Criminology Italian School

Development of Criminology: Modern Criminology in the Italian School

Introduction to Criminology Italian School

The founding of modern scientific criminology is generally credited to the so-called Italian school and to the work of its three principal exponents-Cesare Lombroso, Enrico Ferri, and Raffaele Garofalo. The first edition of Lombroso’s most important work, L’uomo delinquente (The Criminal Man, 1876), attracted a great deal of attention because it appeared to demonstrate the feasibility of a genuinely scientific study of criminal behavior.

Lombroso asserted that criminals are a distinct physical and biological type. He believed that the true criminal could be identified by observing certain physical traits, including a long lower jaw, asymmetric cranium, and other detectable conditions. These traits, according to Lombroso, did not cause criminal behavior, but they revealed an inherent propensity (inclination) to crime. Lombroso taught that the propensity toward crime was the result of atavism, a reversion to a more primitive state of human development.

One of Lombroso’s students, Enrico Ferri, accepted the existence of a criminal type but also focused on factors other than inherited physical characteristics as predictors of crime. He considered social factors such as population trends, religion, and the nature of the family. Ferri also proposed a more elaborate classification of criminal types, including the born or instinctive criminal, the insane criminal, the passionate criminal, the involuntary criminal, the occasional criminal, and the habitual criminal. According to Ferri, the last two types were not innate criminals but rather the products of unfortunate family or environmental circumstances. By explaining criminal behavior on the basis of social factors as well as inherited traits, Ferri expanded the scope of criminology.

Italian lawyer Raffaele Garofalo’s major contribution to modern criminology is the concept of natural crime, which he argued was the principal concern of criminologists. According to Garofalo, natural or true crime is conduct that, when evaluated against the average moral sense of the community, offends the basic altruistic (unselfish) sense of humankind. The true criminal is one who lacks the basic altruistic sentiments of pity and honesty. Garofalo believed that the true criminal is a distinct biological or psychic type and that the altruistic deficiencies were organic or inherited. Still, Garofalo acknowledged that certain forms of criminal behavior might be encouraged by social and environmental circumstances.

The Italian school made a valuable contribution to criminology by stimulating thought and writing about crime and criminals. It focused attention on the offender as an appropriate object of study, which the 18th-century reformers had not done. Finally, the work of the Italian school framed the so-called nature-versus-nurture debate (whether biological or social factors create behaviors) that became a principal theme throughout the development of modern criminology.” (1)

Resources

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Notes and References

• Information about Criminology Italian School in the Encarta Online Encyclopedia

Guide to Criminology Italian School

In this Section

Criminology, Criminology Development (including Classical Criminology, Modern Criminology, Criminology Italian School and Independent Criminology), Criminology Goals, Biological Theories of Crime (including Crime Genetic Factors and Neurological Abnormalities), Psychological Theories of Crime (including Moral Development Theories, Social Learning Theories and Personality Theories), Environmental and Social Theories of Crime (including Social Causes, Social-Structural Theories, Subcultural Theories and Economic Causes of Crime) and

Criminal Opportunity.