Crime has been a baffling problem ever since the dawn of human civilization and man’s efforts to grapple with this problem have only partially succeeded. There is hardly any society which is not beset with the problem of crime and criminality. As rightly pointed out by Emile Durkheim, crime is a natural phenomenon which is constantly changing with the social change.

Criminologists have always differed in their views regarding crime causation. Continental criminologists often support the endogenous theory of criminality which is founded on bio-physical consideration of criminals. The American criminologists on the other hand, are more inclined to explain criminality in terms of social factors.

Thus, the former approach the problem of crime causation subjectively while the latter are objective in their approach. The adherents of subjective theory of criminality seek to examine the nature of the criminals besides other aspects of his personality. They believe that criminals differ from non-criminals in certain traits of their personality which develops unusual tendencies in them to commit crimes under situations in which others do not.

They further argue that criminality is necessarily an expression of the unique personal traits of the criminal and therefore in such cases social situations do not offer a satisfactory explanation for criminal behaviour. This subjective approach to crime causation has eventually led to the evolution of typological school of criminology which suggests that there are certain personality type of criminals who take to criminality because of their heredity, psychopathic and bio-physical traits.

It is thus clear that subjective aspect of crime causation includes anthropological, biological, physiological and psychiatric study of the offender as against the objective approach which insists on analysis of socio-economic, ecological, topographical and cultural environment under which crimes usually generate.