I will be discussing positivist criminology and the impacts it has on today. Positivist Criminology rejects the idea that each individual makes a conscious rational choice to commit a crime and rather some individuals are abnormal in intelligence, social acceptance, or some other way and that causes them to commit crime. Positivists believe that scientific knowledge and reason can control and manage not only nature, but also social life. This position represents a key characteristic of modern society and influenced not only the natural science but the social science including criminology.
One of the key theorists supporting the influence of earlier positivist thinking is Cesare Lombroso. Lombroso is seen as the founder of positivist criminology. He spoke about racial science, eugenics, psychiatry, biology and social Darwinism to gather his work on the criminal man, first published in 1876. Lombroso claimed that individuals were born criminals and him examining skulls of criminal led to him believing that they could be categorized by their physical traits or defects including deformed skulls being taller than a healthy person, having misshaped nose, slanted foreheads, big jaws, and having dark eyes, dark hair, and dark skin (ibid). His theory of the born criminal dominated thinking about criminal behavior in the late 19th and early 20th century.
For many years before Cesare Lombroso’s theory, the dominant view was that crime was a sin against God and it should be punished in a fitting manner, mostly ‘an eye for an eye’ and others.
However, two Classical theorist Jeremy Bentham and Cesare Beccaria decide that the choice to commit an offence was taken by weighing up the costs and benefits. If the cost was made high with harsh penalties, then this would put off all but the most determined of criminals, however his theory had many flaws because not everyone is rational, and some crimes, particularly violent ones are purely emotional, they said. Lombroso and his fellow criminal anthropologists also challenged these ideas and were the first to advocate the study of rime and criminals from a scientific perspective.
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More recent applications of the theorie spoke
For many years there has been an interested in the possible link between the body and the mind. One way of explaining criminal conduct is to look for Inherited characteristics that might make people behave in certain ways.
There is a nature vs nurture debate. This is whether it is the physical/psychololgical make- up of the individual or their social context that is more important in understanding human conduct. One way of understand this is by Twin studies.
Twins share a genetic make-up but may differ in their wider social experiences. There are to types of twins. Identical, they are genetically identical and then non-identical, and they are genetically the same as siblings born at different times. The theory is that if identical twins show greater similarity in their behavior than non-identical twins. However, such findings are complicated by the fact that twins growing up together are subject to similar social influences. Some have studies twin that have been separated at birth and growing up in different family environments. The theory here is that twins that have been separated at birth should still have similar pattern if it is inherited traits that are more important in explaining behavior.
The first study on this theory was by Lange published in 1929 called Crime as Destiny was based on 30 pairs of male adult twins. He claimed to have found similarity in offending patterns among the identical twin in the sample and a high proportion of identical twins were found to have prison records than non-identical twins.
There is a continuing reluctance withich majority of criminiology to accept that biological factors might be relevant to an understanding of crime and deviance. This is becase some major assumptions tha con tinue to inform the way in which criminilogist view heir subject