Classical vs Positivist: Two Ways to Explain Why People Commit Crime

In 1764, a 26-year-old Italian nobleman named Cesare Beccaria published a short book, On Crimes and Punishments, arguing that criminals are rational people who freely choose crime after weighing costs and benefits. Just over a century later, Italian physician Cesare Lombroso examined the skulls of executed criminals and argued the opposite: that some people are basically born predisposed toward crime by biology. These two thinkers launched criminology's oldest debate -- one that still shapes how courts, police, and prisons operate today.

- The core claims of Classical School criminology (Beccaria, Bentham) - The core claims of Positivist School criminology (Lombroso, later biological/social positivists) - How each school leads to different policies -- punishment vs. treatment - Why modern criminology blends both perspectives instead of picking one

Cesare Beccaria and English philosopher Jeremy Bentham argued that humans are rational actors who use 'free will' to weigh pleasure against pain before acting. If a crime's punishment is swift, certain, and proportionate to the harm caused, a rational person will decide the crime isn't worth it. This school produced huge reforms: Beccaria argued against torture and the death penalty (calling them ineffective deterrents, not just cruel), and pushed for laws applied equally regardless of social class -- radical ideas in 18th-century Europe. Classical thinking underlies deterrence theory, which still justifies things like fixed sentencing guidelines today.

A century later, Cesare Lombroso rejected the idea that crime was pure free choice. Using early (and now discredited) methods like measuring skull shapes, he claimed some criminals were 'atavistic' -- born as evolutionary throwbacks with physical traits marking them as natural-born criminals. While Lombroso's specific biological claims have been thoroughly disproven by modern science, he started something important: using scientific, evidence-based methods (positivism) to study crime's actual causes. Later positivists shifted away from Lombroso's biology toward social positivism -- studying poverty, family environment, peer influence, and neighborhood conditions as real, measurable causes of criminal behavior.

Imagine a teenager steals a car. A strict Classical-School response asks: was the punishment clear and severe enough to deter this choice? It focuses on proportional punishment and deterrence for future rational actors. A Positivist response asks: what caused this behavior -- poverty, an unstable home, peer pressure, untreated mental health needs? It focuses on identifying root causes and rehabilitation to prevent reoffending, not just punishing the act.