Bio: (1856–1929) Italian criminologist and sociologist. Enrico Ferri lectured at the University of Turin and the University of Bologna. He was the editor of the Avanti, the newspaper of the Italian Socialist Party, and founded the scientific journal La Scuola Poitiva. He was the student of Cesare Lombroso.

He was a member of the Positivist School of criminology, and in his works on crime, he incorporated knowledge from several sciences - psychology, law, anthropology, statistics, and sociology. In Criminal Sociology (1884), Ferri introduced three types of conditions that influence individuals to engage in crime: anthropological or individual conditions (age, sex, intelligence, race), physical conditions (climate, the seasons), and social conditions (demography and demographic changes, public opinion, and religion). Ferri introduced the classification of types of criminals: (1) born criminals – due to genetically inherent tendencies; (2) criminals who suffer from mental illness; (3) criminals who commit crime in an elevated emotional state; (4) the occasional criminals; (5) the habitual criminals; and (6). involuntary criminals (due to negligence). He also researched topics of prevention of crime and possibilities of reforming the criminal justice system.

Main works

Studi dalla criminalità in Francia dal 1826 al 1878 (1881);

Socialismo e criminalità (1883);

Sociologia criminale (1884);

Relazione sui discorsi inaugurali dei rappresentanti il pubblico ministero negli anni 1884 e 1885  (1886);

Socialismo e scienza positiva (1894);

The Positive School of Criminology: Three Lectures Given at the University of Naples, Italy, on April 22, 23, and 24, 1901 (1906);

I socialisti nazionali e il governo fascista (1923);

Il Fascismo in Italia e l'opera di Benito Mussolini (1928).