Sunday, June 07, 2020

Pioneers in Criminology XV--Enrico Ferri (1856-1929) 

Thorsten Sellin (1958)
https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4636&context=jclc

THE JOURNAL OF  CRIMINAL LAW, CRIMINOLOGY, AND POLICE SCIENCE

VOL. 48 JANUARY-FEBRUARY 1958 NO. 5

PIONEERS IN CRIMINOLOGY

XV-ENRICO FERRI (1856-1929)

THORSTEN SELLIN

Professor Sellin is chairman of the Department of Sociology, University of Pennsylvania; editor of

the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (since 1929); and president of

the International Society of Criminology. From time to time, during the last thirty years he has pub-

]ished articles in the Journal on a variety of subjects of interest to criminologists.

The accompanying photograph by Giacomo Brogi, Florence, is reproduced from "The Italy of

the Italians", published by Charles Scribners and Sons. It represents Ferri in middle thirties.

-EDITOR.


ENRICO FERRI

When Enrico Ferri died, April 12, 1929, one of

the most colorful and influential figures in the

history of criminology disappeared. Born at San

Benedetto Po in the province of Mantua, February

25, 1856, his active life spanned more than half a

century, beginning with the publication of his

dissertation in 1878 and ending with the fifth

edition of his "Criminal Sociology," which was

being printed when he died. During the intervening

five decades he became the acknowledged leader of

the so-called positive school of criminal science,

a highly successful trial lawyer and Italy's perhaps

greatest contemporary forensic orator, member of

Parliament, editor of the Socialist newspaper,

"Avanti," indefatigable public lecturer, university

professor, author of highly esteemed scholarly

works, founder of a great legal journal, and a

tireless polemicist in defense of his ideas. His was a

rich and varied life, to which no brief article can

do justice.

In the book, which Ferri published in 1928 on

the "Principles of Criminal Law,"' a work which

contained the systematic presentation of the legal

principles of the positive school, he listed what he

himself regarded as his most important contributions.

They were the demonstration that the concept of freedom

of will has no place in criminal

law; that social defense is the purpose of criminal

justice; the three types of factors in crime causation;

the classification of criminals in five classes;

penal substitutes as means of indirect social defense;

motivation, rather than the objective nature

of the crime, as the basis for sanctions; the demand

that farm colonies be substituted for cellular

isolation of prisoners by day; the indeterminate

sentence instead of the dosage by fixed terms o

institutionalization; the demand that hospitals


1 PRINCIPI IIDI DIRITTO CRIMINALE. xvi, 848 pp.

Torino: UTET, 1928.


SOCIOLOGY THEORIES OF CRIME AND DEVIANCE
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-sociology/chapter/theories-of-crime-and-deviance/
by G Nicotri - ‎1929 - ‎Cited by 3 - ‎Related articles
The recent death of Enrico Ferri brings to a close a period of struggle and partial though continuous conquests for the science that seeks to combat the for-.

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