Which of the following is one of the main principles of the positivist school of criminology?

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One of the two major schools of criminology. In contrast to the classical school, which assumes that criminal acts are the product of free choice and rational calculation, the positivist sees the root causes of crime in factors outside the control of the offender. These are to be identified using empirical methods, in particular the analysis of statistics.

The earliest form of positivism, which arose in the late 19th century, involved an attempt to correlate criminal behaviour with certain physiological traits. This led to the identification of a genetic “criminal type” - an idea that is now wholly discredited. Later, psychological positivists used detailed studies to link personality traits with particular crimes and to identify those formative experiences (e.g. parental neglect) that might produce a general predisposition to law-breaking. Alternatively, sociological positivists have sought the causes of crime in factors external to the offender, such as poverty, alienation, high population density, and exposure to deviant subcultures (e.g. gangs or drug-takers). One particularly influential approach was that taken by the Chicago School of the mid 20th century, which used ecological methods to study the breakdown of social order in inner-city neighbourhoods. Other social positivist approaches include Marxist criminology, which sees crime as an inevitable product of class conflict and the capitalist system, and critical criminology, which focuses on the role of power elites in defining what and who is regarded as criminal (see Marxist legal theory). More recently, there has been a general retreat from social theory and a more pragmatic emphasis on crime prevention. See also sociology of law.

Subjects: Law

Reference entries

Positivist school of criminology

In the late nineteenth century, some of the principles on which the classical school was based began to be challenged by the emergent positivist school in criminology, led primarily by three Italian thinkers: Cesare Lombroso, Enrico Ferri, and Raffaele Garofalo. It is at this point that the term ‘criminology’ first emerged, both in the work of Italian Raffaele Garofalo (criminologia) in 1885 and in the work of French anthropologist Paul Topinard (criminologie) around the same time.

Positivist criminology assumes that criminal behaviour has its own distinct set of characteristics. As a result, most criminological research conducted within a positivist paradigm has sought to identify key differences between ‘criminals’ and ‘non-criminals’. Some theorists have focused on biological and psychological factors, locating the source of crime primarily within the individual and bringing to the fore questions of individual pathology. This approach is termed individual positivism. Other theorists – who regard crime as a consequence of social rather than individual pathology – have, by contrast, argued that more insights can be gained by studying the social context external to individuals. This approach is termed sociological positivism.

Table 1 Differences between individual and sociological positivism

Theoretical Foundations of Crime and Delinquency

Chapter 3 explains the difference between theory and hypothesis and why this is important to the study of juvenile delinquency. The chapter also introduces three ways of thinking about crime and delinquency: the classical school, the positivist school, and spiritual explanations.

INTRODUCTION

• The work of the juvenile justice system is based on theory, and the study of theory is fundamental to all academic enterprise, including juvenile delinquency.

WHAT GOOD IS THEORY AND WHAT IS GOOD THEORY?

• Theories attempt to explain the connections between facts so that we can observe patterns, construct policies, and better understand how factors are related.
• Curran and Renzetti's definition of a theory is as follows: a theory is a set of interconnected statements or propositions that explain how two or more events or factors are related to one another.
• According to Akers and Sellers, these criteria must be addressed when evaluating theories: logical consistency, scope, parsimony, testability, empirical validity, usefulness and policy implications, and ideology.
• Three of the most traditional explanations of crime are spiritual explanations, the classical school of criminology, and the positivist school of criminology. Although developed in past centuries, all of these systems of thought influence our current system and ideas of justice.

SPIRITUAL EXPLANATIONS OF CRIME AND DELINQUENCY

• Spiritual explanations, which are rooted in religion, tend to be favored by many people.
• The spiritual perspective has been largely overtaken in the justice system by other ways of understanding why people offend and how society should respond.
• One of the social reasons for punishment, especially for heinous crimes, is to satisfy the need for revenge of both society and the victim or victims by symbolically quelling evil.
• The English legal system, upon which the U.S. legal system is based, is largely derived from Christian ideas of justice and morality.

THE CLASSICAL SCHOOL OF CRIMINOLOGY

• Classical criminology uses the idea of free will to explain that offenders choose to engage in crime and that the best way to control crime is to deter offenders and make it uncomfortable or unprofitable for them to offend.
• The two figures best associated with classical criminology are Cesare Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham. Beccaria was concerned with establishing a more rational and humane system of social control. Bentham developed an approach that was concerned with the way individuals weighed pleasure and pain when deciding whether to commit deviant acts.
• Another basic concern of deterrence research concerns the accuracy of knowledge of the severity of various sanctions. A belief that one will be caught (certainty) and swiftly (celerity) and punished drastically (severity) is needed in order for deterrence theory to work. Akers and Sellers conclude that certainty of punishment is the most powerful aspect of deterrence theory.
• According to rational choice theory, people weigh the costs and benefits of their decisions and act in their own best interests. Williams and McShane state that offenders make two types of decisions when contemplating crime: involvement decisions, in which they determine whether they will engage in a particular offense, continue an offense, or desist from it, and event decisions about what tactics to use when committing an offense.
• Some criminal justice administrators believe that shock deterrence tactics will influence youths to obey the law and avoid the justice system. Three shock deterrence programs are shock incarceration, Scared Straight-type programs, and boot camp prisons.

THE POSITIVIST SCHOOL OF CRIMINOLOGY

• The positivist school of criminology focuses on the offender rather than the offense and uses science rather than philosophy to explain crime. It considers offenders' motivations and examines their physical characteristics, social background, and moral development in order to determine why they offend and what can be done to rehabilitate them.
• The positivist school focuses on the offender rather than the offense or the law, and posits that humans do not necessarily have free will and that human behavior is determined by various external factors.
• The classical school utilizes philosophy to try to understand why people break the law, while the positivist school uses science.
• Positivism considers the factors that affect juveniles and adults to be much the same: employment, poverty, family life, culture, health, etc. Positivism focuses more on youths' specific ages than it does the ages of adults and considers in detail the effects of family issues on youths.
• Adolphe Quetelet was fascinated by the regularity in property and violent crimes, argued that poverty was not the main cause of crime, and stated that the primary factor in determining the tendency for crime was age.
• Andre-Michel Guerry pioneered the use of crime statistics to graphically represent how social factors contribute to crime rates across jurisdictions.
• Auguste Comte recommended several important steps in how social scientists should go about their work so that it can be verified and replicated.
• Cesare Lombroso was one of the first to employ the scientific method in the study of crime.

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