The Born Criminal: Cesare Lombroso’s theory on criminology.

Nazziwa, Esther Rebecca

Illinois Institute of Technology

HUM 204-01
 The Born Criminal: Cesare Lombroso’s theory on criminology.

Cesare Lombroso (1835 – 1909) was an Italian physician, therapist, writer and criminologist. He

has been described as the father of modern criminology because he was one of the first people to

apply scientific methods in the study of crime. His work became prominent during the 19th

century when he published the book: L’uomo delinquente, loosely translated: “Criminal Man,” in

which he stated that criminality was an inherited trait. He used concepts drawn from Darwin’s

theory of evolution, psychiatry, physiognomy, and the degeneration theory1, to show that a born /

atavistic criminal could easily be identified by certain anthropological characteristics. In so

doing, he failed to account for the fact that in the question of nature versus nurture, crime is

mostly a result of nurture; a mishap which bore him a significant amount of ridicule and rejection

in his time, and eventually led to the abandonment of his theories. However, although burlesqued

and overlooked in his time, Lombroso’s theories are now being revised and revived especially in

neurocriminology, to discover the link between genetics and crime. This paper aims to lay out

Lombroso’s theory, explain its shortcomings in terms of cause, and briefly show how it is

influencing criminology today.

Cesare Lombroso was born in November 1835 in Verona, Italy, to Jewish parents; Aron and

Zefira Levi Lombroso. He acquired a degree in Medicine in 1858 from the University of Pavia,

and another in Surgery in 1859 from the University of Genoa. Amidst his studies, he spent a year

at the University of Vienna during which his interests widened to include psychology, and later

psychiatry. Although not clinically trained in the latter, he was acquainted with the works of

1
Degeneration involves the weakening of higher, inhibitory brain centres allowing lower, more primitive functions
to emerge uncontrollably. It is hereditary, and presumably caused by environmental factors such as diet, climate
and toxins.
various experts on the subject, and his interest was sustained by his own study of the anatomy

and physiology of the brain.

Soon after receiving his medical degree, Lombroso became particularly concerned with cretinism

and pellagra; two diseases that had plagued Upper Italy for two centuries. Through his research,

he came to the conclusion that these diseases retarded normal growth and development of the

physical and mental faculties. More specifically, he noted that pellagra in its most severe form

often caused extreme mental changes that could result in violence. (Wolfgang, 363). After

publishing his doctoral thesis on the subject, and through 1863, he volunteered for medical

service in the Italian army. While there, he conducted extensive anthropometric research on 3000

soldiers with the purpose of analysing and documenting the ethnic diversity of Italian people by

region. (Pick, 62). He later worked with mental patients at hospitals in Pavia, Pesaro and

Reggion Emilia. (Wolfgang, 363). L’uomo delinquente was first published in 1876, and went

through five editions in Lombroso’s time. In the same year he published this major work,

Lombroso also received his first appointment to the University of Turin, where he moved on to

become a professor of psychiatry and criminal anthropology.

Lombroso’s interest in criminology sprung from his experiences in the army as well as from his

professional psychiatric studies. He describes his fascination and activity in this sequence: (i) The

differences in behaviour he observed between two soldiers vis-à-vis the extent to which they

were tattooed – though he admits that this bore no fruit. (ii) His desire to base the study of

psychiatry on experimental methods because of a dissatisfaction with the clinical procedures at

the time. He also deemed it necessary to make the patient, and not the disease, the focus of

investigation, thus he added the study of the skull which involved taking physical measurements.
(iii) The extension of these clinical methods to the study of criminals so as to differentiate

between criminals and lunatics, and finally: (iv) A direct study of criminals, and how they are

different from normal individuals and the insane. (Lombroso Ferrero, xii – xiii).

The main concept of Lombroso’s research was atavism2. His general theory suggested that

criminals are distinguished from non-criminals by the manifestation of multiple physical

anomalies which are of an atavistic or degenerative origin. In other words, he concluded that the

convicts of his day had features which had last been seen in their ancestors such as in apes and

other lower primates. With atavism as the cause, it was also implied that these criminals had a

disposition similar to that of primitive savages and therefore it was only to be expected that their

behaviour would be contrary to the rules and expectations of modern civilised society.

(Wolfgang, 369).

This idea first occurred to Lombroso while he was studying criminals in Italian prisons. During

this time, he got to know a famous bandit called Villela; a man who Lombroso describes as

having extraordinary agility and cynicism. After Villela’s death, Lombroso was appointed to do

the post-mortem examination, and on opening Villela’s skull, he noticed a distinct depression on

the interior whose placement was characteristic of inferior animals especially rodents. This

depression existed in the place of the spine in ‘normal’ skulls. Lombroso had this to say:

“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

2
An atavism is the tendency to revert to an ancestral type. It is an evolutionary throwback, such as traits
reappearing which had disappeared generations before.
 primitive humanity and the inferior animals. Thus were explained anatomically

the enormous jaws, high cheek-bones, prominent super ciliary arches,

solitary lines in the palms, extreme size of the orbits, handle-shaped or

sessile ears found in criminals, savages, and apes, insensibility to pain,

extremely acute sight, tattooing, excessive idleness, love of orgies, and

the irresistible craving for evil for its own sake, the desire not only to

extinguish life in the victim, but to mutilate the corpse, tear its flesh,

and drink its blood.” (Lombroso Ferrero, xiv – xv).

