Biological and Positivist Schools

Biological and positivist schools explain crime through biology, heredity and measurable causes. The biological tradition rose with positivism, the application of the scientific method to crime, and moved from physiognomy and phrenology to Cesare Lombroso's criminal anthropology and his concept of atavism, through Darwin and Galton and the criminal family studies, to Kretschmer's body type typology. Biosocial criminology rejects determinism and joins biology to social setting, drawing on Mednick, Moffitt and Raine, twin and adoption studies, gene and environment interaction such as the MAOA gene with childhood maltreatment, neuroscience and epigenetics.