Forensic Psychology - 3. Biological Explanations for Crime: 1. Historic Approach Flashcards
What is the main historical biological approach?
Atavistic form
Are historic approaches still seen as valuable?
No
Why is the atavistic form in the specification when it isn’t valuable to explaining crime?
It laid down the foundations for people to start looking at reasons why some people turn to crime and some people don’t
Who proposed atavistic form? When?
Lombroso in the 1890s
Atavistic form (3)
Some people are ‘born criminals’
A criminal personality is innate
You can tell a criminal by the way they look
What does atavistic mean? What does this suggest?
Primitive, suggesting criminals have primitive physical features
What were certain atavistic features associated with?
Certain atavistic features were associated with certain crimes
Crimes that linked to appearance features
Murder - bloodshot eyes
Sexual deviancy - fleshy lips and projecting ears
Fraud - thin and tall
Atavistic characteristics
Marks on face and head
Narrowing brow
Prominent jaw
Facial asymmetry
Curly hair
Long ears
Aim of Lombroso’s 1876 study
To identify distinguishing physical characteristics among male criminals
Method of Lombroso’s 1876 study
Examined features and measurements of nearly 4000 criminals and the skulls of 400 dead criminals
Results of Lombroso’s 1876 study
40% of those examined had atavistic features
Conclusion of Lombroso’s 1876 study
Those with primitive features were more likely to be criminals.
The criminals weren’t responsible for their actions as their actions were down to their innate, inherited psychology
What did Lombroso say about female offenders?
Women tended to be less atavistic than men however female offenders did have atavistic features such as:
Short
Wrinkly
Dark hair
Small skulls
Who carried out research support for atavistic form? When?
Kurtzberg in 1968
Results of Kurtzberg’s study
Prisoners who had facial surgery after their release had recidivism rate of 42%.
Those who didn’t have surgery had recidivism rate of 70%
Recidivism rate
Reoffending rate
What could explain the results of Kurtzberg’s facial surgery study?
The offenders may have got surgery to regain confidence and let go of their appearance as a criminal - to start a new life
Positive evaluation of atavistic form: influence
Lombroso was the first person to bring science and biology of a person to the study of crime, which laid the foundation for further research
Positive evaluation of atavistic form: research
Evidence from himself and Kurtzberg supports his idea
Positive evaluation of atavistic form: future studies
Led to further studies of biological explanations for crime like genes and brain structure
Negative evaluation of atavistic form: correlation
Correlation doesn’t mean causation
Negative evaluation of the atavistic form: biological determinism
Doesn’t acknowledge that individuals have free will (choice to commit crime, instead of crime being innate)
Negative evaluation of the atavistic form: control group
No control group in his research as he didn’t take measurements of non-criminals
Negative evaluation of the atavistic form: study between criminals and non-criminals
Goring compared 3000 criminals to 3000 non-criminals and found no differences between the groups in terms of facial characteristics
Negative evaluation of the atavistic form: racist
DeLisi branded this explanation as racist, arguing that just because an individual has certain features, doesn’t mean they are criminal
