Lombroso

• Lombroso’s theory (1876)

  • Criminals can be identified by characteristics
  • Linked features with certain crimes
  • Researched and studied criminals' bodies to determine these characteristics
• Some of Lombroso's ideas:

  • Thick lips - violence
  • Hooked nose - murder
  • Flattened nose - thief
• Atavism - Criminals are atavistic meaning they are people with more primitive instincts. Meaning that people were born criminal
• Lombroso believed that society was split in half - criminal and normal, them and us
• • Criminalad category where a persons criminally is due to environment rather than biology
• The female offender (1897)

  For men to be criminal they must have more than 5 physical anomalies

  For women to be criminal they can have less than 5 physical anomalies
• However female criminals were much more rare and had not ‘degenerated’ in the same way as men because they had endured less due to the inactive nature of their lives.