct type who could not refrain from indulging in
criminality and environment had no relevance whatsoever to the crimes committed by the
Atavists. He, therefore, considered these criminals as incorrigibles, i.e., beyond reformation.
In his view, the criminal reflected a reversion to an early and more primitive being that was
both mentally and physically inferior. He resembled those of apes and had ape-like
characteristics. Lombroso’s theory used physical characteristics as indicators of criminality.
He enumerated as many as sixteen physical abnormalities of a criminal some of which were
peculiar size and shape of head, eye, enlarged jaw and cheek bones, fleshy lips, abnormal
teeth, long or flat chin, retreating forehead, dark skin, twisted nose and so on. Though he
moderated his theory of physical anomaly in later years but his emphasis throughout his
work was on human physical traits which also included biology, psychology and
environment. He revised his theory of atavism in 1906 and held that only one-third of
criminals were born criminals and not all the criminals. Finally, he conceded that his theory
of atavism was ill-founded and held that they were in fact occasional criminals.

Enrico Ferri subsequently challenged Lombroso’s theory of atavism and demonstrated that

it was erroneous to think that criminals were incorrigibles. He believed that just as non-
criminals could commit crimes if placed in conducive circumstances so also the criminals
could refrain from criminality in healthy surroundings.

Insane Criminals: The second category of criminals according to Lombroso consisted of

insane criminals who resorted to criminality on account of certain mental depravity or
disorder.

Criminoids: The third category of criminals, according to him, was those of criminoids who
were physical criminal type and had a tendency to commit crime in order to overcome their
inferiority in order to meet the needs of survival.
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Lombroso was the first criminologist who made an attempt to understand the personality of
offenders in physical terms. He employed scientific methods in explaining criminal behavior
and shifted the emphasis from crime to criminal. His theory was that criminals were
physically different from normal persons and possessed few physical characteristics of
inferior animal world. The contribution of Lombroso to the development of the science of
criminology may briefly be summed up in the following points:

1. Lombroso laid consistent emphasis over the individual personality of the criminal in the
incidence of crime. This view gained favour in subsequent years and modern criminological
measures are devised to attain the aim of individualization in the treatment of criminals. It
has been rightly commented that the sociologists’ emphasis on the external factors,
psychologists on the internal factors, while Lombroso held that both had a common
denominator__ the “individual”.

2. While analyzing causes of crime, Lombroso laid greater emphasis on the biological nature
of human behavior and thus indirectly drew attention of criminologists to the impact of
environment on crime causation.

3. At a later stage Lombroso himself was convinced about the futility of his theory of
atavism and therefore extended his theory of determinism to social as well as economic
situations of criminals. Thus he was positive in method and objective in approach which
subsequently paved way to formulation of multiple-causation theory of crime by the
propounders of sociological school of criminology.

Criticism on Lombroso’s Theory-

Gabriel de Tarde, the eminent French criminologist and social psychologist, criticized
Lombroso’s theory of criminal behavior, and offered a social explanation of crime. He
asserted that criminal behavior is the result of a learning process, therefore, any speculation
regarding direct relationship between physical appearance and criminal propensities of
criminals would mean overlooking the real cause of criminality. He also denounced the
proposition of phrenologists who tried to establish a correlation between the skull, the brain
and the social behavior of a person.

By the time of Lombroso’s demise, in 1909, it became abundantly clear that his theories
were over-implication of facts and rather naïve, hence the notion that criminal is physically
atavistic-type lost all credence. The assumption that there is some nexus between atavism
and criminal behavior had no scientific basis. The modern positivism in criminology has
developed its own systematic views in which there is little scope for Lombroso’s atavism.
Some modern writers even speak of it as “Lombrosian myth” in criminology.

Criticizing  Lombroisian views, Prof. Sutherland observed that by shifting attention from
crime as a social phenomenon to crime as an individual phenomenon, Lombroso delayed for

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fifty years the work which was in progress at the time of its origin and in addition, made no
lasting contribution of his own.3

Be that as it may, it hardly needs to be reiterated that contribution of Lombroso to the

development of criminology is by no means less significant. Commenting on this point
Donald Taft observed, “the importance of Lombroso’s work lies in the great influence it had
upon criminology and also upon penal practice”. The importance of Lombroso’s work lies in
its scientific methodology and his rejection of free-will theory.

