Biological Positivism PDF

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Essay on biological positivism (criminology)...

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Jaime Belsham

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Essay Topic 2: i)

Identify the main features of biological (individual) positivism.

ii)

What new ideas or practices did it introduce?

Over the past two centuries criminology has expanded exponentially from a miniscule topic to a respected and well-known discipline. Criminology has split into a variety of different theories and philosophies. One of the earliest theories is called biological (individual) positivism. Biological positivism started around 1875 when Cesare Lombroso (a physician and criminological anthropologist) began to focus on the biological attributes of humans in order to explain why people committed crime (Pond, 1999). Lombroso’s work was highly regarded for many decades and he became known as the father of criminology (William, 2012). Most of Lombroso’s ideas were influenced by Darwinism and he used this to argue that criminality was determined by a person’s biology (Walkate, 2011).

Lombroso was not the only huge influence on the emergence of biological positivism. There were two other Italian scholars named Enrico Ferri and Raffaele Garofalo who, all three together, made up the Italian School of Criminology (Pond, 1999). They all wanted to find a way to not only uncover the cause of crime but also distinguish the criminal from the noncriminal (Newburn, 2017). These scholars came up with basic concepts and foundations that helped to define biological criminology. One foundation was that this theory was to be studied through scientific methods as these methods tend to be more precise and allow for minimal error when compared to uncharted methods of analysis (Newburn, 2017).

The philosophical subject of determinism was also a concept of biological positivism. Determinism states that a person has absolutely no control over their actions and therefore a criminal would have no control over whether they committed a crime or not (Newburn, 2017). They believed that crime was hereditary and supplied people with a predisposition to commit crime (Newburn, 2017). There was also an enormous focus on the criminals themselves instead of the act (Newburn, 2017). They described crime as an illness or disease that affected the individual which is what needed to be analysed and cured in order to prevent crime (Williams, 2012). It makes sense that they focused on the actor instead of the act because they believed criminality to be inevitable and the only way to prevent the crime 1

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was to focus on curing the person who was going to commit the crime. After determining this fact, it is obvious that positivists would have needed to find a way to cure criminals of their predetermined disease and prevent the crime from occurring. Positivists decided to focus on treating and curing criminals in order to stop crime. Because criminals were seen as being abnormal through a positivist lens, their punishments were liberal, and it was agreed that the offender should be subject to therapy and rehabilitation techniques (Walkate, 2011). There were some exceptions to this ruling, such as the ‘born criminal’. A person who was incapable of being cured as they were predisposed to criminal activity (Williams, 2011). These criminals were seen as being unable to control their criminal and primal urges and it was recommended they be removed from society to humane containment where they could not reproduce or negatively affect society (William, 2011).

The biological perspective gave a predetermined concept about what and who a criminal was. This created an idea that allowed normal people to differentiation from criminals; essentially defining everyone else as a non-criminal (Newburn, 2017). Society seemed to carry a desire to measure and define the criminal as a completely separate being which was conducted by Lombroso’s ideas about evolutionary throwback and the theory that some beings were less evolved than others (Walkate, 2011). Following this concept, the last idea introduced by biological positivism was pathology. This was the process of diagnosis where criminals were differentiated from noncriminals on a medical basis as criminality was viewed as a disease (Walkate, 2011). It was not the social norm to be a criminal and it was acknowledged that criminals were predetermined by biological deficiencies (Walkate, 2011).

As mentioned earlier, there are many different theories that have been created to explain why crimes are committed. Biological positivism was created to acknowledge the individual factors that made people commit crimes and criticise the theories before it; such as classicism (Williams, 2012). Positivism began during a period of enlightenment where there was a transition from using religion as a way to understand and control nature, to using the natural sciences (Walkate, 2012). They wanted to create a more scientific approach which was a lot more reliable then the philosophy or hearsay of the church (Walkate, 2012). Positivists criticised the classical belief that everyone was rational and was able to control what they did (Williams, 2012). Positivists argued that the ability of a person to commit a 2

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crime was predetermined and the criminal was influenced by biological means which they had no control over (Newburn, 2017).

Like all criminological theories, positivism was trying to reduce crime, but the way they interpreted the cause of the crime was very different to classicists. Because classicism argued that criminals were freely choosing to commit crimes, classicists decided to focus on the crime committed and not concern themselves with why the individual may have committed the crime (Newburn, 2017). With the classicists focusing on the criminal act, they then decided to give equal punishment to everyone for the same crime (Newburn, 2017). Classicists wanted to get tough on crime in order to prevent anyone from wanting to commit a crime again; as they would have been in fear of being punished (Newburn, 2017). Positivists counteracted this with the belief that many criminals were diseased and needed to be treated (Williams, 2012). They wanted the harsh and fixed punishments revoked and replace them with humane rehabilitation centres that worked on curing the criminal in order to prevent crimes from being committed. The length of these rehabilitation programmes was undetermined and specific to the individual (Newburn, 2017).

Positivism also brought about the statement that would have pleased many people: that the criminal was a different being than the non-criminal (Newburn, 2017). As mentioned before, it was the classicist’s belief that everybody was the same, but positivists used Darwinism to refute this statement. It would have been a relief to many to discover that criminals were viewed as a form of subspecies of the human race (Walkate, 2011). Building on the previous statement, the final concept criticised by positivists was the classical belief that committing crime was a normal part of the human condition and that people choose to offend. The positivists countered this with the idea that criminality could be studied pathologically because they believed criminality to be a disease (Newburn, 2017). They believed criminality could be studied as a biological dysfunction that caused people to commit crime instead of the classicist’s belief that crime was normal human characteristic (Williams, 2012).

Biological positivism is an important part of criminology. It has been concluded that biological factors have a definite effect on the determination of crime, but this effect is generally quite small (Newburn, 2017). Even though this theory has been around for the 3

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past two centuries it has still kept a foot hold within the criminological discipline. Its concepts are still changing and growing in society today with the introduction of new scientific equipment and developing ideas (Coleman & Norris, 2013). Positivists are beginning to rely on a person’s internal measures to determine a biological link to crime (Coleman & Norris, 2013). They are no longer just relying on Lombroso’s ideas such as body shapes and evolution. The insight that biological positivism gives into the criminal disposition should be used to help inform the debate about criminal activity but not control it (Williams, 2012).

References Coleman, C. and Norris, C. (2013) Introducing Criminology, London: Routledge. Walklate, S. (2011) Criminology: The basics (2nd Ed.), London: Routledge. Newburn, Tim, (2017) Criminology (3rd Ed.) London: Routledge. Pond, Russel, (1999), Introduction to Criminology, Hampshire, England: Waterside Press. Williams, Katherine, (2012), Textbook on Criminology, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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