Biological Causes of Crime Biological causes of crime

Biological Causes of Crime

Biological causes of crime are individualistic in that they see the individual as being at fault (though not necessarily through choice) rather than society.

Cesare Lombroso In the late 19 th century, many people believed that criminals were born not made. In his book “L’uomo delinquente” (Criminal man) Cesare Lombroso argued that criminal types could be identified by their visible anatomical features. Lombroso investigated the physical characteristics of criminals in prisons – looking at the shape of the skull and forehead, jaw size, the length of arms and physical markings such as tattoos.

He concluded that criminal showed signs of “atavism” from earlier stages of human evolution. They were throwbacks who were uncivilised. However, he had an important point to make - Criminals inherited their behaviour – so they could not be held responsible for it – this has significant meaning for the criminal justice system

Importance for sociology Lombroso’s methods were unscientific and often used photos rather than study of real people They only studied people who had been caught and convicted of crimes – so there are obvious weaknesses to the methods However, his work was useful as it showed that crime could be studied scientifically – so opened up the whole new field of criminology Biological approaches do not satisfactorily address the question of why people commit crimes

William Sheldon In the mid 20 th century William Sheldon argued that men are born with one of three body types Men with athletic builds (mesomorphs) are more likely to be criminals than fat people (endomorphs) or this people (ectomorphs). He based his study on photographs of 4000 young men. The study doesn’t make much sense and holds no scientific validity, as (even if it were true that all criminals were athletic – which it is not) it doesn’t prove that the heredity was the determining influence