Enrico Ferri (1856-1928)

Another chief exponent of the positive school of criminology was Enrico Ferri. He challenged
Lombrosian view of criminality. Through his scholarly researches, Ferri proved that mere
biological reasons were not enough to account for criminality. He firmly believed that other
factors such as emotional reaction, social infirmity or geographical conditions also play a
vital role in determining criminal tendencies in men. It is for this reason that he is
sometimes called the founder of ‘criminal sociology’.
The major contribution of Ferri to the field of criminology is his “Law of Criminal Saturation”.

This theory presupposes that the crime is the synthetic product of three main factors:

1. Physical or geographical;
2. Anthropological; and
3. Psychological or social.

Thus Ferri emphasized that criminal behavior is an outcome of a variety of factors having
their combined effect on the individual. According to him social change, which is inevitable
in a dynamic society, results in disharmony, conflict and cultural variations. As a result of
this, social disorganization takes place and a traditional pattern of social control mechanism
totally breaks down. In the wake of such rapid social changes, the incidence of crime is
bound to increase tremendously. The heterogeneity of social conditions destroys the
congenial social relationship, creating a social vacuum which proves to be a fertile ground
for criminality.

Many critics, however, opposed Ferri’s law of criminal saturation stating that it is nothing
more than a statement that the law of cause and effect equally applies to criminal behavior
as well.4

Ferri emphasized that a criminal should be treated as a product of the conditions which
played his life. Therefore, the basic purpose of crime prevention programme should be to
remove conditions making for crime.
Ferri worked out a five-fold classification of criminals, namely:
1. Born criminals;
3
https://www.academia.edu/323864/Theories_of_criminology visited on 30th March,2020.
4
https://www.academia.edu/323864/Theories_of_criminology visited on 30th March,2020.

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 2. Occasional criminals
3. Passionate criminals
4. Insane criminal and
5. Habitual criminals.

He suggested an intensive programme of crime prevention and recommended a series of

measures for treatment of offenders. He asserted that punishment could be one of the
possible methods of reforming the criminal. He favored indeterminate sentence keeping in
view the possible chances of inmate’s re-adjustment in the community.

In his ‘Penal Project” Ferri denied moral responsibility and denounced punishment for
retribution and moral culpability.

Raffaele Garofalo (1852-1934)

Raffaele Garofalo was one of the three main exponents of positive school of criminology.
Born in Naples in 1852, Garafalo started his career as a Magistrate in Italian courts and rose
to the position of Minister of Justice in 1903. He stressed the need for a closer study of the
circumstances and living condition of criminals. He firmly believed that a criminal is a
creature of his own environment. He was the only positivist who had varied experience as
an eminent jurist, a senator and a professor of criminal law. He, therefore, approached the
problem of crime and criminals in an altogether different manner than those of his
contemporaries. Rejecting the classical theory of free-will as a cause of crime, Garofalo
defined crime as an act which offends the sentiments of pity and probity possessed by an
average person and which are injurious to the society. He emphasized that lack of pity
generates crimes against person while lack of probity leads to crimes against property. As to
the classification of criminals, he rejected Ferri’s classification and placed offenders into four
main categories, namely:

1. Murders whom he called “endemic” criminals;

2. Violent criminals who are affected by environmental influences such as prejudices of
honour, politics and religion
3. Criminals lacking in sentiment of probity; and
4. Lascivious or lustful criminals who commit crimes against sex and chastity.
As a member of the Italian ‘judiciary’ Garofalo was well acquainted with the then existing
criminal law and procedure in the administration of criminal justice and recommended
death, imprisonment for life or transportation and reparation as three modes of
punishment for criminals. Out of his experience as a Judge and having witnessed total
failure of correctional measures in France, Garofalo was not very optimistic about
reformation of offenders. He therefore, strongly pleaded for elimination of habitual
offenders who were incapable of social adaptation as a measure of social defense. 5

5
https://www.academia.edu/323864/Theories_of_criminology visited on 29th March,2020.

