Atavistic - Biological and Historical

• Lombroso

  Believed that criminals behaviour was fundamentally different to ‘normal’ behaviour - through studying thousands of skulls and bodies to find abnormalities and traits (physical)
• Lombroso

  Suggested that criminals were ‘genetic throwbacks’ - a primitive subspecies who were biologically different from non-criminals

  Saw them as lacking evolutionary development, their savage and untamed nature meant that they would find it impossible to adjust to the demands of civilised society and would turn to crime

  As such, saw criminal behaviour as a natural tendency, rooted in the genealogy of those who engage in it
• Lombroso

  Atavistic forms theory would be described as speculative and naïve, but laid the foundations for modern offender profiling
• Atavistic forms


  A biological approach to offending that attributes criminal activity to the fact that offenders are genetic throwbacks or a primitive subspecies, which are linked to primitive instincts causing criminality

  They’re distinguishable by particular facial and cranial characteristics
• Argued the criminal sub-type would be identified as being in possession of particular physiological ‘markers’ that were linked to particular types of crime

  Mainly features of the face and head that makes criminals physically different from the rest of us

  • Narrow, sloping brow
  • Strong, prominent jaw
  • high cheekbones
  • facial asymmetry
  • dark skin
  • extra toes, nipples, or fingers
• 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 had glinting eyes, swollen fleshy lips, and projecting ears
  • Fraudsters lips were thin and ‘reedy’
• Besides physical traits, Lombroso suggested there were other aspects of the born criminal including sensitivity to pain, use of criminal slang, tattoos and unemployment
• He later identified:

  • Born criminals (Atavistic traits)
  • Insane criminals (mental illness)
  • Criminaloids (Predisposition to crime under the right environmental conditions)
• Lombroso meticulously examined the facial and cranial features of hundreds of Italian convicts, both living and dead, and proposed that the atavistic form was associated with a number of physical anomalies which were key dictators in criminality
• Lombroso examined the skulls of 383 dead criminals and 3839 living ones, concluding that 40% of criminal acts are committed by people with atavistic characteristics
• Strength - Positive contribution to criminology

  Lombroso has been hailed as the ‘father of modern criminology’ (Hollin 1989)

  He is credited as shifting the emphasis in crime research away from moralistic discourse (within which offenders were judged as being wicked and weak minded) towards a more scientific and credible realm (evolutionary influences and genetics)

  Also in trying to describe how particularly types of people are likely to commit particular types of crime, Lombroso’s theory heralded the beginning of criminal profiling - a major contribution to the science of criminology
• Weakness - Scientific racism

  Several critics (Matt DeLisi 2012) have drawn attention to the distinct racist undertones within Lombroso’s work

  Many of the features that Lombroso identified as criminal and atavistic, such as curly hair and dark skin, are most likely to be found among people of African descent

  His description of the atavistic being ‘uncivilised, primitive, savage’ would lend support to many of the eugenic philosophies of the time

  Whether Lombroso intended this to be the case is a matter of debate
• Weakness - Flaws in Lombroso’s research, and Goring’s evidence

  Goring (1913) set out to establish whether there were any physical or mental abnormalities among the criminal classes

  After studying 3000 criminals and 3000 non-criminals he concluded that there was no evidence that offenders are a distinct group with unusual facial and cranial characteristics (suggesting that many people who commit crimes have lower than average intelligence)

  Does offer some limited support to Lombroso’s argument that criminals are ‘subspecies‘, it does not support that they have different appearances
• Weakness - Poor control in Lombroso’s research

  Unlike Goring, Lombroso didn't compare his criminal sample with a non-criminal group

  Its possible that if he’d done so, the significant differences in atavistic form that lombroso reported may have disappeared

  Lombroso also failed to account for other important variables within his researched

  Many of the criminals he studied had a history of psychological disorders which may have confounded the findings
• Weakness - Causation is an issue

  Even if there are criminals who have some of the atavistic elements in their factual appearance that Lombroso suggested, this does not necessarily mean this is the cause of their offending

  Facial and cranial differences may be influenced by other factors, such as poverty or poor diet, rather than being an indication of delayed evolutionary development

  In his later work, Lombroso took a less extreme stance - acknowledging criminals could be made as well as born due to a range of environmental factors