Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Volume 52 Article 1 Issue 4 November-December

Winter 1961 Pioneers in Criminology: Cesare Lombroso (1825-1909) Marvin E. Wolfgang

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Recommended Citation Marvin E. Wolfgang, Pioneers in Criminology: Cesare Lombroso (1825-1909), 52 J. Crim. L. Criminology & Police Sci. 361 (1961)

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Northwestern University School of Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology by an authorized editor of Northwestern University School of Law Scholarly Commons. The Journal of CRIMINAL LAW, CRIMINOLOGY, AND POLICE SCIENCE

Vol. 52 NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1961 No. 4

PIONEERS IN CRIMINOLOGY: CESARE LOMBROSO (1835-1909)

MARVIN E. WOLFGANG

The author is Associate Professor of Sociology in the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. He is the author of Patterns in Criminal Homicide, for which he received the August Vollmer Research Award last year, and is president of the Pennsylvania Prison Society. As a former Guggenheim Fellow in Italy, Dr. Wolfgang collected material for an historical analysis of crime and punishment in the Renaissance. Presently he is engaged in a basic research project entitled, "The Measurement of De- linquency." Some fifty years have passed since the death of Cesare Lombroso, and there are several important reasons why a reexamination and evaluation of Lombroso's life and contributions to criminology are now propitious. Lombroso's influence upon continental criminology, which still lays significant em- phasis upon biological influences, is marked. His work has been rather widely discredited in the United States, however, and in this article Professor Wolfgang assesses as the reason a misunder- standing of Lombroso's contributions. The author here reviews Lombroso's life, his works, the modifications of his ideas as his studies progressed, and the directions post-Lombrosian criminology has taken. Although Dr. Wolfgang is critical of the "born criminal" conceptions of Lombroso, as well as of certain aspects of Lombroso's research methods, he feels that Lombroso deserves recognition for redirecting emphasis from the crime to the criminal, for his progressive ideas concerning punishment and correction, and for stimulating new interest, controversy, and study in the field of criminology. -EDiOR.

Homo sum; nihil humani alienum a me puto.-Terence.

In the history of criminology probably no name mental problem of the scientific analysis of the has been eulogized or attacked so much as that of regularities, uniformities, and patterns of causa- Cesare Lombroso. By the time of his death in 1909 tive factors in criminal behavior, but reflect as his ideas had gained wide attention among critics well two different historical results of Lombroso's and friends engaged in the study of criminal be- writings. As we shall see, the spirit of Lombroso havior both in Europe and in America. More has is very much alive in some European contemporary been written by and about Lombroso than any research, especially in Italy, while in America other criminologist, a fact that makes doubly generally, Lombroso has been used as a straw man difficult the task of summarizing the life, work, and for attack on biological analyses of criminal be- influence of one who has been called "the father havior. It is important, therefore, that a half of modem criminology." The depth and breadth century after his death we pause to re-examine the of his investigations permit a post-lombrosian life and contributions of Cesare Lombroso and his contemporary approach to the etiology of crime position in contemporary criminology. to proceed in Europe without suffering from a THE MAN, His WORKS, A\D INFLUENCE hand, his unilateral perspective. On the other OF OTHERS' emphasis on certain biological traits of criminal On November 6, 1835, the second of five children identification has provided sufficient fuel for con- 2 tinuous attacks from many critics who no longer was born to Aron and Zefira Levi Lombroso. As take the time to read his works. The biological I The author wishes to express his gratitude to orientation in Europe and the predominant en- Professor Richard Snodgrasse of Temple University for ideas he contributed to this section; to Klaus Lithner vironmental approach in America represent not and Thomas Dow, graduate students at the University only two different perspectives on the same funda- of Pennsylvania, for their reviews of the Congresses of MARVIN E. WFOLFGANG [Vol. 52

