Historical approach

• Historical approach

  Lombroso suggested that criminals were 'genetic throwbacks' and a primitive subspecies who were biologically different to non-criminals.
• Atavistic form

  Criminals had particular physiological markers linked to types of offence.

  Biologically determined 'atavistic' characteristics

  • Narrow sloping brow, facial asymmetry, strong prominent jaw, high cheekbones, dark skin, extra toes.
• Lombroso's research

  Examined facial + cranial features of hundreds of Italian convicts (living + dead)

  Concluded that 40% of criminal acts were committed by people with atavistic characteristics
• Limitation - racial prejudices

  Racist undertones within his work.

  Many of the features he identified were most likely found within people of African descent

  Fit with 19th Century eugenic attitudes
• Limitation - Contradictory evidence

  Goring

  Compared 3000 offenders to 3000 non-offenders and found no evidence that there was a distinct group of facial and cranial characteristics that led to crime.

  Challenges ideas of physically distinguishing criminals
• Limitation - Poor control

  Lombroso failed to control important variables in his research.

  He didn't have a control group to compare to which leads to a large amount of confounding variables.

  e.g. social conditions

  Doesn't meet scientific standards
• Strength - legacy

  Lombroso's research changed the way crime was studied.

  He was the first person to look at it from a more scientific position rather than seeing criminals as having moralistic discourse.

  Major contribution to criminology