Cesare Lombroso

Cesare Lombroso (Verona, November 6, 1835 - Turin, October 19, 1909) was a historical figure in modern criminology, and the founder of the Italian School of Positivist Criminology. Lombroso rejected the established Classical School, which held that crime was a characteristic trait of human nature. Instead, using concepts drawn from Physiognomy, early Eugenics, Psychiatry and Social Darwinism, Lombroso's theory was that criminality was inherited, and that the born criminal could be identified by physical defects, which confirmed a criminal as savage, or atavistic.

Early life

He studied literature, linguistics, and archæology, but changed his plans and became an army surgeon in 1859. In 1862 he was appointed professor of diseases of the mind at Pavia, and later took charge of the insane asylum at Pesaro, eventually becoming professor of medical law and psychiatry at Turin.

Criminology

Lombroso popularized the notion of a born criminal through biological determinism. Criminals have particular physiognomic attributes or deformities. Physiognomy attempts to estimate character and personality traits from physical features of the face or the body. Whereas most individuals evolve, the violent criminal had devolved, and therefore were societal, or evolutionary regressions. If criminality was inherited, then the born criminal could be distinguished by physical atavistic stigmata, such as:

large jaws, forward projection of jaw, Low sloping forehead
high cheekbones, flattened or upturned nose
handle-shaped ears
hawk-like noses or fleshy lips.
Hard Shifty eyes, scanty beard or baldness
Insensitivity to pain, long arms.

He concentrated on a purported scientific methodology in order to identify criminal behavior and isolate individuals capable of the most violent types of criminal activity. Lombroso advocated the study of individuals using measurements and statistical methods in compiling anthropological, social, and economic data. Along with the natural origin of the crime and its social consequences, various remedies can then be provided to the criminal, which would offer the greatest effects.

With successive research, he modified his theories with more thorough statistical analysis. Lombroso continued to define additional atavistic stigmata, as well as the degeneracy of effectiveness in the treatment of born criminals. He was an advocate for humane treatment of criminals by arguing for rehabilitation and against capital punishment.

Lombroso's work, however, was hampered by his Social Darwinist assumptions, and especially by his pre-genetic conception of evolution as "progress" from "lower life forms" to "higher life forms," and his assumption that the more "advanced" human traits would dispose their owners to living peacefully within a hierarchical, urbanized society far different from the conditions under which human beings evolved. In attempting to predict criminality by the shapes of the skulls and other physical features of criminals, he had in effect created a new pseudoscience of forensic phrenology. While Lombroso was a pioneer of scientific criminology, and his work was one of the bases of the eugenics movement in the early twentieth century, his work is no longer considered one of the foundations of contemporary criminology, however psychiatry and abnormal psychology have retained his idea of locating crime completely within the individual and utterly divorced from the surrounding social conditions and structures.

Lombroso criminology supported degeneration social theory, whereby it was believed the human species may negativly evolve into a criminal class. Lombroso claimed that the modern criminal was the savage throwback of degeneration. Lombroso concluded that skull and facial features were clues to genetic criminality, these features could be measured with craniometers and calipers with the results developed into quantitative research. Lombroso assumed that whites were superior to non-whites by heredity, and Africans were the first human beings that evolved upwards and positivly to yellow then white. Racial development was signified by social progress from primitive to modern, "only we white people have reached the ultimate symmetry of bodily form" Lombroso stated in 1871.

Lombroso studies of female criminality began with measurments of females skulls and photographs in his search for atavism. Lombroso concluded female criminals were rare and showed few signs of degeneration because they had “evolved less than men due to the inactive nature of their lives”.Burke, R.(2001) An Introduction to Criminological Theory. Willan Publishing, Devon Lombroso argued it was the females natural passivity that withheld them from breaking the law, as they lacked the intelligence and initiative to become criminal.

Psychiatric Art

Lombroso published The Man of Genius in 1889, a book which argued that artistic genius was a form of hereditary insanity. In order to support this assertion, he began assembling a large collection of psychiatric art. He published an article on the subject in 1880 in which he isolated thirteen typical features of the "art of the insane." Although his criteria are generally regarded as outdated today, his work inspired later writers on the subject, particularly Hans Prinzhorn.

References

Smith1989 a|^" target="_blank" >^* A. Herman (1997). "The Idea of Decline in Western History". 110–113.
Smith1989 a|^" target="_blank" >^* Lombroso cited in A. Herman (1997). "The Idea of Decline in Western History". 116.

Gould, Stephen J. (rev. ed. 1996) The Mismeasure of Man. W. W. Norton, ISBN 0393314251
Lombroso, Cesare (1876) L'Uomo Delinquente. Milan: Horpli.
____ (1895) L'Homme Criminel. Felix: Alcan. (two volumes).
____ With Gina Lombroso-Ferrero (1911) Criminal Man, According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso. New York: Putnam; (1972) Montclair, N.J.: Patterson Smith.
_____ (1980) The Female Offender. Littleton, Colorado: Fred Rothman, (1980).

Additional titles

Ricerche sul cretinismo in Lombardia, (1859)
Genio e follia, (1864)
Studi clinici sulle mallatie mentali (1865)
Sulla microcefala e sul cretinismo con applicazione alla medicina legale (1873)
L'amore nel suicidio e nel delitto, (1881)
L'uomo di genio in rapporto alla psichiatria, (1889, English translation, Man of Genius, London, 1891)
Sulla medicina legale del cadavere, (second edition, 1890)
Palimsesti del carcere, (1891)
Trattato della pellagra, (1892)
Le più recenti scoperte ed applicazioni della psichiatria ed antropologia criminale, (1894)
L'antisemitismo e le scienze moderne, (1894)
Genio e degenerazione, (1897)
Les Coquêtes récentes de la psychiatrie, (1898)
Le crime; causes et remédes, (1899, English translation, Crime, its Causes and Remedies, Boston, 1911)
Lezioni de medicina legale, (1900)
Delitti vecchi e delitti nuovi, (1902)
After Death-What? (English Translation, Boston, 1909)
Hans Kurella, Cesare lombroso, a Modern Man of Science, translated from German by M. E. Paul, (London, 1911)

A collection of papers on Lombroso was published under the title L'opera di Cesare Lombroso nella scienza e nelle sue applicazioni, (Turin, 1906).

External links