a Jew born in Verona. then under Austrian rule, his year at the University of Vienna, and this Cesare Lombroso had the benefit both of a mother interest evolved into an abiding professional con- who was highly ambitious that her children receive cern with psychiatry that was sustained by close a good education, and of living in one of the few study of the anatomy and physiology of the brain. cities under the control of the Hapsburg Kingdom Although not clinically trained in psychiatry, he of Lombardy and Venice in which Jewish boys was acquainted with the writings of men whose were allowed to attend the Gymnasium, or public works undoubtedly loomed large in the emergence school, controlled by the Jesuits. While still at of his later writings both in medical and criminal school his interest in history was revealed in two treatises. During his student days Lombroso found serious papers written when he was but fifteen himself increasingly in disagreement with the free- years old: "Essay on the History of the Roman will philosophy then current in Italian academic Republic" and "Sketches of Ancient Agriculture circles, and correspondingly his thinking was in Italy."3 His review of the first volume of Paolo shaped in large measure by the French positivists, Marzolo's An Introduction to Historical Monu- the German materialists, and the English evolu- mnents Revealed by Analysis of Words greatly im- tionists. A.uguste Comte (1798-1853), who intro- pressed Marzolo, who was a well-known philoso- duced the teni *-sociology" but who based many pher and physician. Marzolo requested an inter- of his ideas on biology and even found reason to view with the unknown but learned reviewer and support Gall (1758-1824), had published his was amazed to find him only sixteen years of age. Positive Philosophy (1830-42) and Positive Polity (The reationship that developed between them is (1851-54) during Lcmbroso's formative years and revealed !.y the fact that much later Lombroso played no small cole in the latter's scientific orien- named his first daughter Paola Marzola.) Under tatioii. Marzolo's influence, as well as that of prior read- In 1858, the vzar he received his medical degree, ings, Lombroso was led at age eighteen to begin Lombroso bec_::c increasingly concerned with the study of medicine. He enrolled as a student at cretinism and pellagra, which for two centuries or the University of Pavia during 1852-54, at the more had been endemic in Upper Italy. In 1859 the University of Padova in 1854-55, the University results of his first research on cretinism, which of Vienna in 1855-56, and received his degree in constituted his doctoral thesis, were published medicine from the University of Pavia in 1858 and In that same year he volunteered for medical his degree in surgery from the University of Genoa service in the army and through 1863 served in in 1g59. various posts, including an interesting period in As an ardent student at the University of Pavia Calabria, as an army physician. During peacetime 4 he was greatly influenced by Bartolomeo Paniiza, L. began systematic measurement and observa- a widely known teratologist and comparative tion of 3000 soldiers, seeking to analyze and to anatomist. At Vienna, Lombroso came under the express metrically the physical differences which sway of the eminent specialist in internal medicine, he had noted among the inhabitants of the various Skoda (1805-81), and the writings of the great regions of Italy. From this experience were derived pathologist, Rokitanski 5 (1804-78). Lombroso's his observations on tattooing, particularly the more early interest in psychology also occurred during obscene designs which he felt distinguished infrac- Criminal Anthropology and some of Lombroso's tious soldiers. This practice of tattooing he subse- considerations of social factors in crime causation; and quently identified as characteristic of criminals.. to Professor Thorsten Sellin for use of his excellent While being quartered during peacetime in library on Lombroso. 