Educating the savage. The Lombrosians and juvenile delinquency

This paper recalls the conception of childhood elaborated by Cesare Lombroso, according to which the child presents typical traits of the savage and the delinquent and is devoid of moral sense, which develops only through the educational path. This conception, influenced by Darwinism and evolutionism and expressed for the first time in 1883, seems to anticipate some concepts later elaborated by Sigmund Freud. The affinity between the child’s condition and that of the savage and the “moral fool”, highlighted by Lombroso and Marro was widely shared in positivist criminology, while in Italy there was growing social alarm for the serious increase in juvenile deviance. Despite their bio deterministic approach, the Lombrosian scholars believed that in most cases early and appropriate educational and training interventions on problematic children could easily bring individual evolution back to the correct phylogenetic line leading to an honest and socially responsible adult. The article recalls also the attempt to implement, at the beginning of the twentieth century, a radical reform of the Italian system of juvenile justice, through the so-called “Code Quarta”, elaborated by the contribution of distinguished positivist exponents but subsequently abandoned, especially for the strong hostility expressed by the Catholic Church.

Keywords: Cesare Lombroso, childhood, moral insanity, juvenile delinquency, prevention

Pierpaolo Martucci, Educare il selvaggio. I Lombrosiani e la delinquenza minorile in "RIVISTA SPERIMENTALE DI FRENIATRIA" 2/2025, pp 33-50, DOI: 10.3280/RSF2025-002003