An early biological explanation for criminal behaviour
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Who proposed the atavistic form?
Lombroso 1870s
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How has lombroso’s research been credited?
For moving criminology into a more rigorous and scientific realm and his ideas may well have laid the foundation for the modern offender profiling techniques that were to follow
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What did Lombroso suggest?
Criminals were ‘genetic throwbacks’-a primitive sub-species who were biologically different from non-criminals
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How were offenders seen according to Lombroso?
Lacking evolutionary development
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What did their savage and untamed nature mean?
They would find it impossible to adjust to the demands of a civilised society and would inevitably turn to crime
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Therefore what did Lombroso suggest?
Criminals were not to blame for their activities as their behaviour was determined by their physiology
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What was his idea centred on?
The idea those criminals had distinguishing physical features
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Where did these features originate?
A more primitive stage of development
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What were the biologically determined atavistic features mainly characterised by?
Features of the face and head made criminals physically different to non-criminals
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What did the atavistic form include?
A narrow sloping brow, a strong prominent jaw, high cheekbones, and facial asymmetry, dark skin, and the existence of extra toes, ******* or fingers
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What was Lombroso’s research?
Examined the facial and cranial features of Italian convicts both living (3839) and dead (383)
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What did Lombroso conclude?
40% of criminal acts could be accounted by atavistic characteristics
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What is the contradictory evidence of the atavistic form?
Goring
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What did he conduct?
A comparison between 3000 criminals and 3000 non-criminals
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What did he conclude?
There was no evidence that offenders are a distinct group with unusual facial and cranial characteristics
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How does this challenge lombrosos’s theory?
Because criminals do not have distinct physical characteristics
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How can there be methodological issues with lombrosos’s research?
He didn’t compare his criminal sample with a non-criminal control group
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What does this mean?
Possible that if he had done so, the significant difference in atavistic form that Lombroso reported might have disappeared.
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Lombroso shifted the emphasis in crime research away from a simple form of --- explanation to a more ----- and ----- view
Moral, scientific, credible
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True or false? Lombroso’s theory could be seen as the beginning of criminal profiling as he made a major contribution to the science of criminal psychology
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