2 There is a difference of opinion about the date of Pavia, he had ample opportunity to pursue his his birth. See Mannheim. Lombroso and His Place in interest in clinical psychiatry. He received permis- Modern Criminology, 28 SOCIOLOGICAL REv. 31 (1936). The present author agrees with Mannheim that Nov. 6, sion to study clinically the mental patients in the 1835, is correct. hospital of S. Euphemia. In 1862 he presented a 3 These works of Lombroso were published a little later, however: Saggio sila Storia della Repubblica series of lectures in psychiatry and anthropology romana, estratto di pag. 57, COLLETrnOR DELL 'ADIGE (Verona: Antonelli 1852); and Schizzi di irn e,tadro , Godwin has probably gone too far in saying that storico dell 'antica agricolturain Ila!-- , Id. (1853). Comte was Lombroso's "scientific godfather." GODWIN, 4 Emphasized in KURELLA, CESARE LOMBROSO, A CRMNAL MAN 6 (1957). MODERN MAN OF SCIENCE 7 (Paul transl. 1910). 7 Lombroso, Ricerche sul cretinismo in Lombardia, Rokitanski was best known for his PAnToLoGI- GAZZETTA MEDICA ITALIANA LOMBARDA, N. 31 (Milano SCHEN ANATOMIE (Wien 1855). 1859). 1961' CES.IRE LO.OIBROSO in that institution. Ills "-Introduction to the Clini- the Corpse" (1877). his contributions to the meth- cal Cour.e ,:: .Menial Diseases'" was published ods of identif'ing the dead body should warrant in 1863 and was the first paper he wrote about his being ranked among the innovators of scientific t pellagra. genius, and crime examine(] in relation- methods in pathology and police work. The year ship to insanity. The next year saw the publication 1880 was a significant one, for it was then that with 5 of another lecture entitled -'Genius and Insanity,' the assistance of Ferri and Garofalo lie founded the the germ for which had appeared in his essay .On Arehisio di Psichhitria c Antropologia criminal. the Insanity if Cardano. '-'" written as early as Lonbroso's interest in criminology stenned 1955. during his student days. This lecture was from his work on cretinism and pellagra as well also the forerunner of his L'[omo di genio, tle as from his professional psychiatric studies. During sixth edition of which appeared in 1894, and of its the years before his appointment as professor of sequel. Genio r degenrazidne, which was issued medicine at the University of Turin, liehad been 6 in 1897. writing serious studies on pellagra" that were later At one time or another during the years from to affect his income and relationship with the 1863 to 1872, Lombroso was in charge of the landed aristocracy in northern Italy. insane at hospitals in Pavia, Pesaro, and Reggio The deficiency diseases of cretinism and pellagra, Emilia. In 1876 he received his first appointment he felt, more or less retarded or inhibited normal in legal meclicine and public hygiene at the Uni- growth and development of the physical and l versity of Turin, where he later was made professor mental faculties.' Moreover, pellagra ("Lombardy of psychiatry and clinical psychiatry (1896) and of erysipelas") in its most severe form often produces, criminal anthropology t1906). the last of which he noted, profound mental changes which may occurred durihig the same year that he received result in violence such as homicide. His early the rank of Commandeur de la Lfgion d' Honneur attention to brain pathology is shown in "Some by the French government, and in which he Cases of Lesions of the Central Nervous System" founded the Museum of Criminal Anthropology. (1861); "Memoir on a Tumor of the Cerebellum" Together with Mantegazza, his colleague and (1863); "Supernumerary Cerebral Convolutions experimental pathologist. Lombroso was instru- in a Murderer and Satyrist" (1871); and "Exist- friental in establishing in Italy the meaning of ence of a Median Fossette in the Cranium of a anthropology in the modem sense." That is, as Criminal" (1871). The psychiatric aspect of his opposed to the Kantian emphasis on descriptive concern with criminology obviously antedates his psychology, Lombroso insisted on the use of the paper entitled "On the Criminally Insane in Italy experimental method in legal medicine, expressing in '6&, '69, and '70" (1871). These last two papers, these views strongly in 1865 in a paper 2 that has together with the "Anthropometry of 400 Venetian been considered an important contribution to Criminals" (1872) and "Emotions and Passions forensic medicine." Similarly. in Legal Medicine of of Criminals" (1874), are claimed 8 to have been

