Introduction. An Historiographical Reassessment of Criminological Positivism

The history of criminology has developed significantly in recent decades. The international circulation of criminological ideas has been investigated, as have the problematic origins and various discourses characterizing the growth of an inherently interdisciplinary science. Emphasis is generally placed upon the worldwide propagation of theories elaborated by European pioneers, such as the founders of the Italian Positive School (Cesare Lombroso, Enrico Ferri, and Raffaele Garofalo) or the International Union of Penal Law (Adolphe Prins, Franz von Liszt, and Gerhard van Hamel). A global cartography of positivist influence in different countries, from the United States to Latin America and from Northern Europe to China, has been drawn, and the success of the positivist approach has been mostly measured by the varied degrees of reception and adoption (which always entails adaptation) of positivist tenets, such as the bioanthropological classification of criminals, determinism, and social defense measures. This volume suggests a different perspective and provides analyses of the many limits of criminological positivism: by investigating the arguments, discourses, and legal techniques that have limited the full realization of penal modernism, it contributes to an understanding of the counternarrative on which the resistance to the new proposals was grounded.