Biological Explanations of Offending Behaviour: an historical approach Flashcards
What is the Atavistic form?
-Basic assumption - the innate physiological make-up of the person causes them to
become a criminal.
- Lombroso (1876) set out his view that offenders possessed similar characteristics to
lower primates and this could explain their criminality. Based on Darwin’s theory, he
suggested that criminals are essentially throwbacks to an earlier species.
He wrote:
-There is an asymmetry of the face, excessive dimensions of the jaw and cheekbones, eye defects and peculiarities.
- Ears of unusual size, or occasionally very small, or standing out from the head as do those of the chimpanzee; nose twisted, upturned, or flattened in thieves, or aquiline or beak-like in murderers, or with a tip rising like a peak from swollen nostrils…
-Chin receding, or excessively long, or short
and flat, as in an ape… Excessive length of arms; [more than the usual number of]
fingers and toes.”
What are the environmental influences?
-Lombroso later recognised that it was unlikely that one factor would be the cause of
criminality.
-He proposed that inherited atavistic form interacted with a person’s physical and social environment.
-In later editions of his book, he distinguished between three types of criminals, moving
away from the atavistic form as the only explanation:
1. Born criminals - the atavistic type; ‘throwbacks’ identifiable from their physical characteristics.
2. Insane criminals - suffering from mental illness.
3. Criminaloids - a large general class of offenders whose mental characteristics predisposed them to criminal behaviour under the right circumstances
A03 - Deterministic
Lombroso’s theory is deterministic – suggesting that criminals have no control over their behaviour.
- If some people are ‘born criminals’ it follows that offenders have no say in their behaviour; this would mean that offenders are not responsible for their crimes. This provides a problem for our present legal system that presently punishes an offender
based on their own ‘decisions.’
-However, Lombroso later modified his theory to include ‘criminaloids’ - people predisposed to crime but not necessarily determined to be criminals.
● Later theories, which examine the role of the environment and upbringing have more
credibility in today’s society, casting doubt on the credibility of Lombroso’s Atavistic form
theory.
A03 - Lack of scientific evidence - (includes Goring)
-Lombroso’s method was deeply flawed as he did not systematically study a control group of non-criminals.
-Goring repeated this study with a control group, comparing 3,000 convicts with a group of non-convicts. There were no differences in facial and cranial characteristics, except for the fact that convicts were slightly smaller and had a lower intelligence.
-This questions Lombroso’s theory as a scientifically credible one.
A03 - Gender bias
Lombroso’s theory contains significant alpha gender bias.
-He believed that women were less evolved than men. They were naturally jealous and insensitive to pain but they were also passive, low in intelligence and had a maternal instinct - all of which neutralised their negative traits and meant they were less likely to be criminals.
-Women criminals had masculine characteristics which were beneficial in a man but in a woman created a ‘monster’.
- This unfounded sexism makes it difficult to accept other aspects of Lombroso’s work and means that his theory cannot be applied to all criminals.