a Lombroso, Prdezione al Corsw di Clinica di malallie 14 LoMBRoso, SULLA MEDICL\A LEGALE DEL CADAVERE inentali, GASSETTA MEDICA IT.ALIANA LOMBARDA (Torino 1877). ' Cf. CASTIGLIONI, op cit. supra note 13. (Milano 1863). 6 .9 LOtBRoso, GENIo E FOLLUA, PRELEZIOXE AL 1 E.g., LOMBROSO, STUDI CLINICt SPERIUIENtALI CORSO DI CLINICA-I'SYCII.ATRICA (Milano 1864). SULLE CAUSE E TERAPIA DELLA PELLAGRA (Bologna 10 Lombrosa. Sulla pazzia di Cardano. GAZZETTA 1869); LoiwRosot STUDI CLINICI STULLA NATtRA, MEDICA ITALIANA LOMBARDA .Milano 1835). Girolamo CAUSE E TERAPIA DELLA l'ELLAGRA (Milauo 1870). Cardanus (1501-1575) was a physician and natural ItC[. H.ARRs. IPELL.GRA (1919); SPILLAN'E, NUTRI- philosopher. TION.AL DISORDERS OF THE XERVOUS SYSTEM (1947); " Physical anthropology. it should be noted, is Spies, The Control of Pellagra, 22 R.I. MED. J. (1949); synonymous with anthropiometry and is an integral Spies, Aring, Gelperin & Bean, The Mental Symptoms of part of biometrics, for its data generally are to be Pellagra, Their Relief with Nicotine Acid, 196 At. J. understood only through the use of statistics. MEND. Sci. 461. It.OUBROSO, LA MEDICINA LEGALE NELLE ALIENA- "s These two works were papers that appeared in the ZIONI ENTALI STtDI.ATA. COL 31ETODO ESPERIMENTALE Proceedings of the Royal Lombardian Institute of (Padova 1865); also, Loinbroso. La mndecine ligale des Science and Letters: Antroponetria di 40) delinquenti alienations nzenlales tudie'e par la nithode experiuen- veneti V RENDICONTt DEL ISTITVTO LOMBARDO Fase. lale. Report to the Soci6t6 (ic Marseille in BULLETIN xii (1872); and Affetli e passioni dei delinquenti, read at DEs TRAVAUX DE LA SOCn f2T I.P.RIALE DE NIDICINE the Istituto Lombardo. 1874. Relative to the claim that DE MARSEILLE (1865). these two papers constituted the nucleus of L'UbMo "See C.ASTIGLIONt, A ltr5T',RY OF MIEDICINE (2d ed. DELINQUENTE, see; I.OttBROSO-IERRRO, CESARE 1947,. LOMBROSO. STORIA DELLA- VIT% 1: DELLE OPERE [here- MARVINT E. WOLFGANG [Vol. 52

