A school of criminology founded by Cesare Lombroso holding that criminal behavior arises from identifiable factors, in Lombroso's own theory biological and hereditary, rather than from free rational choice, and should be studied by scientific method. Lombroso's specific claim that criminals are biologically identifiable was later challenged by statistical research finding no significant physical differences between criminals and non-criminals. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Facts
Core ClaimCriminal behavior has identifiable causes external to free will and can be studied scientifically, in contrast to the classical school emphasis on rational choice. 1 Standing CritiqueLombroso's claim that criminality is identifiable through physical traits was seriously challenged by Charles Goring's statistical analysis, which found no significant physical differences between criminals and non-criminals. 1 Connections
Associated With
His statistical work with Andre-Michel Guerry helped establish the positivist school of criminology.
Source Wikipedia: Adolphe Quetelet
Havelock Ellis's The Criminal (1890) introduced and popularized Continental positivist criminology (Lombroso and successors) to English-language readers.
Nicole Rafter's Creating Born Criminals (1997) is the leading social history of positivist biological theories of crime and their eugenic legacy; spot-verified live via web search 2026-09-04.
Critiqued Here
Critical criminology rejects the positivist school's focus on individual pathology as the cause of crime, arguing crime and its definition are products of structural inequality instead.
Source Wikipedia: Critical Criminology
Developed By
Source Cesare Lombroso (Wikipedia)
Source Wikipedia: Enrico Ferri
Source Wikipedia: Raffaele Garofalo
Informed
Biosocial criminology is a modern revival of the biological strand of positivist criminology Lombroso founded, now paired with social and environmental factors rather than treated alone.
Sources
1. Cesare Lombroso (Wikipedia)
Career section, 1878
That year he wrote his most important and influential work, L'uomo delinquente (Criminal Man in English), which went through five editions in Italian and was published in various European languages.
Lead section
Lombroso is considered the founder of the Italian school of criminology.
- Developed By: Cesare Lombroso
In Group: Biological and Positivist Schools, Lead sentence
Cesare Lombroso ( lom-BROH-soh, US also lawm-; Italian: [ˈtʃeːzare lomˈbroːzo, ˈtʃɛː-, -oːso]; born Ezechia Marco Lombroso; 6 November 1835-19 October 1909) was an Italian eugenicist, criminologist, phrenologist, physician, and founder of the Italian school of criminology.
View the SourceWikipedia: Adolphe Quetelet
Wikipedia: Critical Criminology
Wikipedia: Enrico Ferri
Wikipedia: Raffaele Garofalo
Dissenting Readings (1 dissenting reading)
Core Claim
British prison medical officer Charles Goring directly challenged the positivist school's founding claim in his 1913 statistical study The English Convict. Comparing over 3,000 English convicts against a control group of Royal Engineers, Goring found the physical and mental constitution of criminal and law-abiding persons of the same age, stature, class and intelligence to be identical, concluding there is no such thing as an anthropological criminal type and undermining Lombroso's biologically-identifiable born-criminal thesis specifically, though not the broader positivist claim that crime has identifiable, scientifically studiable causes.
A dissenting reading, from Charles GoringWikipedia: Charles Buckman Goring
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.