ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the basic premises of the search for the causes of crime, outline the historical context under which it evolved, provide illustrative examples of the early and contemporary studies, review some of the latest developments, evaluate findings and assumptions, and provide policy implications. It discovers the explanation for crime and for what would become known as the "born criminal". The chapter shows that the relationship between biology and crime is not simple, and probably not linear but more likely reciprocal, with both biological and environmental factors feeding into and enhancing each other. For early biological criminologists, the classical theory of crime was intuitive and unscientific speculation. Diana H. Fishbein pointed out early 'biological criminology' was eventually discredited for being unscientific, simplistic and monocausal. The scientific criminology, founded on positivist assumptions, valued the "experimental method" as the key to knowledge based on empirically discovered facts and their examination.