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Gabriel Tarde (1843-94)

Gabriel Tarde was a critic of positive school of criminology. He asserted that influence of
social environment was most emphatic on the criminal behaviour out that law of insertion
and imitation was responsible for the incidence of crime. The members of society are prone
to imitate the behaviour of their associates. Likewise, the subordinate or inferior members
have a tendency to imitate the ways of their superiors just as the children imitate their
parents and elder members of the family. Consequently, as regards crimes, the beginners
have a tendency to imitate the acts of habitual criminals and thus they lend into criminality.
The effect of imitation is still worse on youngsters who are prone to fall an easy prey to
criminality. Particularly, the impact of movie, cinema and television is so great on teenagers
that it perverts their mind and actions which eventually makes them delinquents. Thus
there is considerable truth in Tarde’s assertion that, “crime, like other social phenomenon
starts as a fashion and becomes a custom”. He classified criminals into urban and rural types
and expressed a view that crimes in urban areas are far more serious in nature than those of
rural places. Despite the fact that the views of Tarde were logical and nearer to truth, they
were discarded as over simplification of facts.6

Major Contributions of Positive School of Criminology

It would be seen that the positive school of criminology emerged essentially out of the
reaction against earlier classical and neo-classical theories. The merits of this school were:

1. The advocates of this school completely discarded the theories of omnipotence of

spirit and free will on the ground that they were hypothetical and irrational.
Alternatively, they attributed criminality to anthropological, physical and social
environment.

2. The greatest contribution of positive school to the development of criminal science

lies in the fact that the attention of criminologists was drawn for the first time
towards the individual, that is, the personality of criminal rather than his act (crime)
or punishment. This certainly paved way for the modern penologists to formulate a
criminal policy embodying the principle of individualization as a method and
reformation. Thus positivists introduced the methodology and logic of natural
science in the field of criminology.

6
https://www.academia.edu/323864/Theories_of_criminology visited on 31st March 2020.

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 3. With the predominance of positive school, the emphasis was shifted from penology
to criminology and the objects of punishment were radically changed in as much as
retributory methods were abandoned. Criminals were now to be treated rather than
punished. Protection of society from criminals was to be the primary object which
could be achieved by utilizing reformatory methods for different classes of criminals
in varying degrees. It is in this context that positive school is said to have given birth
to modern sociological or clinical school which regards criminal as a by-product of his
conditions and experience of life.

4. The positivists suggested elimination of only those criminals who did not respond
favorably to extra-institutional methods. The exponents of this school accepted that there
could be extenuating circumstances under which an individual might be forced to commit
crime. Therefore, besides looking to the crime strictly from the legal standpoint, the judicial
authorities should not lose sight of the circumstantial conditions of the accused while
determining his guilt and awarding punishment.7

Main Distinctions between Classical School and Positive School

The positive school differed from the classical school of criminology in the following manner:

1. Defining Crime: Classical school defined crime in legal terms. Where as, the positive
school rejected legal definition of crime and preferred sociological definition.
2. Explanation of Crime: Classical school placed reliance on free-will theory as an
explanation of crime.  Positive school explained crime in terms of biological determination.
3. Nature of Punishment: Classical school believed in deterrent and definite punishment for
each offence and equal punishment for all criminals committing the same offence. Positive
school advocated treatment methods for criminals instead of punishment and held that
criminal be punished not according to gravity of his crime but according to the
circumstances associated with it.
4. The Focus of the School: Classical school focused greater attention on crime, namely, the
act rather than the criminal. Whereas, the positivists laid greater emphasis on personality of
the offender rather than his criminal act.
5. The Founders of the School: The main exponents of classical school were Beccaria and
Bentham. The main exponents of positive school were Lombroso, Ferri and Garofalo.
6. Contribution to the Field: The classical school was an 18th century dogma which
attempted to reform the criminal justice system in order to protect criminals against
arbitrary discretion of judges. The positive school was a 19 th century doctrine which
emphasized on scientific method of study and shifted emphasis from crime to criminal and
from retribution to corrective methods of treatment.

7
https://www.abyssinialaw.com/about-us/item/446-positivists-school-the-italian-school visited on 31st
March,2020.

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 BIBLIOGRAPHY

 Ramakand Purvi, Handbook of Criminology, Dominant Publishers and Distributors,

Delhi, 2006
 Eugene McLaughlin & Tim Newburn, The Sage Handbook of Criminological Theory,
Sage Publications India Private Limited, Delhi, 2010
 J. Mitchell Miller, 21st Century Criminology ,Sage Publications India Private
Limited, Delhi, 2009
 Stephen G. Tibbetts & Craig Hemmens, Criminological Theory,Sage Publications
India Private Limited, Delhi, 2010
 Ahmed Siddique, Criminology: Problems and Perspective, Eastern Book Company,
Lucknow, 2008

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