Ernest Seeliger and Rafael Garofalo: Criminological Theories
Ernest Seeliger: Genesis of Crime and Criminological Types
Ernest Seeliger, a proponent of the Austrian School, offered a critique of Lombroso’s theories, asserting that the offender is not anthropologically uniform. He emphasized crime prevention and proposed the existence of major criminological types that are consistently observed in the criminal world, each with distinct characteristics. An individual may exhibit traits of a single type (pure type) or belong to multiple types, presenting a mix of characteristics (mixed type).
Seeliger further distinguished between:
- Parallel types: Individuals who simultaneously display characteristics of various types.
- Metamorphic types: Individuals whose characteristics shift between different types over time.
To define these types, Seeliger employed a “combined procedure,” integrating phenomenological typing based on direct observation of offenders with an assessment of their character and lifestyle. This led to the identification of eight major criminological types.
Offenders Against Property with Low Resistance
In contrast to other types, these individuals often fulfill a social role and may be considered industrious workers. However, they lack the necessary inhibitions against criminal stimuli, particularly when their profession presents opportunities for misappropriation or unlawful gain. Despite often having “good intentions,” they tend to recidivate. Characterologically, they exhibit no other significant peculiarities.
Seeliger described specific subtypes within this category:
- Employee thief
- Domestic thief
- Cheating apprentices
- Venal teller
- The official who abuses their position and enriches themselves by appropriating what belongs to others
- The merchant who engages in occasional selfish scams and appropriates found objects
Rafael Garofalo: Natural Crime and the Positive School
Rafael Garofalo played a crucial role in establishing the Positive School of criminal law. He advocated for several principles that became foundational to positivism, including:
- The importance of both special and general prevention
- The prevalence of special prevention over general prevention
- The use of the defendant’s dangerousness as a criterion and measure of repression
In addition to his concepts of risk and adaptation, Garofalo introduced the concept of “natural crime,” defining it as “the element of immorality necessary for a harmful act to be considered criminal by the public. This is the injury of that part of the moral sense which is fundamental altruistic sentiments: piety and probity.”
While moderately deterministic in his philosophy, Garofalo was politically conservative and a staunch supporter of capital punishment. He diverged from Lombroso’s anthropological and Ferri’s sociological theories of crime, criticizing their typologies. However, he shared their strong belief in the empirical-inductive method and the superiority of society over the individual.
Garofalo’s Concept of Natural Crime
Garofalo defined natural crime as “a series of harmful conduct ‘per se,’ for any society and at any time, regardless even of their own changing legal reviews.” He sought to establish an autonomous, strictly criminological notion of crime, independent of legal guidelines, to define the scope and object of this new empirical discipline.
He stated, “By natural is meant that which is not conventional, that exists in human society regardless of the circumstances and requirements of a particular time, or particular views of the legislature. The element of moral turpitude required for a harmful act considered criminal by the public, is injury to that part of moral sense that is fundamental altruistic sentiments: piety and probity. In addition, the injury must be not in the top and most delicate of these feelings, but in the middle as they are possessed by a community which is essential for the adaptation of the individual to society. This is what we call ‘natural crime.'”
Garofalo strongly opposed Lombroso’s atavistic theories and believed that a true criminal lacks one or both of the following sentiments:
- The feeling of pity: Rejection of the voluntary causation of suffering in others.
- A sense of integrity: Respect for the property rights of others.