the nucleus for his most important book L'Uomo answering much of his correspondence and litera- delinquente, first published in 1876. This major ture in the growing field of criminal anthropology, work, which we shall later discuss in more detail, translating and unofficially editing his writing went through five editions in Italy, and transla- and the Archivio di Psichiatria. Many visitors tions were published in various European lan- from Italy and abroad came to talk, listen, and guages, although never into English. The second learn from him as he sat surrounded by the music edition (1878) established his reputation beyond of Beethoven and Wagner, drawings, sketches, Italy. An ideologically expanded version, Le Crime: sculpture, prison items, skulls of ancient Peruvians caitses et rem des, appeared'in 1899 and gave more and of modern criminals, his many books, and, attention to socioeconomic factors in crime causa- perhaps, the model of the famous penitentiary at tion than had his earlier work. Philadelphia, which he kept in his museum.22 In a posthumous publication, 19 Lombroso indi- Although he was selected as municipal councilor cated the sequence of his interest and activity in by one of the working-class quarters of Turin and criminology as: (1)the background behavior of sat in that capacity for several years, Lombroso the tattooed soldiers whom he observed while a was never a regular party worker. le ardently physician in the Italian army; (2) the application believed in the democratic processes, although he of physical measurements in his studies of the thought that parliamentary procedures offered mentally alienated because of his dissatisfaction elected representatives too many opportunities to with current psychiatric procedures, plus his own escape responsibility and become "occasional recent conclusion that the patient, and not the criminals."M He favored the socialists' efforts at disease, should be the focus of investigation; (3) social reform and was no doubt influenced by the extension of these physical and physiological Loria's affinity to Marxian political philosophy. techniques to the study of criminals---i.e., to the But he was opposed to revolution and class war, differentiation of criminals from lunatics; and (4) even excessive control by the common man over the direct analytical study of the criminal com- the upper classes. The common people, he thought, pared with normal individuals and the insane. should have "only so much power as may be neces- Lombroso's personal and domestic life was sary to wring from the upper classes the conces- apparently tranquil. In 1869 when he was 34 years sions needful for the good of the commonality."2' old he married a young 22 year-old Jewish girl During his younger years he was much concerned from Alexandria who later presented him with with agrarian problems, because of his study of two daughters, Paola and Gina. We are told that pellagra and his finding that the disease was caused both because of their bringing into their father's (so he contended) by the poor quality of maize; he orbit of relationships important socially conscious therefore was a passionate opponent of the tradi- women, and because of their marriages to profes- tional tariff policy of Italy, the high land taxes, sionally related men (Gina to G. Ferrero and Paola, and town dues that offered nothing in return to the to M. Carrara), they "brought fresh worlds of tenant farmers or agricultural laborers. His in- 20 ideas into contact with that of their father. It vestigations into the causes of pellagra led him to was with Gina's husband that Lombroso spent speak frankly and openly about economic interests many long hours in his laboratory examining the that produced a maldistribution of quality maize. skulls of criminals and with whom he wrote The As a consequence, the powerful agrarian interests Female Offender 2 During Lombroso's later life of Lombardy and Venice boycotted his consulting and their maturity, his daughters performed many practice among the upper middle classes that pre- tasks for him in his Turin home--reading and viously had brought him a sizeable income. His theory regarding the cause of pellagra, like that of inafter called CESARE LOMBROso] 456-57 (2d ed., Bologna 1921); KURELA, op. cit. supra note 4, at 18. his delinquente-nato, is no longer accepted, but 19Lombroso, Introduction to LOMBROSO-FERRERO, the peasant classes of Italy gained his support and CRIMINAL MAN ACCORDING TO THE CLASSIFICATION OF sympathy, and his descriptions of the symptoms CESARE LOMBROSO [hereinafter cited as CRIMINAL 2 MAN] (N.Y. 1911). 2 LOMBROso-FERRERO, CESARE LOMBROSO, Op. Cit. 20 KURELLA, op. cit. supra note 4, at 81. supra2 note 18, passin. 21 LoMBRoso, LA DONNA DELINQUENTE, LA PI-)STI- 1LouMRoso, IL DELITTO POLITICO E LE RIVOLUZIONI TUTA E LA DONNA NORMALE (in collaboration with G. 531 (in collaboration with Laschi) (Torino 1890); Ferrero) (Torino 1893). Ferrero is also known for his cited24 by KURELLA, op. cit. supra note 4, at 125-26. HISTORY OF TIE ROMAN EMPIRE. Cited by KZRELLA. op. cit. supra note 4, at 126 n. CESA RE LOMBROSO

