Lombroso's Theory of Crime - Essay Example

Discussion (Theorist) Lombroso’s criminal theory bases the reasons for crime mainly on heredity and environment. Heredity and environment are the twomajor factors which affect the character of a person. Born criminals have the criminal traits transferred to them from their parents. Same way environment can also play a vital role in the shaping of a person. At the same time there are cases in which children of criminals became good citizens. Moreover, there are cases in which persons brought up in unhealthy environment became good citizens.

So we cannot conclude that Lombroso’s criminal theory is faultless. But as a general criminal theory, this theory has still relevance in the current criminology.Beccaria’s criminal theory is comparatively a new criminal theory which gives us more comprehensive idea about crime and punishments. It addresses all the aspects of crime occurrence, crime prevention and crime punishment. Duties of the legislature, the role of judges, nature and purpose of punishments etc were addressed more clearly in Beccaria’s criminal theory compared to the Lombroso’s criminal theory.

This theory has strong recommendations for the crime prevention rather than the punishment. It reminds all the entities of criminal justice system about the importance of crime prevention. So for a civilized culture like Beccaria’s criminal theory seems to be more relevant than the Lombroso’s criminal theory.