Biological Theories of Crime

Biological Theories of
Crime
1.
2.
3.
4.
Main assumptions
Lombroso
Sheldon
XYY Male
Biological Theories
Biological theories tended towards seeing
crime as a form of illness, caused by
pathological factors specific to certain
classes of individuals
bad behaviour vs sick behaviour
How can we blame someone for being sick?
Biological Theories
The criminal is radically different from the
non-criminal
We can assume that some people are "born
criminals
Punishment is inapplicable
Character and physical appearance

We frequently make inferences about
another persons character based on his/her
appearance
Ancient Greeks and Romans believed in
physiognomy (physical features can
reveal a persons natural disposition)
Do not trust beardless men and bearded
women
Physiognomy as Practiced in Europe
A choleric person has a "hot" temperament, is irritable

and easily roused to anger
A melancolic person is sensive and tends to feel sad
A phlegmatic person is not easily aroused to excitement
and lacks emotion expression
A sanguine person is confident and optimistic
Criminal Type
Most defense attorneys coach their clients
on how they should dress and groom
themselves for court so jurors will get the
impression they are not the type of a
person who would commit a crime
The Underlying Logic
Atavism
Defective
genes
Mental and
Physical
Inferiority
Inability to
Learn and
Follow legal
rules
Criminal
Behavior
Cesare Lombroso (1835 1909)

Italian Criminologist
Lombroso rejected the Classical School (or
rational choice model)
Instead, he stated that criminality was
inherited
Lombrosos Theory
Bodily constitution indicates whether a
person is a born criminal
Born criminal violates the laws
born criminal is an atavism (throwback
to an earlier stage of human evolution)
Physical makeup,
mental capabilities,
and instincts of primitive man
Lombrosos Theory
Observed the physical characteristics of
Italian prisoners and compared them to
Italian soldiers
Concluded that criminals were physically
different
Lombroso presented a long list of physical
characteristics used to identify criminals
Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909)

Asymmetry of the face or
head, large monkey-like ears,
large lips, twisted nose,
excessive cheek bones, long
arms, excessive skin wrinkles
The male with five or more of
these physical anomalies is
marked as a born criminal
Female criminals are also born
criminals, but they may be
identified with as few as three
anomalies
Tattoos
Were significant to Lombroso
Most of the born criminals
had them
Obscene nature of their depictions and
messages
Tattoos stood as evidence of both
insensitive to physical pain and immorality
Criminal Women
Official records, according to which women
had a far lower crime rate than men, can be
misleading
Women are less evolved: naturally vengeful
and jealous, their moral sensibilities are
deficient, less sensitive to pain than men
The Female Offender (1897)

Co-authored with William
Ferrero
Natural selection is the reason
for existence of a greater
number of male than female
born criminals
Men are less likely to breed with
physically deformed women
The Female Offender (1897)

Women have less chances
to transmit their genes
Degenerative traits in
women would be less
likely than such traits in
men to survive over time
Lombroso
Born criminal is unsuited for society
Inevitably violate social and legal rules
Theories of genetic superiority call for
policy in which whole peoples are to be
eliminated from the genetic stock of the
world in order to prevent crime
Theories of individual genetic
inferiority call for castration of those
said to be habitual criminals in order to
prevent their producing more defective
children who, presumably will be
criminals
Frontispiece of
Criminal Man
Lombroso claimed that to the
trained eye, the eye of the
detective, these people would
clearly be organized into
categories
Those in group "A" are all
shoplifters, "B" are
swindlers, "H" are purse
snatchers, "E" are murderers,
etc.
And supposedly you can see
a man's real character at a
glance.
The New Sciences of Detection

