Positivist Criminology (Trait Theory)

Question 1

What is the Positivist School?

Answer 1

• Viewed human nature as determined by biological, psychological and social environment
• No concern with civil rights (scientific treatment to rehabilitate offenders weather they agree or not)
• criminological experts are scientists

Question 2

What is Positivism?

Answer 2

• an approach that studies human behaviour through the use of the traditional scientific method
• Positivism is actually not a theory but a philosophy (idea)

Question 3

What are the basic features of positivism?

Answer 3

• Systematic observation (observation made through the use of certain rules)
• Accumulation of evidence
• Objective fact
• Deductive framework (moving from the general to the specific)

Question 4

What were factors that influenced those who worked on crime and criminal issues in the early days?

Answer 4

• Medicine’s embrace of science
• The application of science to problems of everyday life
• Application of science to industry (those concerned with human affairs would have a vision of perfecting humanity through scientific study)
• The work of Charles Darwin (concept of evolution: criminals were viewed as individuals who were less evolved)
• Transformation of agriculturally based aristocracies (focused more on social problems as opposed to political)
• Emergence of Anthropology (presented evidence that other societies were more “primitive”)
• Risk of proletariat class (working class)

Question 5

What did Baptista Della Porta believe?

Answer 5

Physiognomy

• body characteristics assumed related to behaviour

Question 6

What did Frans Joseph Gall and Johann Gaspar Spurzheim believe?

Answer 6

• Head structure (“bumps on the head”)
• characteristics of the brain are mirrored in bumps on the skull

Question 7

What did Andre Guerry believe?

Answer 7

• Created “social statistics” by combining nations’ new social data collections with geographical areas

Question 8

What did Adolphe Quetelet believe?

Answer 8

• Used probability theory to create an “average person” from social data matched to geographical areas

Question 9

What is the Positivist approach to the definition of crime?

Answer 9

• violation of social consensus
• extends beyond the legal definition
• deviant behaviour with respect to social norms

Question 10

What is the Positive approach to the focus of analysis of crime?

Answer 10

• Characteristics of offender

Question 11

What is the Positive approach to the cause of crime?

Answer 11

• Individual deficiency
• Not a matter of individual choice

Question 12

What is the Positive approach to the nature of offender?

Answer 12

• Determined and/or predisposed to certain type of behaviour
• Biological, social conditioning and individual offences

Question 13

What is the Positive approach to the response to crime?

Answer 13

• Diagnosis on an individual basis
• Interminate to fit the offender

Question 14

Who was Cesare Lombroso?

Answer 14

• Father of Italian positivist criminiology
• Physician and neurologist-psychiatrist
• Used scientific methodology to study criminals, primarily fathering physiological information and compared to non-criminals
• Classified criminals by type

Question 15

What was Lombroso’s work?

Answer 15

• The “born criminal”
• Detailed statistical of analysis of soldiers, criminals and the insane
• Stigmatized of degeneracy (abnormal physical conditions)
• Analyzed defective home condiitons

Question 16

What was Lombroso’s concept of Atavism?

Answer 16

• Atavist was based on his studies and measurements of criminals in prison
• Contributed to his idea of the born criminal

Question 17

What are critiques of Lombroso’s work?

Answer 17

• Lombroso’s work attracted a large following and was applied in criminal trials

However, his scientific methodology was flawed:
- Control groups were poorly chosen,
- Statistical techniques were crude,
- Measurements were often sloppy, and
- He assumed those in prison were criminals (while free people were not)

Question 18

How did Lombroso’s work contribute to the Positive School?

Answer 18

• Different types of offenders had different stimata (For example, robbers have small, shifting quick-moving eyes)
• Women had fewer stigmaya than men and were closer to their primitive origins (However, they were less criminal because of their maternal instincts, piety, and lack of passion)
• Offenders could be grouped into different categories (These included epileptics, the criminally insane, criminals of passion (a husband walking in on his wife cheating on him and killing her out of anger), and “criminaloids”)

Question 19

Who was Ernst Kretschmer?

Answer 19

• German psychiatrist
• Wrote physique character

Question 20

What did Ernst Kretschmer believe?

Answer 20

Found 3 types of delinquents

• Leptosome (asthenic): tall, thin (petty theft, fraud)
• Athletic: crimes of violence
• Pyknic: short, fat, crimes of deception
• (also discussed a possible fourth type - “dysplastic” which was a mixed type with various offences against morals and decency)

Question 21

What did William Sheldon believe?

Answer 21

Linked physique to temperament

• Endomorph: fat, round, soft (relaxed, comfortable, extrovert)
• Linked to deception crime
• Mesomorph: muscular, athletic (dynamic, gesturing, assertive, aggressive)
• Linked to violent crime
• Ectomorph: lean, fragile, delicate (sickly, weak, tired, distracted, introverted)
• Linked to petty crimes

Question 22

How did Eugenics contribute to Psychological movements?

Answer 22

Popular ideas spread from biological work:

• Concept of dangerous classes
• Criminals are degenerates
• Eugenics movement spread from atavist concept
• Studies used cases where criminal lineage traced

Question 23

What was the results of the Eugenics Movement?

Answer 23

• Juveniles removed from homes - sent away to foster homes with forcible relocation
• Sterilization of women
• Women and children given training, supervision, religious studies & reformation
• Believed unfit traits could be bred out with focus on:
• Antisocial behaviour
• Intelligence v. feeblemindedness
• Mental illness