Abnormal features can be found through comparison with those that are normal.
30 Chapter 3 • The Positive School
psychopathy as a cause of delinquency. There is, of course, a certain irony in this research because the scale was created from questions on which the delinquents originally scored higher.
On the sociological side, some early positivistic approaches encompassed both explana- tions of individual behavior and rates of behavior in society. The notion that behavior, includ- ing criminal acts, involves a process of imitating others was proposed by Gabriel Tarde (1890). He theorized that there is short-term behavior (fashion) and long-term behavior (custom). People who are inferior, that is, less successful, imitate those who are superior and copy their behavior. Thus, he argues that the use of new techniques for committing offenses, such as today’s carjackings and home invasion robberies, spreads by others hearing about and copying the crimes. Tarde also suggested that as the population becomes more dense, behavior will be oriented more toward fashion than toward custom. On the statistical side, the ecological stud- ies begun by Guerry and Quetelet blossomed into a sociological criminology that set out to investigate the effect of social structure on crime. Since the 1920s, the American tradition of criminology has used the positivist technique of analyzing population data and crime rates as well as the systematic study of criminal behavior.
claSSIfIcatIon of the School
The Positive School is characterized by a consensus perspective. All the theories developed under its mantle assume the existence of a core set of values in society that can be used to deter- mine and treat deviance. Positivists did not question the validity of their categories of harmful acts or the desirability of treating people. In fact, their assumption of consensus was so strong that they rarely ever questioned their own actions, even when “exterminating” groups of people designated as socially harmful. Other than the consensus perspective, the wide range of positivist theories makes any attempt at categorizing them very difficult. Positivist theories can be either structural or processual, so no definitive classification is possible. However, we can state that sociological theories have, as a rule, been structurally oriented and macrotheoretical, while bio- logical and psychological theories have been processual and microtheoretical.
Summary
The work of the Positive School, diverse as it was, represented the first real concern with studying the behavior of the criminal. As Rafter (2006) explains, before Lombroso, crime was studied only by metaphysicians, moralists, and penologists. His work turned the field into a truly biosocial science. Embracing the scientific method, positivists took a deterministic stance toward behavior and left behind the Classical School’s insistence that humans are rational beings with free will. In the process, the
notion of punishment for deterrence began to make less sense. If an individual’s behavior was not predicated on rational deci- sions, then how could that individual be deterred? The thing to do, obviously, was to find those factors that cause the criminal behavior and remove (or treat) them. Further, the ability to pre- dict which individuals would be likely to become criminal and to treat them before they could harm themselves and society would be valuable in creating a better society.
Comparison of Classical and Positive Schools
Point Classical School Positive School
View of human nature Hedonistic; free-willed rationality, morally responsible for own behavior
Malleable; determined by biological, psychological, and social environment; no moral responsibility; consensus oriented
View of justice system Social contract; exists to protect society; due process and concern with civil rights; restrictions on system
Scientific treatment system to cure pathologies and rehabilitate offenders; no concern with civil rights
Form of law Statutory law; exact specification of illegal acts and sanctions
Social law; illegal acts defined by analogy; scientific experts determine social harm and proper form of treatment
Purpose of sentencing Punishment for deterrence; sentences are determinate (fixed length)
Treatment and reform; sentences are indeterminate (variable length until cured)
Criminological experts Philosophers; social reformers Scientists; treatment experts
Chapter 3 • The Positive School 31
Positivists left behind the legal focus and concerns of the Classical School. In fact, for them the only reasonable defini- tion of criminality was a social one. Legality simply got in the way of treatment because behavioral categories did not neces- sarily fit legal categories. If behaviors were socially undesir- able, then individuals exhibiting them should be treated and returned to normalcy. Civil rights were of no concern if the real purpose of treatment was that of help. After all, how can one object to being helped; when a physician treats us, do we feel our civil rights have been violated? Thus, early positivists rea- soned that criminals have no need to object when they are being treated by correctional experts.
Finally, positivism, as we have seen, is represented not only by biological theories of causality but by psychological and sociological theories as well. In fact, most of the theories of criminology throughout the 1950s were positivistic in nature. As a general perspective, then, positivism has had an enormous effect on the way criminological theories have been constructed and the way that research has been conducted. While this chap- ter has focused on the Positive School (or the Italian School), positivism itself is much larger than that school. Indeed, the Positive School is called that because it was the first crimino- logical use of the “positive application of science.” In that regard, it is the application of scientific tenets to establish and solve problems that is the essential ingredient of positivism.
This approach is now frequently referred to as “modernism” by today’s postmodernist theorists.
Major PointS of the School
1. Humans live in a world in which cause and effect operate. Attributes of that world exhibit order and can be uncov- ered through systematic observation.
2. Social problems, such as crime, can be remedied by means of a systematic study of human behavior. Through the application of science, human existence is perfectible, or at the least the human condition can be made better.
3. Criminal behavior is a product of abnormalities. These abnormalities may be within the person, or they may exist as external social forces.
4. Abnormal features can be found through comparison with those that are normal.
5. Once abnormalities are found, it is the duty of criminol- ogy to assist in their correction. Abnormalities should be treated and the criminal reformed.
6. Treatment is desirable both for the individual, so that he or she may become normal, and for society, so that mem- bers of society are protected from harm.
