青年马克思在《莱茵报》时期就有大量讨论有关现实犯罪问题成因的文章，《德法年鉴》时期则用了更大的篇幅深入到政治、历史、经济的路径去探讨犯罪的本质成因。这期间马克思存在一个对“犯罪成因”认识的逻辑转向，实现了从辩证唯心主义到辩证的、历史的唯物主义的重大转变。 马克思在《莱茵报》时期的“犯罪成因”思想主要来源于法国启蒙运动思想和德意古典唯心主义思想。孟德斯鸠的“法理先在、罪刑法定”与卢梭的“法律即公意”为马克思提供了基础要素。贝卡利亚与黑格尔“自由意志论”则影响着马克思早期的思想特征。 普鲁士当时资产阶级软弱的社会背景、《关于林木盗窃法的辩论》以及《评普鲁士最近的书报检查令》反映出马克思“犯罪成因”思想的要素与特征。思想要素主要表现在对客观行为、犯罪客体、实体法与程序法的规定。其思想特征则表现出为支持穷人习惯法，向国家理性及政治制度的思考与转向。 在《黑格尔法哲学批判》和《德意志意识形态》中，马克思扬弃之前辩证唯心主义的方式，从对犯罪形式的批判过渡到对政治层面立法权的批判，主张制宪权在民原则。马克思再通过对人类历史实践活动的论述表明法的历史性，进而上升到对犯罪成因本质的揭示：犯罪是孤立的个人反对统治关系的斗争，它根源于一定的社会经济基础。这一转变对马克思整体哲学思想过渡到唯物史观有巨大的促进作用。 马克思“犯罪成因”思想具有很强的延展性，其中也蕴含着犯罪与阶级、刑罚、以及人的认知的内在联系，主要包括：犯罪仍然客观存在于非阶级社会；重新审视刑罚的定位，应更注重“特殊预防”作用；现代社会的异化、失范与犯罪密切相关等问题。这些内在联系能为现代社会提供很强的启示视角，使我们对现代社会的“犯罪成因”有更多元的认识。

In the period of Rhine Newspaper, youth Marx had a lot of articles about the issues of crimes in reality. Then in the period of German-French Yearbook, youth Marx wrote more parts to explore the profound causes of crimes, like political, historical, and economic causes. There is an obvious logic turnaround of Marx’s thoughts of The Causes Of Crimes which is from dialectical idealism to dialectical historic materialism. Marx's thought: the causes of crimes has the direct sources including some thoughts of French Enlightenment German and Italian Classical Idealism. Montesquieu's “first principles of the nature of law” and Rousseau's “law as the public will” provide Marx with the basic elements. Beccaria and Hagel's theory of free will affect Marx's early ideological characteristics. Through the social background of Prussia during 1800s and Marx’s early articles such as The Debate On The Law Of Forest Theft and The Review Of Prussia's Recent Books And Newspapers Censorship, it can tell the elements and characteristics of the thought of “the cause of crime”. The elements includes the objective behavior, the object of the crime, the substantive law and the procedural law. The characteristics shows the thinking and turning to the national rationality and the political system. Then in the article Critique Of Hegel’s Philosophy Of Right and German Ideology, Marx abandoned the dialectical idealism and turn his way to politic, history and economy. Marx criticize Hegel’s thought of legislative authority. Marx shows that human’s historical praxis produce the law of society. Marx also gives the conclude: Crime is the struggle of isolated individuals against ruling relations. Its root lies in a certain social and economic foundation. This transformation has great impacts on his turning to historical materialism. Marx's thought of "causes of crime" has strong extensibility, which also contains the internal connection between crime and class, punishment and human cognition. It mainly includes: (a) the crime still exists in the non-class society (b) we should pay more attention to the role of “special prevention of penal law”. (c) the alienation and anomie have connection with crimes of modern society. These internal relations can provide a strong inspiration perspective for modern society, which enables us to have multiple understandings of the causes of crime in modern society.