Crime and its repression (German: Das Verbrechen und seine Bekämpfung) is a book that was originally published in 1903 and written by Gustav Aschaffenburg.
Heidelberg was seen as an ideal place for the studies of criminology due to its demographic situation and its position as a leading institution in the area.
Due to the lack of medical faculties and universities in the area, Heidelberg became a main place for counseling for a total of three penal institutions.
Heidelberg's status later proved as an advantage to Aschaffenburg when writing the book, as it increased his reputation and gave him more practical experience.
At the time Aschaffenburg was writing Crime and its repression he was already working in a prison in Halle, where he served as the head of medical service.
It was impactful in the early modern era in most of the German speaking parts of Europe and built the base for the criminal justice system Aschaffenburg would later analyse in his book.
[4] In Germany the main contributors included police officials, medical doctors, prison administrators, law experts, judges and many more.
Legal experts and medical doctors tended to study more the individual, whereas moral statisticians were more interested in the social causes of crime.
[4] After the early half of the nineteenth century there was a shift in legal regulations towards more lenience for criminals who were mentally ill.
This context made the base to enable psychologists like Aschaffenburg to publish their books coming from a psychologically focused perspective.
In his analysis he makes use of methods and findings taken from various scientific fields such as forensic medicine, psychology, criminology and statistics.
He also writes a lot about the economic and social influence of criminals and admits that for example political circumstances can severely impact crime rates.
[1] Aschaffenburg manages to explain the links between lower education, difficult social position and economic poverty and dependence.
[1] He also strains how important it is to reduce alcohol abuse and to support children growing up in difficult social circumstances to break generational cycles.
This basis, combined with consistent and effective propaganda, such as by Tighe Hopkins, pushed the increase in attention towards criminal psychology among the public.
[10][3][7] Many of Aschaffenburg's conclusions drawn in Crime and its repression based on carefully collected and verified data could debunk several theories that were discussed in the domain of criminology at the time of publishment.
Reviews from the US praise the author for his sharp way of reasoning and conclude that his statements focused on Germany can easily be transferred to the US.
[9] An additional factor that made Crime and its repression so novel and impressive for reviewers from journals about political and social sciences for example, was the emphasis that was laid upon the search for causes of criminality itself.
Scholars strain that Aschaffenburg could have easily turned to some states in the US as an example discuss the effectiveness of indeterminate sentences, probation as well as parole regulations and prisoners aid societies.
In the Weimar years in Germany, the trend in criminology drifted away from sociological causes and focused increasingly on anthropological approaches.
Supported by the broader academic community, this approach became the basis for many of the crimes committed under the cover of criminology, such as forced sterilization or euthanasia programmes.
Many renowned scholars, including Aschaffenburg himself or Max Grünhut for example expressed their disapproval and fled the country, contributing to the broader export of knowledge in the domain of criminal psychology.