Evaluate an historical approach to explaining offending behaviour

Strength: Lombroso’s theory changed criminology

Lombroso (the father of modern criminology’ shilling 1989) shifted the emphasis in crime research from moralistic to scientific.

Also in describing his particular types of people are likely to commit particular types of crime, the theory heralded offender profiling.

This suggests that Lombroso made a major contribution to science of criminology.

Counterpoint to how Lombroso’s theory hanged criminology

However, many of the features that Lombroso Identified as atavistic (curly hair, dark skin) are most likely to be found amount people of African descent, a view fitted 19th century eugenic attitudes (to prevent some groups from breeding)

This suggests that his theory might be more subjective than objective, influenced by racist prejudice.

One limitation - evidence contradicts the link between atavism and crime

Goring (1913) compared 3000 offenders and 3000 non-offenders and found no evidence that offenders are a distinct group with unusual facial and cranial characteristics.

He did suggest though that many people who commit crime have lowerer than average intelligence (offering limited support for atavistic theory)

This challenges the idea that offenders can be physically distinguished from the rest of the population, therefore they are unlikely to be a subspecies.

Limitation- Lombroso’s methods were poorly controlled

Lombroso didn’t compare his offender sample with a control group and therefore failed to control confounding variables.

For example, modern research shows that social conditions (e.g. poverty) are associated with offending behaviour, which would explain some of Lombroso’s links (Hay and Forrest 2009)

This suggests that Lombroso’s research does not meet modern scientific standards.

Nature or Nurture

The atavistic form suggests that crime has a biologically cause, it is genetically determined.

However, facial and cranial differences may be influenced by other factors such as poverty or poor diet rather than inherited.

This suggests that the idea of an innate atavistic form as a predisposing factor for criminality is meaningless.