Assignment | Main Tenets of Positivist Criminology

University
Criminology
Discuss the main tenets of positivist criminology. What
contribution has it made to modern criminology?
Student Credentials
12/10/2019

Criminology 1
Discuss the main tenets of positivist criminology. What contribution has it made to
modern criminology?
Criminology is the science that studies the criminal behaviour and how it can be prevented.
Aspects that are related to a criminal act and the criminal himself such as the causes involved,
control, nature, extent, it’s consequences and how it can be prevented everything is covered
under criminology. Criminology does not only relate to the study of criminal acts on social
levels but also individual or personal level all are covered under criminology.
This field is studied so as to understand the behavioural and mental aspects related to the
criminal and to understand the causes that make a criminal act in such a manner.
Criminologists are those people who study criminology, people such as the psychologists,
psychiatrists, biologists, philosophers and sociologists. Also, the scholars who have interest
in law or are in any manner related to the field go through the basics of criminology so as to
understand the patterns and causes behind a criminal act in a better manner1.
As per the theory of the positivist school, a person commits a criminal act not out of one’s
own will but due to certain internal as well as external factors compel a person or individual
to commit a criminal act and the individual has no control over it. The basic idea behind this
theory is that a criminal has those criminal instincts from birth and one cannot be made a
criminal. As far as the debate of nurture and nature is concerned, the theory of positivist
school supports the nature and believes that the instinctive aspect of an individual makes a
person criminal. Various philosophers have tried and tested the theory of positivist school so
as to study the behavioural aspects of a human.
There are basically three segments of the positivism approach which are; Social positivism,
biological and psychological. Social Positivism is the outcome of an approach that says the
1 Anthony Walsh and Cody Jorgensen, Criminology (3rd edn, Sage Publication 2018).

Criminology 2
social external factors affect an individual’s instinct to commit a criminal act and take it to
another level. Difficulties such as unemployment, poverty, low income levels and bad
education system help an individual to commit a criminal behaviour. Whereas, the Biological
Positivism discusses another belief that such mentality to commit criminal acts and showing
behaviour that is criminal happens due to certain ‘abnormalities’ and ‘chemical imbalances’
in the mental state affecting the brain in some or the other manner. Another important
segment of the positivism approach is the Psychological Positivism; this approach refers to
the idea that talks about the internal factors driving an individual towards criminal activities2.
It is a concept that revolves around the internal factors affecting the actions of an individual.
This approach is a different one from the one that is mentioned before, Biological Positivism.
Biological approach talks about the criminals as it is in their nature to commit a crime or in
their mentality to commit a crime, while, the Psychological aspect talks about the internal
factors leading to criminal behaviour being aggravated by certain immediate external factors
that have been going on for a while such as, abusive relationships with certain person or with
parents, drug related issues and as such.
This approach in criminology refers to the individual’s characteristics instead of the acts that
are committed by an individual that are criminal in nature. Many offenders have already been
analysed, specific medical examinations and as such diagnosis has been done previously so
that certain reasons for the criminal activity being committed and the ways to deal with
specifically if they are internal have been found out. Mostly certain experts can only figure
out the specific reasons behind a person’s criminal activity as every single and minute
information has to be analysed in such cases3.
2 Amanda Graham and others, 'Contemporary Classics? The Early Onset Of Influence Of Articles Published In
Criminology And Criminal Justice Journals, 2010–2015' (2019) 30 Journal of Criminal Justice Education.
3 J. Robert Lilly, Francis T Cullen and Richard A Ball, Criminological Theory (7th edn, Sage Publication 2018).