Analysis of Positive Criminology Theory and Dangerous Offender

This report delves into the theory of positive criminology, contrasting it with the classical theory, and exploring its historical development. It examines the core belief that criminals are born, not made, and the influence of pioneers like Lombroso, Ferri, and Garofalo. The report highlights the scientific approach of positivism, emphasizing the importance of understanding the psychological and social factors behind criminal behavior, and its impact on the criminal justice system. It also analyzes the concept of social defense, the role of professional service providers in offender reformation, and the application of positive criminology in the context of the Dangerous Offender designation in Canada, as outlined in the Criminal Code. The report explores the challenges faced by the positive school, including the need for trained professionals and the debates surrounding the reformation of offenders, ultimately concluding that crime is an ethical issue and the reason a person commits a crime is not because of the way the person behaves but because of the way other people think the person should behave and they therefore have within themselves the power judge the behavior of others.

POSITIVE CRIMINOLOGY 1
Positive Criminology
Institutional Affiliation
Student’s Name

POSITIVE CRIMINOLOGY 2
Positive Criminology
There are two theories of criminology namely; firstly the positivists theory and secondly the
classical theory. These theories form the basis of the historic perspective of criminology. The paper
aims to review the theory of positivism that suggests criminals are a result of nature, and not
nurture. In other words, it can be understood that criminals are born and not made into criminals.
The suggested theory is the positive criminology and the purpose of the paper is to affirm the theory
and its respective supporters.
Clarence Ray Jeffery (1959) in his paper ‘The Historical Development of Criminology’
attempts to review the ideas of pioneers of the field of criminology in relation to the positivist
school of thought, by understanding the ideas held by the pioneers. The historical account of
criminology would be value-less unless we relate it to the current trends (Jeffery, 1959). He further
suggests that criminology can be viewed as comprising three varying types of problems: The
problem relating to the individual who broke the law, problem relating to custody as well as the
treatment of the lawbreaker upon judgment, which is the challenge of accounting for the crime
empirically. Positivists suggest that the causes of criminality are actually beyond the offender’s
control (Jeffery, 1959). The positive school of thought disregards the legal definition. It focuses
more on the psychological grounds behind such criminal activities, and the methodology to analyze
such factors leading to a particular crime.
Positivism had influenced the justice deliverance in the criminal justice system by
supporting many research thesis from varied disciplines like psychology, physiology, social work,
psychiatry and so on. Positivism has accepted a scientific approach to the study of criminology. The
subjective perception of the school involved much determination of the role played by the offender,
which may include his or her personality, intelligence, body structure, family background, family
and social relations, and the group to which the individual belongs and so on. Lombroso is one of
the pioneers of positivistic theory and has explained that in order to assess a crime, assessment of

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the human behavior that may have led to the commission of such crime is very important. This
embarks the mentality and the motive of the person, which is one of the most important elements of
a crime.
In the late nineteenth century, the classical school of thought was challenged by the
positivists, led primarily by three eminent scholars; Cesare Lombroso, Enrico Ferri and Raffaele
Garofalo. It has been laid down that the significance of the positivistic theory is its assessment of
deterministic and scientific methodologies while assessing a crime. The individual offenders are
individually studied scientifically to extract the hidden motive of the person or the circumstances
under which then crime was committed. However, the positive school also orients that study of law
and society is not of much use because such criminals can never be reformed. The theory of
positivism denies the concept of intuition, reasoning for the commission of crime, theological and
metaphysical knowledge of the consequences of such act. The basic difference between both the
schools is that while the classical school establishes free will for the commission of a crime, and
that the crime is one’s choice whereas, the positivist school affirms that crime is not a choice but it
is imbibed within a person’s personality right from his or her birth. The theory of criminal justice
system stands on the discipline that criminology is a science and it cannot be successful until it is
able to reform a criminal. Hence, the main challenge of this school is the social defenses, which
means that the professional service providers thriving for the reformation of a criminal should have
fulfillment of their requirements to ensure their access to the up-to-date tools for managing and
reforming them.
The concept of Social Defense or the Professional Service providers towards the reformation
of an offender is an infusion of both the schools of thoughts where, a person’s mind is studied to
bring out his or her motive behind the action, along with the consequences and its knowledge that a
person chose to ignore while committing a crime. The purpose of these defenses is to extract the
findings from the human science and apply the same to re-examine the background that hails the

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person’s personality and his society. The professionals are steadily aiming to provide opportunities
for reformation with good behavior, parole, employment during imprisonment, education, and so on
with the aim to ensure stability in the person and improve his or her mentality to offer him or her
second chance in the outer world. The social defenses measures should be organized very
systematically, especially in the subjective assessment of abnormals or habitual offenders and
delinquent minors. As per Ancel 1954, it can be debated whether social defense is a return to
positivism or a new unknown movement which has garnered a considerable amount of attention and
interest by the pioneers of law. It can although be quite misleading, but could not be taken to any
school of criminology. The central doctrine of the school is the reformation of the offender
depending upon the analysis of the causes of his offense. Its goal is to defend the society. According
to Cantor (1936), it has been explained that the reformation of a person is the only means to the
most general and the most important goal of the positivist school, which is defending the society.
The dominant interest is to prevent the commission of crimes in future sense, and the essence of
criminal law should be to protect such interest. Hence, the idea behind such measure is to be
imposed in cases where the punishments are insufficient and deterrence has failed. Hence, it works
perfectly to prevent the measures of crimes in selected categories of offenders, which are the
habitual offenders, delinquent minors and those who stand as threat to social dangerousness.
The first international meeting was held in Rome in 1885 for the foundation of theories of
social defense. However, the first challenge to such foundation was the formation of categories of
crimes and their essential characteristics. The second challenge was to assimilate the theory of
anthropology of criminal law into a compact penal code. However, Garofalo favored the foundation
and argued in support of it. However, the need of trained professionals to be employed in prisons to
study criminal anthropology was recognized and affirmed. It was further affirmed that the
professors and students of law should be trained in psychiatry and legal medicines in form of
counseling and reformative behavioral study. Ferri also supported the arguments laid down by

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Garofalo. However, the second meeting was held in Paris in 1889, where the French ridiculed the
idea of born criminals and argued against the positivism thoughts. In the third Congress in 1892, the
positivists refused to participate due to non-recognition of their thoughts in the previous meet.
However, in the fourth Congress, the peace prevailed and Ferri restated the position of the
positivists where he argued that the school explains born criminals as those who are influenced by
their pathological conditions. They argued that there may be an environment for the criminal
attention; however, the same could have been avoided with a favorable environment.
It can be concluded that the positive school of thought derived information through scientific
methods to make informed decisions concerning social problems. The positivism school of thought
maintains that the explanation of the criminal behavior and how the criminal are treated can best be
analyzed through consideration of scientific means. Science is indeed a useful tool for explaining
why people may exhibit certain behavioral tendencies but it does not tell us how people ought to
behave. Crime is an ethical issue and the reason a person commits a crime is not because of the way
the person behaves but because of the way other people think the person should behave and they
therefore have within themselves the power judge the behavior of others.

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References
Canals, J. M. (1960). Classicism, positivism and social defense. The Journal of Criminal Law,
Criminology, and Police Science, 50(6), 541-550.
Jeffery, C. R. (1959). The historical development of criminology. J. Crim. L. & Criminology, 50, 3.
Cantor, N. (1936). Measures of social defense. Cornell LQ, 22, 17.