Cesare Lombroso ( ,"Lombroso". Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. ; ; born Ezechia Marco Lombroso; 6 November 1835 – 19 October 1909) was an Italian eugenicist, criminologist, phrenologist, physician, and founder of the Italian school of criminology. He is considered the founder of modern criminology by changing the Western notions of individual responsibility.
Lombroso rejected the established classical school, which held that crime was a characteristic trait of human nature. Instead, using concepts drawn from physiognomy, degeneration theory, psychiatry, and Social Darwinism, Lombroso's theory of anthropological criminology essentially stated that criminality was inherited, and that someone "born criminal" could be identified by physical (congenital) defects, which confirmed a criminal as savage or atavistic.
Early life and education Lombroso was born in Verona, Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia, on 6 November 1835 to a wealthy Jewish family. "Cesare Lombroso, A Brief Biography", Brain and Mind (1997). His father was Aronne Lombroso, a tradesman from Verona, and his mother was Zeffora (or Zefira) Levi from Chieri near Turin. Cesare Lombroso descended from a line of rabbis, which led him to study a wide range of topics in university. He studied literature, linguistics, and archaeology at the universities of Padua, Vienna, and Paris. Despite pursuing these studies in university, Lombroso eventually settled on pursuing a degree in medicine, which he graduated with from the University of Pavia.
Career
Lombroso initially worked as an army surgeon, beginning in 1859 when he enlisted as a volunteer. He claimed that he developed the theory of atavistic criminality during this period. In 1866, he was appointed visiting lecturer at Pavia, and later took charge of the insane asylum at Pesaro in 1871. His research into the bodily characteristics of soldiers and asylum inmates became the foundation of his work on criminal anthropology. He became professor of forensic medicine and hygiene at Turin in 1878. That year he wrote his most important and influential work, L'uomo delinquente (Criminal Man in English), which went through five editions in Italian and was published in various European languages.
Three of his works had been translated into English by 1900, including a partial translation of The Female Offender published in 1895 and read in August of that year by the late nineteenth-century English novelist George Gissing (1857–1903).
Lombroso became a professor of psychiatry (1896) and of criminal anthropology (1906) at Turin University.
Personal life and final years Lombroso married Nina de Benedetti on 10 April 1870. They had five children together, one of whom—Gina—would go on to publish a summary of Lombroso's work after his death.
He died in Turin in 1909.
Concept of criminal atavism
Lombroso's general theory suggested that criminals are distinguished from noncriminals by multiple physical anomalies. He postulated that criminals represented a reversion to a primitive or subhuman type of person characterized by physical features reminiscent of apes, lower primates, and early humans and to some extent preserved, he said, in modern "savages". The behaviour of these biological "throwbacks" will inevitably be contrary to the rules and expectations of modern civilized society.
Through years of postmortem examinations and anthropometric studies of criminals, the insane, and normal individuals, Lombroso became convinced that the "born criminal" (reo nato, a term given by Ferri) could be anatomically identified by such items as a sloping forehead, ears of unusual size, asymmetry of the face, prognathism, excessive length of arms, asymmetry of the cranium, and other "physical stigmata". Specific criminals, such as thieves, rapists, and murderers, could be distinguished by specific characteristics, he believed. Lombroso also maintained that criminals had less sensitivity to pain and touch; more acute sight; a lack of moral sense, including an absence of remorse; more vanity, impulsiveness, vindictiveness, and cruelty; and other manifestations, such as a special criminal argot and the excessive use of tattooing. For Lombroso, the "born criminal" character was embodied by Vittorio Pini (1859–1903), a famous Italian anarchist who engaged in a series of sensationalist robberies and was one of the founders of illegalism. He chose him to be the archetype of that idea he was developing.
Besides the "born criminal", Lombroso also described "criminaloids", or occasional criminals, criminals by passion, moral imbeciles, and criminal epileptics. He recognized the diminished role of organic factors in many habitual offenders and referred to the delicate balance between predisposing factors (organic, genetic) and precipitating factors such as one's environment, opportunity, or poverty.
In Criminal Woman, as introduced in an English translation by Nicole Hahn Rafter and Mary Gibson, Lombroso used his theory of atavism to explain women's criminal offending. In the text, Lombroso outlines a comparative analysis of "normal women" as opposed to "criminal women" such as "the prostitute." However, Lombroso's "obdurate beliefs" about women presented an "intractable problem" for this theory: "Because he was convinced that women are inferior to men Lombroso was unable to argue, based on his theory of the born criminal, that women's lesser involvement in crime reflected their comparatively lower levels of atavism."
