Enrico Ferri

Enrico Ferri (1856 to 1929) was an Italian criminologist, socialist and student of Cesare Lombroso, the founder of the Italian school of criminology. Born in San Benedetto Po in Lombardy, he worked as a lecturer and later as a professor of criminal law. Where Lombroso looked for physiological causes of crime, Ferri investigated its social and economic aspects and became a founder of the positivist school, pressing for crime prevention rather than punishment after the fact. His book Criminal Sociology appeared in 1884, and his work later served as the basis for the Penal Code of Argentina of 1921. He sat in the Italian Parliament from 1886, joined the Italian Socialist Party in 1893 and edited its daily Avanti!. Scipio Sighele, his student, named him as a friend and colleague in The Criminal Crowd. Late in life he became a prominent supporter of Mussolini's regime, a turn that remains a controversial part of his record.