The latter are characteristics Lombroso later identified with criminals.

He was further motivated by his studies on another criminal named Verzeni who had been

convicted of sadism and rape, but who also exhibited cannibalistic instincts and a ferocity akin to

beasts of prey. The final straw however, was the case of Misdea; a young soldier of about

twenty-one, who although seemingly normal had suddenly attacked and killed eight of his fellow

soldiers and superiors over a trivial cause. Having finished, Misdea had fallen asleep and woken

up twelve hours later with no recollection of what had happened, let alone what he had done.

The unusual thing about Misdea was that he was subject to fits of epilepsy; a trait which

appeared to be hereditary in his family. This birthed an addition to Lombroso’s theory.

“It flashed across my mind that many criminal characteristics not attributable

to atavism, such as facial asymmetry, cerebral sclerosis, impulsiveness,

instantaneousness, the periodicity of criminal acts, the desire of evil for evil's

sake, were morbid characteristics common to epilepsy, mingled with others

due to atavism." (Lombroso Ferrero, xvi).

Based on his research, Lombroso concluded that there are four categories of delinquents. The

first was that of born criminals such as Villela who displayed atavistic tendencies coupled with a

lack of moral sense. (Lombroso, 365 – 366). The second was the morally insane, also known as

moral imbeciles who seemed to suffer from inhibited growth in certain organs and were prone to

superstition and other such tendencies. Most of these anomalies could not be explained by

atavism, and after further research, Lombroso attributed these anomalies to epileptic conditions.

(Lombroso, 369 – 371). The third category was that of occasional criminals who didn’t

necessarily seek to commit crimes, but were drawn into them for insignificant reasons. This

group was further subdivided into three smaller categories, namely: (i) criminaloids who

committed crime because the opportunity presented itself, and they basically lacked self-control,

such as pickpockets and even those that embezzle money. (Lombroso, 374).; (ii) pseudo-

criminals who commit crimes involuntary such as self-defence, or crime as a matter of family

honour, (Wolfgang, 372). and lastly; (iii) habitual criminals, who technically are criminaloids,

but who thanks to long periods spent in prison had barely become distinguishable from born

criminals. (Lombroso, 374). According to Lombroso, all the above categories were connected by

one thing – they all bore traces of epilepsy in varying degrees, with born criminals having the

most, and occasional criminals having the least. The fourth, and last category was that of the

criminals by passion. These people are those who’d been born ‘normal’ but who committed

crimes due to nervousness or emotional sensitiveness, and who had noble motives behind their

crimes such as love and politics. (Lombroso, 376).

It’s clear from the above categorisation and its basis that Lombroso believed there was almost

always a biological cause of criminal behaviour. In Crime: Its Causes and Remedies, Lombroso
considers other causes of crime such as the influence of alcohol, climatic factors, government

structure, the law of the land, and even the sex of the individual. However, it is important to note

that even though he included these geographical and social causes, he believed that they were

simply stimuli of an already existing predisposition to commit crime. For example, when

considering the seasons of the year during which the highest crime occurs, he says the following:

“We have here, then, an inversion like that which too great heat produces in the

case of revolutions, and this because moist heat, when excessive, acts as a depressant,

while moderate cold, on the contrary, acts as a stimulant.” (Lombroso, 12).

While it cannot be denied that crime may have biological roots, the implication of Lombroso’s

theory is that a ‘normal3’ person is incapable of committing crime with the exception of crimes

of passion. In other words, social circumstances cannot have a role to play in making a criminal

out of a ‘normal’ person though we are to accept that they can induce antisocial and aggressive

behaviours in a degenerate. This begs the question of what crime really is. The Oxford

Dictionary4 defines it as an action or omission which constitutes an offence and is punishable by

law. It further breaks it down to an action or activity considered to be evil, shameful, or wrong.

We do know that the idea of something being shameful or wrong is really relative, and is

determined by the society one is in, more specifically: the society’s value system and their level

of civilisation. With this in mind, it’s then safe to ask if crime isn’t a problem of culture and

society as opposed to being a biological condition.

