Biological explanations: Atavistic form

Question 1

A01

Outline the historical approach to offending(Lombroso)

Answer 1

Lombroso (1876) suggests that criminals are subspecies of human who are genetic throwbacks
suggested physical features which offenders had indicated they were less developed in evolutionary sense than non offenders.
suggested offenders were primitive & biologically different to non criminals & not completely responsible for their behaviour
he referred to physcial features identified in criminals as atavistic & saw criminality as natural tendancy

Question 2

A01

Outline atavistic characteristics?

Answer 2

lombroso argued criminal sub type could be identified by looking at ‘psychological markers that indicatre criminality ‘ which makes criminals stand out from rest of the population
Cranial characteristics include:
A prominent jaw
darker skin
Facial asymmetry
Wrinkled skin
Bushy eyebrows
Large, separated teeth

Offender Types
Lombroso furthered his research into categorising types of criminal, by the nature of the crime committed and suggests that, typically:
Murderers: had bloodshot eyes, curly hair, long ears
Sexual deviants: glinting eyes, swollen, fleshy lips, projecting ears

Question 3

A01

Outline Lombrosos research (application)

Answer 3

Lombroso examined facial & cranial features of Italian convicts, both living & dead (3839 living convicts and 383 dead convicts)
found 40% of criminal acts committed -by those with atavistic features
concluded - there is an ‘Atavistic form’ which shows key indicators to criminality
The primal features of a criminal meant were evolutionarily underdeveloped, so could not cope with demands of civilised society
thus those with atavistic form inevitably turn to crime because was written in their genes as a natural tendency for survival
due to this biological basis, Lombroso states that criminals cannot be blamed for their actions, suggesting that committing crime is out of their control

Question 4

A03

Racial implications of Lombroso’s research-scientific racism

Limitation

Answer 4

The legacy of Lombroso’s work criticised as having racist undertones, & could have been influenced by racism and prejudice at the time of writing (e.g., features that Lombroso describes as being criminality ‘markers’ (darker skin, curly hair, bushy eyebrows), are those typically found in people of colour or African descent
This shows that Lombroso’s theory may lack cultural relativism through being subjective rather than objective, also weakening the scientific credibility of it

Question 5

A03

Contradictory evidence-Goring replicated Lombroso findings

Limitation

Answer 5

Goring (1913) wanted to replicate Lombroso’s findings but failed to do so in the results of comparing 3,000 offenders and 3,000 non-offenders
Goring found no significant differences in the facial and cranial characteristics between criminal and non-criminals but did suggest that people who committed crimes generally had lower-than-average IQ
This finding contradicts the idea of Atavistic Form and limits the reliability and thus validity of the theory

Question 6

A03

Contributed to criminology-‘lombros father of criminology’ Hollin

Strength

Answer 6

+ Lombroso considered as ‘the father of criminology’, as suggested by Hollin (1989).
because Lombroso’s methods of attributing certain atavistic or cranial features to certain types of criminals was the basis from which modern criminal profiling was developed from.
Counterpoint:
Although not entirely scientific due to the lack of a control group and no
statistical analysis, Lombroso’s conclusions can still be considered as credible, considering the large sample size (over 3800 participants in total!).