By the 1880s, urban police forces began
developing new techniques for keeping
track of criminals, especially new
techniques of record-keeping
Most of these techniques were heavily
influenced by criminology
Mug Shots
The mug shot originated in the
1880s, in studies designed to
explore the relationship between
appearance and criminal behavior
These men are all forgers. The
New York Police Department
compiled this record in part to
see if all forgers looked alike, or
all murderers looked alike, or if
all burglars had the same facial
features
Critique of Lombroso
Theory overlooks the bright and handsome
criminals
Theory ignores those who are ugly and live lives
of productive and cooperative labor
Theory does not look at the variations over time
in crime rates. Since genes change very slowly,
there should be a steady rate of crime over the
centuries. That is not the case. Crime rates vary
dramatically.
Critique of Lombroso
He was studying the very poor - people
whose physical development had been
affected by poverty, poor nutrition
Not everyone who breaks the law ends
up in prison
This type of theorising neglects the idea
that there is a "grey area" of criminality people who commit crimes but who are
not caught and therefore not imprisoned.
Charles Goring (1913)

Junior medical officer in the English prison service
Tested the concept of born criminal
He used statistical analysis to determine the
presence of 37 Lombrosian characteristics in the
criminal population (2,348 convicts)
Compared criminals with non-criminal public
(undergraduate students, soldiers, inmates of two
separate hospitals)
Findings: no evidence of a physical type criminal
Body Types
Criminality is explained by reference to the
offenders body types
Genetics, or external observable physical
characteristics
W. Sheldon (1898-1977)
Sheldon was an American psychologist who spent
his life observing all the variety of human bodies
As a child he was an avid observer of animals and
birds, and as he grew up, this hobby turned into a
strong ability to observe the human body.
Three types of human body:
Ectomorph:
Endomorph:
Mesomorph:
Endomorph, Mesomorph, Ectomorph
The ECTOMORPH
Definitive "Hard Gainer"
Delicate Built Body
Flat Chest
Fragile
Lean
Lightly Muscled
Small Shouldered
Takes Longer to Gain Muscle
Thin
Lisa Kudrow,
Kate Moss, Brad Pitt, Seth
Famous
Ectomorphs
Green, Edward Norton
The MESOMORPH
Athletic
Hard Body
Hourglass Shaped (Female)
Rectangular Shaped (Male)
Mature Muscle Mass
Muscular Body
Excellent Posture
Gains Muscle Easily
Gains Fat More Easily Than Ectomorphs
Thick Skin
Bruce Willis,
Sylvester Stallone
Famous
Mesomorphs
The ENDOMORPH
The body is round and soft
The physique presents the illusion that much of the mass has been
concentrated in the abdominal area.
The hands and feet of the endomorph are comparatively small,
and the upper arms and thighs are often more developed than the
lower parts of the arms or legs.
The body has a high waist
The skin is soft and smooth, and the hair is fine
The head is large and the face broad.
John Goodman,
Roseanne, Jack Black
Famous
Endomorphs
Very frequently, people

fall
into mixed
categories,
Combinations
of
Body
Types
where largely, they are like the mesomoph, but
with traits of the ectomorph (such as small joints
or a trim waist), or traits of the endomorph (such
as a tendency to gain fat easily)
Research on body types

Study-200 boys, Hayden Goodwill Institute. 7
point somotyping scale, 650 psychological
attributes. Disproportionately mesomorphic-more prone to delinquency.
Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck (1950's): 800
delinquents/matched sample of nondelinquents==> delinquents more likely to be
mesomorphs.
Questions/Problems
Maybe need a tough body to gain
acceptance/survive on the streets.
Body type and social meaning--the boys
were already judged to be delinquent.
XYY: The super-male

The extra Y chromosome creates a strong
compulsion that the XYY carrier is at
extreme risk of committing violent crimes
The findings of some studies that the
proportion of XYY males is prison
population (from 1 to 3 %) is higher than
in general male population (less than 1%)
is accepted as evidence of the theory
The XYY Super-male

Patricia Jacobs (1965) examined 198 Scottish
prisoners for chromosomal abnormalities
(blood test known karyotyping)
12 members of the group displayed XYY (only
3.5% of prison population)

Biological Theories of Crime

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Biological Theories of

Character and physical appearance

Physiognomy as Practiced in Europe

A choleric person has a "hot" temperament, is irritable

The Underlying Logic

Cesare Lombroso (1835 1909)

Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909)

The Female Offender (1897)

The Female Offender (1897)

The New Sciences of Detection

Charles Goring (1913)

Endomorph, Mesomorph, Ectomorph

Very frequently, people

Research on body types

XYY: The super-male

The XYY Super-male

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