Biological Explanations - Historical Approach Flashcards
What is atavistic form?
-biological approach to offending that attributes criminal activity to the fact that offenders are primitive subspecies ill-suited to conforming to the rules of modern society
What was Lombroso’s research?
-viewed facial features and cranial shapes of italian offenders
-383 dead convicts examined
-3389 living offenders
-concluded that 40% of them had ‘atavisitc’ form
What did murders ‘look like’?
-bloodshot eyes
-curly hair
-long ears
What did sexual offenders ‘look like’?
-glinting eyes
-swollen freshly lips
-projecting ears
What did fraudsters ‘look like’?
-thin and reedy lips
What did Lombroso assume?
-that criminals were biologically different from non-criminals
What is the biological view of activist form?
-offenders were seen as lacking evolutionary development
-they have an untamed nature
-they find it impossible to adjust to demands of civilised society and will eventually turn to cime
-seen as a natural tendency rooted in the genes of those who engage in it
What are the physical traits?
-strong jaw, sloping brow, facial asymmetry and extra fingers
What are other features?
-tattoos, insensitivity to pain and unemployed
What is one strength of Lombroso’s research?
-is has changed the face of the study of crime
-he is credited as shifting the emphasis in cime research away from a moralistic discourse towards a more scientific approach
-in trying to describe how types of people are likely to commit a certain crime, his theory has healed the beginning of offender profiling
-suggests that Lombroso made a major contribution to science of criminology
What is a contradiction to Lomobroso’s research?
-Matt DeLisi has questioned whether his legacy is entirely positive
-attention has been drawn to the racist undertones within his work
-meant features that he identified as activist are more likely to be found among people of African descent
-this a view that fitted 19th centre are eugenic attitudes
-suggests aspects of his theory were highly subjective
-influenced by racial prejudices of time
What contradictory evidence is there against Lombroso’s research?
-there is evidence that contradicts the link between activism and crime
-Goring - conducted comparison between 3000 offenders and non-offenders
-concluded that there was no evidence that offenders are a distinct group with unique characteristics
-challenges the idea that offenders can be physically distinguished from the rest of population
-unlikely to be a subspecies
Explain the historic explanation of offender behaviour
-Lombroso suggested that criminals were genetic throwbacks
-and were biologically different from non-criminals
-activist form is the biological approach to identifying an offender subtype based on particular physiological markers that are linked to certain offences
-there is certain physical and other traits that can create a certain image of the type of offender they are
