Classical criminology preceded the development of positivism. This is a philosophy stating that knowledge should be based on empirical evidence, what we can be witnessed in research. Positivism was a departure from philosophical explanations that relied on logic and abstract reasoning to examine the nature of human behavior. Positivism was developed by the French philosopher Auguste Comte (1848), who is credited with founding the discipline of sociology. Comte believed that, much like the physical world, human societies operated according to universal laws and principles. Just as physics could explain fundamental truths about the behavior of the universe, sociology (and other social sciences) could explain fundamental beliefs and principles about how human society operated. Thus, positive criminology refers to the theories that were developed in this tradition of relying on the scientific method—a systematic process combining abstract reasoning, theorizing, and induction based on observation, experimentation, and analysis of empirical data.

In this section, we will look at the origins of the positive school of criminology with early attempts to gather data and, based on these observations, identify explanations for criminal behavior. Because of the growing influence of medicine in society, and broader scientific developments in understanding evolution and heredity, the first theories to be identified in the positivist tradition tended to focus on biological explanations. In full disclosure right up front,  many of the theorists and theories discussed in this section have since been falsified or otherwise discredited. Once people put their theories to rigorous scientific examination, they did not hold up. Despite this, they are included because they played an important role in the history of criminological thought, laying the foundation for later developments in the understanding of and response to crime. Other criminological theories within the positivist tradition, including sociological and psychological theories, are discussed in Chapters 4 through 6.

3.5.1 Criminal Statistics

Although not always associated with the positive school of criminology, a group of French-Belgian statisticians played an important role in the rise of positivism in criminology. This is sometimes referred to as the cartographic or early ecological school due to the emphasis on mapping of statistical (including crime) data to geographical areas (Walsh & Hemmens, 2014). These early statisticians gathered data from newly initiated government Census projects on crime and other social factors, and looked at relationships between statistical variables to figure out crime and social behavior during the nineteenth century. In 1825, France’s Ministry of Justice began a project to gather statistical data on crimes known, prosecutions, verdicts (e.g., convictions, acquittals), and punishments in criminal courts. In addition, they gathered data on the time of year of that crimes occurred, as well as the age, sex, occupation, and educational status of those accused and convicted of crimes. After the first report was published in 1827, a group of statisticians and cartographers, including Adolphe Quetelet, began to conduct independent analyses of the data (Beirne, 1987).

Quetelet was a Belgian astronomer and mathematician who was introduced to the statistical movement while in Paris. Observing that crime was constant over many years led Quetelet to believe that human behavior (including crime) obeyed rules similar to laws of physics. Like Comte (discussed above), Quetelet concluded that the social world could be explained in similar ways as the natural world, using the terms “social mechanics” (and, later, “social physics”) to describe the statistical calculations required to identify the rules and laws that governed human society.

Quetelet also developed the concept of the “average man”—an imaginary person that embodied statistical averages of various human characteristics such as height and weight. Quetelet then calculated the correlation of crime with age, sex, and socioeconomic status (occupation, education), observing that young, lower-class males had the greatest propensity for crime. Although he did not attempt to develop a theory to explain these facts, his writings reveal a fairly sophisticated and nuanced view of crime. For example, he found that although poverty correlated with crime in some instances, social inequality was a more important factor. This became key in modern sociology when scholars argued crime was the result of social organization, as we will discuss in Chapter 4.

3.5.2 Moral Insanity

Historian Nicole Rafter (2004) has identified the late eighteenth—and early nineteenth—century psychiatric writings on “moral insanity” as the first texts to apply scientific methods to formulate explanations of crime. (At the time, psychiatrists were referred to with different terms such as “alienists” or “mad-doctors.”) Moral insanity referred to habitual, uncontrollable criminality committed without motive or remorse, akin to what would today be described as psychopathy. The three earliest discussions of this concept were by Benjamin Rush in the United States, Philippe Pinel in France, and James Cowles Prichard in England (Rafter, 2004).

