Cesare Lombroso: An introduction to the difficult father of criminology

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by: Sarah Maple
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Word Count: 431
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 2010 Time: 3:46 AM
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In recent years criminology degree courses have risen in popularity alongside criminal justice and the onset of highly publicised acts of terrorism in the western world during the 21st Century. It is perhaps surprising then that the subject has its roots in social philosophy established in the 18th Century and now encompasses several respective schools of thought including the Italian School - as founded by Cesare Lombroso, who is often regarded as the ‘father' of criminology.

Yet it is Lombroso's approach to why some members of 18th Century society were criminals and others weren't that is perhaps most difficult to grasp in a 21st Century context. In simple terms Lombroso believed there was a scientific reason for crime, which is not so unconventional on the surface. Yet, it was the rise of the idea that the likelihood a person will have certain criminal traits because of their physical appearance that shows just how much the subject has evolved in just a few centuries.

Lombroso argued that law-abiding citizens had evolved, whereas violent criminals had devolved and would inherit their personalities alongside significant physical attributes or abnormalities, including: handle-shaped ears, hard shifty eyes, baldness, high cheekbones and large jaws. Lombroso determined that white men must be the most developed and thus the most non-criminal - with non-white men being less developed and females having evolved less generally because criminal women and non-criminal women showed little difference in terms of ‘degeneration.

Of course, it is not surprising that Lombroso's work went some way to forming the basis of the eugenics movement at the turn of the Twentieth century (later being linked to the Nazi party and The Holocaust) - and it is perhaps even less surprising that his work is hardly incorporated in contemporary criminology. Yet some of his works such as 1876's The Criminal Man and 1899's Crime, Its Causes and Remedies - as well as works about him are still widely studied today.

The study of criminology today is diverse and continually interesting - and its relative young age in comparison to other subjects means that it has evolved very fast, and continues to do so at a challenging rate. Race is still a major point of study and discussion, as it was during Lombroso's time - while sexuality, discrimination and domestic violence are all major elements which need to be considered fairly and carefully - especially in regards to punishment and the penal system on community and national levels.

About the Author

Sarah Maple writes for Kaplan Open Learning about degree courses and Police officer degree courses.