Lombroso's research methods were clinical and descriptive, with precise details of skull dimensions and other measurements. He did not engage in rigorous statistical comparisons of criminals and non-criminals. Although he gave some recognition in his later years to psychological and sociological factors in the etiology of crime, he remained convinced of and identified with, criminal anthropometry. After he died, his skull and brain were measured according to his own theories by a colleague as he requested in his will; his head was preserved in a jar and is still displayed with his collection at the Museum of Psychiatry and Criminology in Turin.
Lombroso's theories were disapproved throughout Europe, especially in schools of medicine: notably by Alexandre Lacassagne in France. His notions of physical differentiation between criminals and non-criminals were seriously challenged by Charles Goring (The English Convict, 1913), who made elaborate comparisons and found insignificant statistical differences.
Legacy
Self-proclaimed the founder of modern scientific psychiatry, Lombroso is purported to have coined the term criminology. He institutionalized the science of psychiatry in universities. His graduating thesis from the University of Pavia dealt with "endemic cretinism". Over the next several years, Lombroso's fascination with criminal behaviour and society began, and he gained experience managing a mental institution. After a brief stint in the Italian army, Lombroso returned to the University of Pavia and became the first professor specializing in mental health. By the 1880s, his theories had reached the pinnacle of their fame, and his accolades championed them throughout the fields dedicated to examining mental illness. Lombroso differentiated himself from his predecessor and rival, Cesare Beccaria, by depicting his positivist school in opposition to Beccaria's classist one (which centred around the idea that criminal behaviour is born out of free will rather than inherited physical traits). Lombroso's psychiatric theories were conglomerated and collectively called the positivist school by his followers, which included Antonio Marro and Alfredo Niceforo. Ideas similar to Lombroso's assessment of white and northern-European supremacy over other races would be used by fascists to gird, for example, the promulgation of Italian racial laws. His school of thought was only truly abandoned in Italian universities' curriculum after World War II.
Through his various publications, Lombroso established a school of psychiatry based on biological determinism and the idea that mental illness was via genetic factors. A person's predisposition to mental illness was determinable through his appearance, as explained in the aforementioned criminal atavism segment. Lombroso's theory has been cited as possibly "the most influential doctrine" in all areas studying human behaviour, and indeed, its impact extended far and wide. According to Lombroso, criminal appearance was not just based on inherited physiognomy such as nose or skull shape, but also could be judged through superficial features like tattoos on the body. In particular, Lombroso began searching for a relationship between tattoos and an agglomeration of symptoms eut (which are currently diagnosed as borderline personality disorder). He also believed that tattoos indicated a certain type of criminal.
Through his observations of sex workers and criminals, Lombroso hypothesized a correlation between left-handedness, criminality, and degenerate behaviour. He also propagated the idea that left-handedness leads to other disabilities, by linking left-handedness with neurodegeneration and alcoholism. Lombroso's theories were likely accepted due to the pre-existing regional stigma against left-handedness, and greatly influenced the reception of left-handedness in the 20th century. His hypothesis even manifested in a new way during the 1980s and 1990s with a series of research studies grouping left-handedness with psychiatric disorders and autoimmune diseases.
Despite his stance on inherited immorality and biologically destined criminal behaviour, Lombroso believed in socialism and supposedly sympathized with the stigmatization of lower socioeconomic statuses, placing him at odds with the biological determinism he espoused. His work stereotyping degenerates can even be seen as an influence behind Benito Mussolini's movement to clean the streets of Italy. Many adherents to Lombroso's positivist school stayed powerful during Mussolini's rule, because of the seamless way criminal atavism and biological determinism justified both the racial theories and eugenic tendencies of fascism. However, certain legal institutions did press back against the idea that criminal behaviour is biologically determined.
Within the penal system, Lombroso's work led to new forms of punishment, where occasionally punishment varied based on the defendant's biological background. There are a few instances in which case the physiognomy of the defendant actually mattered more than witness testimony and the defendant was subjected to harsher sentences.
During the period in Italy between the 1850s and 1880s, the Italian government debated legislation for the insanity plea. Judges and lawyers backed Beccaria's classist school, tending to favour the idea that wrongdoers are breaking a societal contract with the option to exercise free will, tying into Beccaria's classist school of social misbehaviour. Lombroso and his followers argued for a criminal code, in which the criminal was understood as unable to act with free will due to their biological predisposition to crime.