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Veli Verkko as an Early Criminologist

Today, the Finnish criminologist and sociologist Veli Verkko (1893–1955) is remembered and cited because of ‘Verkko’s laws’, which predict cross-sectional and temporal regularities between homicide rates and patterns. This article describes Verkko’s criminological thought more broadly and situates him in the historical divide between bio-criminology and the rise of sociological environmentalism. In this paradigmatic conflict, Verkko took an unlikely path: while remaining a multiple factor theorist and social environmentalist, he came to see biology as increasingly relevant in the post-war era, at a time when other social scientists were rejecting bio-perspectives. Because of this, he became involved in the controversy over the malleability of human behaviour. Following prior work on institutional influences on the development of human sciences, it is shown that policy demand for a new kind of research influenced the genesis and outcome of this debate. The post-war building of the welfare state promoted research and social engineering activities based on the premise of human malleability. The Verkko case thus suggests how historically changing institutional factors can influence not only research topics but also more fundamental changes in paradigmatic assumptions of research.