Criminology was formed and developed in capitalist society, and its content and scope changed with the development of capitalism and the gradual deepening of crime research. Etymologically speaking, Italian R. Garofalo (1851~1934) first used the word criminology. The book he published in 1885 is called Criminology. Criminology became an independent discipline in capitalist society, which began in the middle of19th century. It is based on the development of capitalism. In the long-term research, some scholars focus on the physiological or psychological characteristics of criminals, trying to find out what kind of people will become criminals. Theories in this field include criminal anthropology, criminal physiology and criminal psychology. , collectively known as criminal biology; Some focus on studying a large number of criminal phenomena and analyzing what social environmental conditions will lead to crime. This theory is sociology of crime. Crime statistics plays an important role in this theory. The above two theories have their own emphases. Among them, many scholars seek the causes of crime from the interaction between individuals and social environment. The following theories about the causes of crime are more striking.
Criminal anthropology is a bourgeois theory that discusses the causes of crime from the aspect of physical structure. Cesare Cesare Lombroso (1835 ~ 1909) first studied criminals from the perspective of anthropology. According to his observation and verification of mental patients and prisoners, he published "On Criminals" in 1876, and put forward type theory, a natural crime. He believes that such prisoners will inevitably embark on the road of crime because of their innate physical structure characteristics. Natural criminals are the atavism of barbarians inherited from another generation, which is a variation of anthropology. After the birth of the theory of crime, it was attacked from all sides. Although this theory itself has no practical scientific value, the direction of studying criminals has been inherited.
When criminal biology entered the 20th century, some criminologists in capitalist countries inherited Cesare Cesare Lombroso's view that criminals are human varieties, put forward the proposition that criminals are abnormal people, and made extensive research in biology, physiology, psychology and psychiatry. Among them, in criminal biology, besides the typology of physical personality, there are also studies on endocrine glands, genetic negative factors, families of criminals, twins and the relationship between crime. Unlike Cesare Cesare Lombroso, criminal biology does not think that criminals are trapped in crimes that have nothing to do with social and personal environment, but extensively studies the relationship between physique, personality, environment and crime, which avoids the arbitrariness of the school of criminal anthropology to some extent.
Criminal psychology is a theory that studies the relationship between people's psychological state and crime. The early research of criminal psychology generally begins with psychopathology. For example, French doctor Daisy Pi Na (18 12 ~ 1892) thinks that the offender lacks moral feelings and punishment doesn't work for him. It is important to educate or isolate him. Cesare Cesare Lombroso mentioned that the psychological characteristics of natural criminals are a degenerate psychological state. Garofalo, a student, mentioned that crimes committed due to the lack of basic moral feelings (sympathy and integrity) belong to natural crimes, while people are typical criminals. Later criminal psychology was different, focusing on the relationship between ordinary people's mental state and crime. In this respect, S. Freud's psychoanalysis and his student A. Adler's personality psychology (1870 ~ 1937) are representative. Freud believed that a person's personality or personality is composed of ID, ego and superego. Virtue is the source of all innate instincts (such as food and color). The direction of human activities is mainly determined by the subconscious sexual instinct, and so is crime. This is the famous theory of universality. From his discussion, we can see that when "ego" requires instinctive satisfaction, but it cannot be realized in an acceptable way as "superego" requires, it is possible to embark on the road of crime. So Freud thought punishment was meaningless. Adler disagreed with the universality theory and thought that the main reason of crime was "inferiority complex". When people's life instinct is suppressed in the process of social life, they will feel inferior, and what's more, they will commit crimes because of subconscious desires. The driving force is the innate desire for conquest or power. With capitalism, the disparity between the rich and the poor, the intensification of economic and social oppression, and the enhancement of inferiority complex and resistance psychology. This school uses subconscious activities to explain the crime phenomenon in capitalist society, which is called the crime theory of deep psychology.
Sociology of crime is a theory to explore the causes of crime from the social environment. 1. The main representatives of the school of crime statistics are A. Ketolet (1796 ~ 1874) and French A. M. Gehry (1802 ~ 1866). By using statistical methods, they found that the types and frequencies of crimes are the same every year from the relationship between crimes in capitalist society and age, gender, race, occupation, economy, region, season and climate, and also found the same regularity from the comparison of criminals' age, gender, wealth and urban and rural areas. Ketole said that society itself is pregnant with the embryo of crime, and any society, as its inevitable result, will produce a certain number of crimes. Their conclusion is that crime, as a general phenomenon in capitalist society, is determined by social reasons.