A Science of Nature, a Science of Crime: The Reception and Embedding of Positivist Criminology in Sweden

Abstract

This article considers how, and to what extent, the ideas and theories developed by Lombrosian, Positivist criminology were received and came to be embedded in Sweden. It demonstrates first the way in which new criminological ideas were widely reported in the press and by other means in nineteenth-century Sweden, partly due to Lombroso’s own celebrity but also partly due to public interest in the proceedings of international congresses. It then goes on to analyze the way in which ideas of “the born criminal” and the social bases of crime came to be seen, by some, as a challenge to the existing political order. Finally, the article considers the impact of Positivist criminology in the spheres of medical discourse and jurisprudence.