Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Lombroso's theory
of offending
- Atavistic theory - Characteristics of
a remote ancestor or primitive type
- Claimed that the
characteristics were
heritable and therefore
criminals are born and
not made
- His theory formed the
foundationn of
modern criminological
theory
- Argyued that criminals were a
biologically distinct group of
people with diffeernt physical
feats compared to
non-criminals
- Chracteristics of a criminal-
- large ears
- extra nipples,toes, fingers
- narrow sloping brow
- prominent jaw
- characteristics of a murderer -
- curly hair
- bloodshot eyes
- Then suggested that only
1/3 criminal directly
inherited criminal behaviour
and that the rest was due to
enviromental factors e.g
poor education
- He did not compare the criminals with
non-criminals therefore there was no
control or measure of wether or not
the physical features associated with
criminals were also found in non
criminals
- Goring - compared the
physical features of 3000
criminals and a control
group and found little
evidence to support
Lombroso
- Sample consisted of peope with
psychological disorders and so
Lombroso could have confused
criminality with psychopathology
- Sample included people with learnng
difficulties - results may not be
gerneralisable to people without
learning difficulties
- Criminality and certain facial features could both be
due to cofounding factors such as poverty and poor
nutrition
- Even if
characteristics occur
more often in
criminal toes it
doesn't mean their is
a casual relationship
between them as
may be other
explanations
- For example - People with certain
characteristics may be categrosied as hard and
picked on more often leading to a self fufilling
prophecy
- Due to opposition, Lombroso had to modify his theory of
the born criminal stating it could also be due to the
enviroment
- Lasting consequence of the theory -
ntion of criminals having a certain look
and stereotyping them could be seen as
racist/sexist
- Despite critisicms, Lombroso was responsible for moving the
explantion of criminality away from wickendess and more into
scientifica realm - therefore he is known by many researchers
as the Father of Modern Criminality