ABSTRACT
Adopting an early sociological perspective, Baron Raffaele Garofalo attempted a definition of crime in positivistic terms which distinguished between ‘natural crimes’, to which Garofalo attached great importance, and ‘police crimes’, a residual category of lesser importance. ‘Natural crimes’ are those which violate two basic ‘altruistic sentiments’, pity (revulsion against the voluntary infliction of suffering on others) and probity (respect for the property rights of others). ‘Police offences’ are behaviours which do not offend these altruistic sentiments but are nonetheless called ‘criminal’ by law. Natural crimes were important both for being more serious, and because the category itself provided a unifying principle, connecting the criminal law and natural social processes.
