Condemned to be a criminal. The debate on criminal responsibility: from 19th century Italian legal science to neuroscience

During the 19th century the concepts of liability changed radically in all areas of law. In this context, Cesare Lombroso with his scientific studies reveals the figure of the delinquent, and he has the audacity to demonstrate the non-existence of free will. From these scientific studies the Italian Positive School develops, a movement of jurists who spread the idea of an atavistic determinism in Europe, according to which, at the base of the criminal phenomenon, there are anthropological factors. After some initial success of Italian theses in Europe, the first criticism of the Italian school came from France and Germany. These opinions favour the emergence of a common European tendency, the movement of “social criminal law”, i.e. a group of jurists who, in spite of their origin and training, show a clear sensitivity towards the new social sciences and favour the contamination of criminal law by these social sciences, ending up attributing great importance to social factors in the development of the criminal phenomenon, an incidence that the law must necessarily take into account when dealing with criminal responsibility.