2.4.1.6 - Eugenics

• The study of eugenics claimed that inheritance could explain the presence of simple and complex human behavioural characteristics
• The idea that we can identify a criminal gene is now discredited in the early 20th century
• Eugenicists were obsessed with the fear that the human race was in danger of 'degenerating' because the poor were breeding at a higher rate than the working class
• Eugenicists believed that the poorer population were passing on an inferior criminal gene for low intelligence, insanity, poverty, and criminality
• Eugenicists argued that the 'genetically unfit' should therefore be prevented from breeding by the compulsory sterilisation of criminals to prevent them from giving birth to criminal offspring
• Osborne and Wet (1970s) provides support for the eugenics theory as they found that 40% of boys whose fathers had criminal records had criminal records themselves as opposed to 21% whos fathers did not have criminal records
• Forced sterilisation is seen as a breach of Human Rights
• Nazi 'racial purity' policies became part of the justification for the Nazis' genocide of supposedly 'inferior' races
• All Nazi and EUgenic policies are widely condemned in the modern world