Atavistic Form

Question 1

What did Lombroso propose?

Answer 1

offenders possessed similar characteristics to lower primates and this could explain their criminality. Criminals were seen to be a primitive subspecies who were not capable of conforming to the rules of modern society.

Question 2

What caused him to theorise this?

Answer 2

Lombroso examined the facial and cranial features of hundreds of living and dead Italian convicts and proposed that criminals could be identified as they had biologically determined ‘atavistic’ characteristics (mainly features of the face and head) that made criminals physically different from the rest of us.

Question 3

What are the atavistic features?

Answer 3

The atavistic form included:
® A narrow, sloping brow
® A strong jaw
® High cheekbones and facial asymmetry
® Dark skin
® Extra toes, nipples and fingers

He also categorised particular types of criminals in terms of their physical and facial characteristics.

Murderers were described as having bloodshot eyes, curly hair and long ears.
Sexual deviants as having glinting eyes, swollen lips and projecting ears.

Besides physical traits, Lombroso suggested that there were other aspects of the born criminal including insensitivity to pain, use of criminal slang, tattoos and unemployment.

From his research he concluded that 40% of criminal acts could be accounted for by atavistic characteristics.

Question 4

Evaluation

Answer 4

Goring
P - One limitation is evidence contradicts the link between atavism and crime.
E - Goring, like Lombroso, set out to establish whether there was anything physically atypical about offenders. After conducting a comparison between 3000 offenders and 3000 non-offenders he concluded that there was no evidence that offenders are a distinct group with unusual facial and cranial characteristics, though he did suggest that many people who commit crime have lower-than-average intelligence
E - This challenges the idea that offenders can be physically distinguished from the rest of the population and are therefore unlikely to be a subspecies.

SHIFT
P - It changed the study of crime
E - Lombroso has been hailed as the ‘father of modern criminology’ as he created the term criminology. He is also credited as shifting the emphasis in crime research away from a moralistic discourse where offenders were judged as being wicked and weak minded towards a more scientific position that evolutionary influences and genetics are the reason for criminality and individuals are not to blame. Also, in trying to describe how particular types of people are likely to commit particular types of crime, Lombroso’s theory in many ways indicated the start to offender profiling.
E - This suggests Lombroso made a major contribution to the science of criminology

SOCIALLY SENSITIVE
P - Lombroso is an example of socially sensitive research, having damaging effects to certain groups in society.
E - There are racist undertones to his theory as many of the features he identified as atavistic such as curly hair and dark skin are more likely to be found amongst people of African descent. There are great consequences for the people with similar characteristics as this research could be used to justify prejudice and discrimination, isolating individuals from society before they have actually committed a crime and having detrimental employment implications as employers are less likely to hire people who are said to have criminal characteristics.
E - Therefore, this raises the question as to whether the findings outweigh the negative implications to certain members of society.