Lombroso - Atavistic Form Theory
- Created by: Jess
- Created on: 03-12-12 19:41
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- Lombroso - Atavistic Form Theory
- His theory claimed that criminality was heritable.
- He suggested that there was a distinct biological class of people that were prone to criminality.
- These people exhibited 'atavistic' features.
- He suggested they were 'throwbacks' who had biological characteristics from an earlier stage of human development which has since manifested as a tendency to commit crimes.
- The principle markers of criminality were a strong jaw and a heavy brow.
- However he suggested that different types of criminal had different features.
- sex offenders - thick lips and protruding ears
- Murderers - bloodshot eyes and curly hair
- However he suggested that different types of criminal had different features.
- His theory was deeply flawed
- Crime is neither a natural or a homogenous category of behaviour
- its a social construction
- His sample is likely to have contained a large number of people with psychological and chromosomal abnormalities
- Has not distinguished adequately between criminality and pathology.
- Our current understanding of genetic influences on behaviour does not support the idea that complex behaviour are controlled by single genes.
- Didn't use a non-criminal control group
- Couldn't establish whether the 'atavistic' features he identified were confined to the criminal population.
- Crime is neither a natural or a homogenous category of behaviour
- Modified his theories extensively over the course of his career
- He argued for the interaction of biological, psychological and social factors in causing criminal behaviours.
- He is regarded by many as the 'father of modern criminology' - Shafer, 1976
- He shifted the study of criminal behaviour from a moral basis to an empirical one
- He eventually came to believe that only about a third of criminality was directly attributable to atavistic features.
- Majority of criminal behaviour in his later theories was due to environmental factors such as poverty and poor education
- His theory claimed that criminality was heritable.
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