In 1859, English naturalist Charles Darwin published his major work On the Origin of Species, in which he laid out his theory of evolution based on his years of gathering observations while traveling the world. He argued that all animals are descendants of a common ancestor and he described how diversity of species was a result of evolution which occurred in a process of natural selection, whereby a species’ survival and reproduction depend on whether their characteristics (phenotypes) were favored by their environments (i.e., “survival of the fittest”). These ideas were incredibly influential to scientists and members of the public, including the earliest positivists to study crime. In a later work, The Descent of Man (1871), Darwin laid out the implications of the origins of humankind. Although he did not attempt to explain criminal behavior, he observed that virtue and vice tended to run in families, suggesting that moral sense was something that was likely inherited (Darwin, 1871).

During this same era, the notion of “degeneracy”—or the idea of backwards evolution (“devolution”)—became popularized and used to explain not only criminality but poverty and disability (including mental illness, physical and intellectual disability). Replacing earlier ideas about phrenology and moral insanity, the concept of degeneracy was promoted by several European psychiatrists and physicians who worked in asylums and prisons. In America, shortly before Henry Goddard produced his work on the Kallikaks as discussed in the opening story of the Chapter Overview, Richard Dugdale conducted his 1877 study of the “Jukes” family. Dugdale, like Goddard, documented the various forms of degeneracy that proliferated across several generations of a single New York family. While Goddard argued in favor of forced sterilization of women whom he decided should not be allowed to have children, Dugdale believed that degeneracy could be altered through the environment. However, his ideas were seized upon by the growing eugenics movement anyway (discussed further below) which advocated for sterilization and even execution of individuals who they believed had poor heredity. The concept of degeneracy also laid the foundation for what became known as criminal anthropology.

3.6.1 Cesare Lombroso and Criminal Anthropology

Cesare Lombroso is considered the scholar who is most closely associated with the origins of the positive school of criminology and is commonly regarded as one of the earliest theorists to utilize the scientific method to study crime (Rafter, 2009). A physician by training, Lombroso was employed by the Italian military and worked in asylum and prison institutions (Rafter, 2006), conducting autopsies on people convicted of crimes, documenting and comparing the physical characteristics of criminals and noncriminals, and forming the new discipline of criminal anthropology (Snipes, Bernard, & Gerould, 2016). Below, is an oft-cited origin story of how Lombroso was inspired to develop his theory:

At the sight of that skull, I seemed to see all of a sudden, lighted up as a vast plain under a flaming sky, the problem of the nature of the criminal-an atavistic being who reproduces in his person the ferocious instincts of primitive humanity and the inferior animals. (Lombroso-Ferrero, 1911)

Published in his 1876 book The Criminal Man, Lombroso distinguished his new field of criminal anthropology from the classical school of criminology. In contrast with the classical school, which argued that all people were capable of criminal behavior, Lombroso argued that criminals were distinct from noncriminals due to pathology, or abnormal physical and psychological characteristics. In contrast with the classical school, the goal of criminal anthropology was to cure (rather than punish) individuals who suffered from these pathologies.

Influenced by Darwin and the earlier proponents of “degeneracy,” Lombroso theorized that criminals suffered from a pathology known as atavism—essentially, individuals who committed crime were a less evolved and more primitive species. Lombroso argued that criminals had physical, psychological, and functional anomalies, which he referred to as stigmata, features which pointed to their more primitive and less evolved origins (figure 3.6; Lombroso-Ferrero, 1911). Lombroso referred to these individuals as born criminals and advocated for their incapacitation (and, in extreme instances, death) rather than punishment.

Figure 3.6 Picture of criminals, according to Lombroso.

In subsequent editions of Criminal Man, Lombroso revised his theory two explain that born or atavistic criminals only made up about one third of all criminals. The remainder, according to Lombroso, were similar to normal people and their criminality could be explained by a variety of factors, such as disease or environment (DeLisi, 2012; Rafter, 2006). Lombroso’s theory evolved over five editions published in Italian between 1876 and 1897 and, although it was not directly translated into English until 1911, was very influential in the U.S. and Europe. It was around this time that the term criminology entered into common usage.

