Crime, race, and morals : the development of criminology in Peru 1890-1930

Abstract

Criminology arrived in Peru by the late 1880s, and with it the promise of both scientific explanations of crime and effective policies of crime control. As in Europe, Peruvian criminologists also debated the relative importance of biological and social factors in explaining crime tendencies. This article reviews the adoption and early developments of positivist criminology in Peru. It shows that the most radical versions of biological determinism were rejected by Peruvian criminologists in favor of a « social » interpretation of crime. But while some emphasized social injustice and poverty as central factors behind crime, most Peruvian experts paid closer attention to the cultural and « moral » traits of the lower groups, thus reinforcing the traditional view of crime as a moral phenomenon associated with certain racial, social, and occupational groups.