Rush was a physician and American Founding Father who, in his work with mentally ill patients, developed a model of mental and moral functioning. Laying out his ideas first in a 1786 essay (given orally) and later in an 1812 book, he described moral faculty as the capability of both distinguishing and choosing good from evil. Individuals suffered from either anomia, or total moral depravity, in which both the moral faculty and the conscience stopped functioning, or micronomia, a partial weakness of the moral faculty in which the individual remains aware of their wrongdoing. Although the causes of moral depravity were broad (either heritable or resulting from illness, poor diet, alcoholism, climate, etc.), the basic idea was that insanity was due to mental disease rather than sin (or free will).

Pinel, the medical director of two asylums in France, was also interested in understanding the medical causes of insanity. However, in contrast with Rush, he approached his work with greater scientific rigor. In his 1801 A Treatise on Insanity, he described five types of mental derangement including melancholy, dementia, idiocy, and mania with and without delirium. The latter—“madness without delusions”—was similar to Rush’s concept of moral depravity but ultimately became more influential.

Prichard built on both of these earlier concepts in his 1835 A Treatise on Insanity, developing the concept of moral insanity which gained the most prominent scientific status. Like Pinel’s “madness without delusions” or Rush’s concept of moral derangement, moral insanity affected the feelings, temperament, and habits but left the intellect, logic, and reasoning unaffected. Similarly, he speculated vaguely that the causes were attributable to heredity or later damage and advocated compassion toward and reform of the treatment of the mentally ill (including those who committed crimes). In contrast with the classical thinkers, many of these early psychiatrists believed that punishment was an inappropriate way to address criminal behavior since it was beyond individual control. Instead, they advocated individualization of treatment, institutionalization, and other forms of care.

3.5.3 Phrenology

Figure 3.4 Phrenology head from The Household Physician, 1905.

Like the concept of moral insanity, phrenology was an early attempt to use scientific methods to understand human behavior, including criminality. Phrenology refers to the theory that different areas of the skull correspond to different personality, behavioral, or mental functions (see figure 3.4). Phrenology has its intellectual roots in physiognomy, which argued that facial and other physical characteristics correspond to character, and borrowed methods from the natural sciences (e.g., craniology). Although it is widely regarded as pseudoscience today, phrenology was a popular idea during the first half of the nineteenth century, and one of the earliest attempts at a scientific explanation of crime.

The founder of phrenology, Franz Joseph Gall, collected skulls, interviewed a variety of people from different social classes and vocations, studied and made casts of their heads, and then attempted to correlate traits with specific areas of the skull. His theory and findings were published in an extensive volume that was later translated into a more approachable version by his student, Johan Caspar Spurzheim. According to the theory, criminal behavior was attributable to overdevelopment of the region of the skull responsible for “destructiveness.” Phrenology was cited in explaining the changes in character experienced by Phineas Gage, a railroad worker who suffered a brain injury when a railroad spike exploded, piercing his brain (see figure 3.5).

Figure 3.5 Photograph of railroad worker Phineas Gage with the railroad spike that pierced his brain.

Although it was unclear whether the cause of this imbalance of different regions of the skull was due to heredity, environment, or disease, Gall popularized the idea that criminal behavior was due to physical abnormality rather than free will. In other words, rationality was not real and crime could not be deterred through swift, certain, and proportionate punishment for someone who suffered from some ailment that kept them from making good decisions.

Furthermore, according to phrenology, these defects were not permanent, but instead were possible to address through treatment or self-regulation. As such, phrenology advocated for rehabilitation rather than retribution or deterrence. Proponents of phrenology argued against brutal punishments out of fear that this kind of abuse would lead to worsening imbalances, such as weakening the regions of the skull responsible for kindness.

In general, proponents were fairly liberal and advocated against corporal and capital punishment. They believed that the mentally ill were less responsible than others for their criminal behaviors and that the criminal law and punishments should be individualized to address these differences. Although it retained its popularity for some decades after, by 1830 phrenology had lost plausibility and was replaced by the growing popularity of theories of degeneracy (discussed below). Despite its inaccuracies, phrenology is noteworthy for its anticipation of developments in neuroscience that occurred in the late twentieth century (Rafter, 2005).