Biological explantions for offending behaviour: A historical approach

whats the atavistic form?

An explanation for criminal behaviour, suggesting that certain individuals are born with a criminal personality and this innate personality is a throwback to earlier primate forms.

who came up with the atavistic form?

Lombroso

what did Lomobroso suggest about criminal behaviour?

• that offenders possessed similar characteristics to lower primates and this could explain their criminality.

• Based on this theory, Lombroso suggested that criminals are essentially throwbacks to an earlier species. 'Atavistic' means a tendency to revert to an ancestral type

what were some of the primitive characteristics that Lombroso said criminals had?

• asymmetry of the face

• nose beak-like in murderers

• low set brows

how many criminal skulls did Lombroso examine?

• 3839 in total

• 383 dead criminals

what were the results of Lomobroso’s observational study?

around 40% of criminals examined had atavistic forms

What did Lombroso suggest about envrionmental influences?

proposed that inherited atavistic form interacted with a person's physical and social environment.

what were Lombroso’s 3 criminal types?

1. Born criminals

2. Insane criminals

3. Criminaloids

what are born criminals?

the atavistic type; throwbacks identifiable from their physical characteristics.

what are insane criminals?

suffering from mental illness.

what are criminaloids?

a large general class of offenders whose mental characteristics predisposed them to criminal behaviour under the right circumstances (i.e. certain physical/social environments).

what did German psychiatrist Ernst Kretschmer suggest?

suggested that there were four types of somatostypes in relation to criminal types

what were the 4 somatotypes?

1. Leptosome or asthenic - tall and thin; petty thieves.

2. Athletic - tall and muscular; crimes of violence.

3. Pyknic - short and fat; commit crimes of deception and sometimes violence.

4. Dysplastic or mixed - more than one type; crimes against morality (e.g. prostitution).

what is Lombroso regarded as?

the founder of modern criminology

whats the main strength of Lombroso’s theory?

he based his ideas on empirical observation and detailed measurement

whats the main critisism of Lomobroso’s study?

it was observational and lacked adequate controls, When he studied prisoners, he didn't pay the same kind of attention to non-prisoners. Had he done so, it is likely that he would have found as many non-prisoners with the same characteristics as he found in prisoners.

what were the findings of Gorings study?

He compared 3,000 convicts with a group of non-convicts, finding no differences except for the fact that convicts were slightly smaller.

why is Lombroso’s theory an example of alpha bias?

as it is based on the notion that women are less evolved than men, Lombroso believed that women were naturally jealous and insensitive to pain, but also passiv low in intelligence and maternally focused - all of which meant they were less likely to be criminals. Those women who did become criminals, according to Lombroso, had masculine characteristics that turned them into monsters.

whats a strength for somatotypes?

Glueck and Glueck found that 60% of delinquents were mesomorphs, roughly equivalent to the athletic type. William Sheldon created a fairly similar set of somatotypes (ectomorphs, mesomorphs and endomorphs). Based on his own study of 200 young adults, he concluded that there were differences between delinquents and non-delinquents in terms of body type - the delinquents tended to be mesomorphs.