ABSTRACT
Drift stands midway between freedom and control. Drift is motion guided gently by underlying influences. Biological theories seek the origins of delinquency in the physiological constitution of the offender. Throughout, however, the conceptions of constraint and differentiation prevail and the belief persists that the invariant conditions productive of delinquency have been or can be stated. The chapter aims to incorporate modified versions of the classical viewpoint into the framework of positive criminology. The most celebrated and thus the most explicit assumption of positive criminology is the primacy of the criminal actor rather than the criminal law as the major point of departure in the construction of etiological theories. The explanation of crime, according to the positive school, may be found in the motivational and behavioural systems of criminals. Positive criminology fashioned an image of man to suit a study of criminal behaviour based on scientific determinism.