Lombroso’s work has been widely criticized in textbooks on criminology. First, many of the physical characteristics that were said to distinguish “born criminals” could be explained by environment (e.g., poor nutrition) rather than heredity. Second, many of the physical characteristics Lombroso identified as physical stigmata were characteristics of racial or ethnic groups. Lombroso fed into the scientific racism that was pervasive at the time, particularly with his assertion that some racial or ethnic groups were inherently more criminal than others. Third, subsequent research refuted many aspects of Lombroso’s theory.

At the same time, Lombroso can be remembered for founding the positive school of criminology, his reliance (if lacking in rigor) on observation and analysis, and the revision of his theory in response to new data. Although less appreciated today, his work was unique in that it emphasized the importance of biological and environmental factors to explain crime.

3.6.2 Eugenic Criminology

Francis Galton, who coined the term eugenics to refer to selective human breeding, argued that “criminal nature tends to be inherited” citing Richard Dugdale’s study of the Jukes family as justification for eugenic approaches. By preventing individuals of “degenerate” stock from procreating, Galton believed that eugenics could reduce crime and other social ills in subsequent generations.

The idea of eugenics was popularized throughout American society, leading to the passage of laws permitting forced institutionalization and sterilization of the poor, particularly poor women. This practice was upheld in the U.S. Supreme Court decision Buck v. Bell (1927) (8–1) which allowed the forced sterilization of Carrie Buck, a woman with an intellectual disability, who was held in a state institution for the “feeble-minded.” Carrie Buck’s case followed the work on Deborah Kallikak by Goddard described in the opening story of the Chapter Overview, and support was easy to find. Citing the rationale for the decision, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously stated “three generations of imbeciles are enough.” Many people at the time believed the claims of Goddard, Dugdale, and others about the dangerous potential of undesirable genetics.

These ideas permeated throughout American society in the first decades of the twentieth century and were bolstered by scientists in the new field of criminal anthropology. For example, Nazi political and military leader, Hermann Göring conducted a study comparing English prisoners to members of the military. He claimed to have found few physical differences that distinguish prisoners from nonprisoners that could not be explained by environmental factors (Snipes et al., 2016). However, Earnest Hooten was an anthropologist employed by Harvard University who attempted to validate Lombroso’s theory by conducting a similarly ambitious study as Göring. In The American Criminal he subdivided his sample by racial and ethnic origin and compared criminals to noncriminals along physical dimensions. Although he opposed racial prejudice and believed that biological inferiority and criminality was present in all racial and ethnic groups, his work included illustrations based on racial stereotypes and he continued to advocate for eugenics on the grounds of preventing criminality.

In contrast with the earlier “soft hereditarians” who believed that criminality was inherited but that criminals could be reformed, Hooten was far more pessimistic about the possibility of change. His work, although received well in popular media (drawing favorable comparisons to Nazi legislation), was poorly received by academics who were increasingly turning away from biological explanations and embracing a sociological approach to criminology (Rafter, 2004).

3.6.3 Somatotyping

As the twentieth century progressed, criminal anthropology and other biological explanations fell out of favor as sociological and psychological explanations began to dominate criminology. Also, as the full horrors of World War II were revealed, hereditary explanations and particularly eugenics were cast in a new light. Despite this, a small number of scholars continued to incorporate biology into their theories and research on crime. In one of the largest studies of youth considered “delinquents” followed from adolescence to middle age, Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck (1950) gathered an array of data on their subjects regarding their biological, family, personality, school, and peer factors. One biological factor they measured was the body type of the youth. This theory, referred to as somatotyping, was popularized by William Sheldon, a junior colleague of Hooten’s at Harvard.

Like Hooten, Sheldon was a eugenicist. He also held antimodernist views and believed that the human race was devolving and in need of improvement. His somatotyping theory asserted that body type was hereditary and corresponded to differences in personality. To test his theory, he drew on a large database of three-way (front, back, side) photographs taken of thousands of nude male co-eds coded on a scale of one to seven along three dimensions:

• mesomorph body build (compact and muscular) was associated with a sociable, easy-going personality;
• endomorph body build (soft round with a lot of fat tissue) was associated with an aggressive, extroverted personality; and
• ectomorph body build (lean, delicate) was associated with an intellectual, introverted personality.

Sheldon found that delinquents were more likely to rate high on the mesomorph dimension, which could be controlled through eugenics. Thankfully, as criminology was increasingly dominated by the discipline of sociology, Sheldon’s work was poorly received (Rafter, 2007).