3
‘Normal’ in this case describes an individual whose genes haven’t degenerated, who doesn’t display atavistic
tendencies, and is not epileptic.
4
“Definition of crime in English." English Oxford living Dictionaries, https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/crime.
The general nature of crime renders it highly unlikely that biological causes are as dominant as

Lombroso thought. Basically, crime is a matter of behaviour and conduct, and these are a result

of routine. When societies are set up and people start living together in community with intricate

relationships, their routines and habits need to be altered and modified to fit the group if they are

to live relatively in harmony. Subsequently, they set rules and have a general code of conduct,

and any deviation from this way of life is rewarded with a form of correction or coercion, some

of which are extreme such as expulsion or even death. So crime is simply a deviation of this

form. The only reason why there seems to be so little crime in savages and other lower animal

groups is because their way of life and societal organisation was/is so simple that there’s no need

to highly train anyone to fit in the group. Similarly, the only reason there’s so much crime in

highly organised civilisations like our own, is because there are so many intricacies in how we

relate that one needs to be trained at a highly intelligent level to fit in. Our current understanding

of crime, therefore, is a result of our civilisation.

So if crime is a deviation from a set way of life, the only thing that remains is to figure out how

much of these routines and habits are as a result of biological conditions. It is true that instincts

are a great determiner of our habits, and that the instincts themselves are rooted in our biological

make-up. These habits are developed during childhood and early adolescence, and if not

harnessed and inhibited can easily lead an individual into a life of crime; thinking of crime as a

deviation from societal expectations. ‘Imbeciles’ as Lombroso termed them, are simply

individuals who do not have the ability to develop beyond this period. Their natural tendencies

are only suited to a low level of social function, and so it’s only to be expected that they’ll

deviate from the expected norm. If anything, these should be the ‘born criminals.’
On the other hand, individuals of normal biological make-up may also fail to learn and

strengthen the habits that deem them fit for society if they spend their developmental years in a

low and viscous environment. While it may be true that there are always defective individuals in

any given society, it’s also true and quite obvious that no one is born fully learnt and adjusted for

civilisation, and as such, anyone could easily end up a criminal if not for the strenuous effort put

in by the home, church, school, and such institutions that encourage moral uprightness. What

Lombroso failed to acknowledge is that anyone could be a criminal, and that the tendency is just

repressed by various social elements. He failed to attribute more credit to social causes. Biology

does have a part to play, but it’s not the main factor.

Lombroso’s core theory of a criminal manifesting atavism is no longer in use. However, his

ideas on how criminology should be approached have been adopted with the result that greater

and greater emphasis is being placed on the individual as opposed to the crime committed. This

has led to some changes in the judicial system for example the ability to claim insanity, or

operating under the influence of a medical drug that can alter one’s state of mind. Before

Lombroso, this was unheard of and penalties were given simply on the basis of the crime

committed. Following from this approach, there have also been some changes in the punishments

given, for example convicted lunatics are now sent to institutions where they can be treated for

mental illness as opposed to being placed in jail with their saner counterparts. One such

institution is the Bridgewater State Hospital in Massachusetts. Lombroso’s work has also led to

the creation of new professions such as forensic psychiatry, and most recently neurocriminology.

Forensic psychiatrists work with courts to evaluate an individual's competency to stand trial,

screen defences based on mental disorders such as the insanity defence, and to make sentencing
recommendations. Neurociminology on the other hand seeks to apply techniques and principles

from neuroscience to better understand, predict, and ultimately prevent crime.

The recent research in neurocriminology has been focussed on identifying if there are any, and if

so, what specific genes indicate a risk of delinquency. Several variants have been identified that

increase this risk although none meets the 5% level of significance. What this shows however is

that the effect of a single gene is very small, but the combination of a larger number could

significantly increase the risk of aggression. (Glenn, 2–3). With such findings, perhaps

Lombroso wasn’t completely wrong in attributing crime to biological causes. It’s going to be

fascinating where this research will end up.

 Bibliography

1. Darwin: A Norton Critical Edition. 2nd ed. Edited by Philip Appleman, W.W.Norton &

Company, Inc., 1970.

2. Wolfgang, Marvin E. "Pioneers in Criminology: Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909)." The Journal

of Criminal Law, Criminology, and Police Science, vol. 52, no. 4, 1961, pp. 361–391.

3. Lombroso, Cesare. Crime: Its Causes and Remedies. Translated by Henry P. Horton

M.A., Little, Brown, and Company, 1911.

4. Lombroso Ferrero, Gina. Criminal Man, According to the Classification of Cesare

Lombroso. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1911.

5. Kurella, Hans. Cesare Lombrose, A Modern Man of Science. Translated by M. Eden Paul

M.D., Rebman Company, 1910. University of California Library. Web. 29 April 2017.

6. Ellwood, Charles A. “Lombroso's Theory of Crime.” Journal of the American Institute of

Criminal Law and Criminology, vol. 2, no. 5, 1912, pp. 716–723.

7. Pick, Daniel. "The Faces of Anarchy: Lombroso and the Politics of Criminal Science in

Post-Unification Italy. " History Workshop, no. 21, 1986, pp. 60–86.

8. Glenn, Andrea L., and Adrian Raine. "Neurocriminology: implications for the

punishment, prediction and prevention of criminal behaviour." Nature Reviews

Neuroscience 15.1 (2014), pp. 54-63.

9. Zavatta, di Laura. " Neuroscience as Revival on Lombroso’s Theories." Journal Of Law

and Criminal Justice, vol. 3, no. 1, 2015.