(f1pellagra were added to the annals of medical stimulation of Lombroso. he also became the literature. catalyst who synthesized the latter's concepts with Among the cultural factors that contributed to those of the sociologist and had no little influence the making of the scholar must be mentioned the on Lombroso's thinking."2-, collection of official vital statistics and numerous Lombroso's last work, published the year of his inquiries and parliamentary investigations that death, is a reflection of the interests he pursued occurred in Italy during the last three decades of during his last years of life.2- We need not dwell the nineteenth century. Agrarian investigations here on his excursions into the world of Eusapia made possible his researches into the causes of Paladino, the medium who had a strong influence pellagra; his anthropometrical researches while an on him during this period, and who helped him to army surgeon in Calabria in 1862 were partially "see" and to "hear" the voice of his mother during dependent upon the available recruiting statistics one of the more successful s~ances.2 9 Ferri, Kurella, that made possible a determination of the ethnic and other friends of Lombroso experienced some composition of the Italian people; and as he ex- of these sessions with him, and it must have been panded his horizon of investigation, he could make disheartening for them to see the great seeker of use of good statistics elsewhere, such as those in facts being emotionally seduced. 0 Again we must France that had been instigated in the 1830's by M. remember the times and recall that the period from de Guerry de Champneuf.2 5 Without these nine- about 1885 to the end of the nineteenth century teenth century innovations Lombroso's writings was a happy one for mediums and the time for would have lacked many of the abundant facts of extensive hypnotic experiments. He had opposed which he was so proud. The same may be said spiritualism previously, but after his first sittings regarding the opportunities he had as. prison with Eusapia Paladino, he wrote in a letter to his physician at Turin to examine clinically thousands friend, Dr. Ciolfi: "I am ashamed and sorrowful of prisoners, for Lombroso was fortunate that the that with so much obstinacy I have contested head of the Italian prison administration was an the possibility of the so-called spiritualistic facts. interested scholar and a diligent historian. Beltrani- I say the facts, for I am inclined to reject the Scaliae put at Lombroso's disposal the entire spiritualistic theory; but the facts exist, and as body of official criminal and penal material and regards facts I glory in saying that I am their opened all Italian prisons to him and his pupils. slave."'" His friends tried to dissuade him from The younger men who surrounded the maestro this interest, "but all this talk did not make me after his growing reputation from the publication hesitate for a single moment. I thought it my of L'Uomo delinquente were not only influenced by predestined end and way andmy duty to crown him but also had an influence on him. The most my life passed in the struggle for great ideas by prominent of these was Enrico Ferri (1856-1929). entering the lists for this desperate cause.... "1 When only 24, Ferri went to Turin in 1880 to study Lombroso was eulogized by his daughters and with Lombroso, to gather the facts that he felt disciples, by students and scholars throughout the should precede the theories. This was the year continent and in America, at the Congresses of that Lombroso started to edit his periodical, the Criminal Anthropology, and in -the subsequent Archivio di Psichiatria, and Ferri contributed to t e first volume. It was Ferri who coined the term 27 Sellin, Pioneers in Criminology-Enrico Ferri (1856-1929),28 48 J. CRiMs. L., C. & P. S.486 (1958). "born criminal" to refer to the atavistic type which LOMBROso, RICERCHE St1 FENOMENI IPNOTICI F Lombroso believed he had identified. "Between sPIRITIcI (Torino 1910). The English version of his Ferri and the twenty years older Lombroso," says studies in spiritualism is entitled. AJ7ER DEATH- WHAT? (Kennedy transl. 1909). Sellin, "there began a deep and lasting friendship 29 Id. at 68-69. marked by mutual respect and profit to both, for 30Kurella was certainly not taken by the work of the while Ferri medium Eusapia Paladino, for he tells us that one of owed much of his system of ideas to the the seances he attended with Lombroso "was indeed, a 'miracle'-i.e., a miracle of adroitness, false bonhomie, 21See Elmer, Century-Old Ecological Studies in well-simulated candour, nalvet6. and artistic command France, 39 Am. J.Soc. 63 (1933). 26 of all the symptoms of hystero-epilepsy." KURELLA, One of the best monographs on the history of op. cit. supra note 4, at 169. Italian prisons was written by this capable prison 31Id. at 175. 3 inspector: BELTRANI-ScALIA, SUL GOVERN-O E SULLA -'LOMxBRoso, AFTER DEATH-WAT? at v. (Ken- RIFORMA DELLE CARCERT Ix ITALI. (Torino 1867). nedy transl. 1909). MARVIN E. WOLFGANG [Vol. 52 writings of members of the Italian School he had bn him as to the men and ideas that preceded started. He was also widely and bitterly attacked, him, in "I precursori dell'Antropologia criminale" however, as we shall later note; but as late as May, (1898).3 Also quite useful are Morselli's article on 1908, Professor John Wigmore, first president of "Cesare Lombroso e l'antropologia generale," 39 the American Institute of Criminal Law and Marro's chapter entitled, "Precursori e primordi Criminology, visited Lombroso and offered him dell'antropologia criminale," 40 the work of De 44 the nomination as Harris Lecturer at Northwestern Quir6s,4' Sellin,42 Vold,4 and others. University for the year 1909-10. Lombroso was Lombroso knew the works of Esquirol (1772- interested but could not make the trip because of 1840), the outstanding French psychiatrist whose his advanced age.33 A few months later, during the Traite de Afaladies Mentales first appeared in 1838, early morning of October 19, 1909, the life of the and who attempted to distinguish between mental "father of the Italian School" silently passed defect and mental disease in his elaboration of away, "calma come un flume che alla sua foce si Pinel's (1745-1826) manie sans ddlire. Lombroso perde nel mare."3 also knew the works of prominent psychiatrists It is of course impossible to recount all the trained by Esquirol. He was acquainted, inter writers who antedated Lombroso who were pre- alia, with the writings of Griesinger (1817-68), who cursors of many of his ideas, or who directly or influenced German psychiatry toward anatomico- indirectly influenced his own intuitive insights and pathological hypotheses, and the Florentine investigations. In I Precursori di Lombroso, An- Chiarugi (1759-1820), a leader in the advocacy of tinori35 performs an admirable service in reviewing more humane treatment of the insane. The two the growing body of knowledge that provided a latter writers regarded mental illness as essentially cultural base from Aristotle to Della Porta (1536- the result of disease or injury of the brain, thus 1615), and Lavater (1741-1801) to Morel (1809- amplifying Morgagrfi's concept in 1760 that in- 45 1873), upon which Lombroso could build his own sanity is an organic disturbance. ideas. Havelock Ellis, in The Criminal, 6 gives a B. A. Morel (1809-1873), the French alienist, brief history of the precursors of Lombroso, and was an important influence on Lombroso. Morel in the second chapter, Ellis mentions no less than published a theory of degeneracy in his voluminous twenty-two scholars in Europe who had anticipated Treatise an Degeneracy in 1857, in which he tried Lombroso in pointing out the relationship between to explain the social phenomena of degeneracy and the criminal's physical and mental characteristics to classify them empirically by type. Degeneracy, and his behavior. Despite his prevailing theoretical he found, was expressed in epilepsy, insanity, opposition to Lombroso, W. A. Bonger's An Intro- mental deficiency, crime, and similar conditions. duction to Criminology"' is also a good source for a He assumed degeneracy to be a pathological phe- review of Lombroso's predecessors, both known nomenon caused by the interaction of hereditary and unknown to Lombroso at the time of his early and environmental factors manifested in both criminological investigations. Lombroso himself physical and mental deviations from the normal. gives passing attention, not so much to influences Morel dearly pronounced that a variety of patho- logical human types exists in his small monograph 31Parmelee, Introduction to LOMBROSO, CRIME: ITS On the Formation of Types, published in 1864 and CAUSES AND REMEDIES, at xiii (Boston 1912) [herein- containing many of the ideas later developed by the after cited as CRIME: ITS CAUSES AND REMEDIES]. 4 3 LOMBROSO-FERRERO, CESARE LOMBROSO, Op. cit. criminal anthropologists. It was Morel who sug- surpra note 18, at 425. A victim of cardiac complica- gested that the new science of human pathology tions, he lost consciousness around 2 a.m. and died at 5 a.m. on October 19, 1909. According to his will, his 3 1 precursori dell 'Antropologia crinzinale, ARcsnvo body was taken to the laboratory of legal medicine, and DI PSICHIATRIA (1898). an autopsy was performed (by Professor Tovo instead 39 E. Morselli, Cesare Lombroso e l'antropologia of Lombroso's son-in-law, -M.Carrara). His brain was generate, L'OPERA DI CESARE LouERoso NELLA ScIENZA placed in the Institute of Anatomy. E NELLE SUE APPLICAZIONI 1-31 (Torino 1908). 35 ANTINORT, I PRECURSORI DI LOMBROSO (Torino 40A. Marro, Precursori e primordi dell'antropologia criminale, id. at 175-92. 1900). 41 36 ELLIS, THE CRIMINAL (4th ed. 1913). This book DE QUIR6s, MODERN THEORIES OF CRIMINALITY, had a wide sale both abroad and in America, and makes 1-79 (De Salvio transl. 1911). clear the fact that Lombroso,.inspired by the evol tion- 42 Sellin, En historik aterblick, ACGE, KRIMINOLOGI ary theories of Darwin, was only following out lines of ch. I (Stockholm 1955). by European scholars. 43 VOLD, THEORETICAL CRIMINOLOGY (1958). thought3 long before suggested 7 BONGER, AN INTRODUCTION TO CRIMINOLOGY (Van 11Infra under subsequent section. Loo trans]., London 1936). 45 See CASTIGLIONI, op. cit. supra note 13. CES.4RE LO.]BROSO be called "morbid anthropology." There is no animals, of organic regression, and of the fact that doubt, says Sellin, that .Morel's ideas had great the individual may revert on the moral level to influence on the thinking of Lombroso. Such belief standards of lower animals, or at least to the stage is confirmed by Lombroso's reference4 to Morel of man's prehistory. Virchow's reference to thero- that some anatomical anomalies of the criminal morphism, a term he used to denote the presence are indicative of degeneration. in man of certain bodily peculiarities of one of the Among the currents of thought that contributed lower animals, played a significant role in Lom- to the thinking and writing of Lombroso which broso's belief that he had discovered such a condi- must be mentioned, in addition to Comte's posi- tion in the skulls 'of certain criminals. Lombroso tivism and biological, basis for his sociology. is also adhered to, and made use of, the "funda- Darwin's epochal Origin of Species (1859), pub- mental biogenetic law," the law of recapitulation, lished at the beginning of Lombroso's professional which was formulated by Haeckel (1834-1919) ten career. The Descent of Jfan appeared in 1871, and years before the appearance of Lombroso's L'Umno the Erpression of Emnotion in Man and Animals ddinqucnte. Haeckel maintained that ontogeny in 1872. The Dcsccnt contains, besides Darwin's recapitulates phylogeny, and -this idea was in- observations, information from medicine, philol- corporated by Lombroso into his parallelism be- ogy, sociology, and anthropology. The Expression tween the criminal and the child. extends the comparisons of the Descent further It was Paul Broca (1824-1880), the French into the emotional and mental life of animals and neurologist and pathologist, who defined anthro- man. Together with publications which criticized pology as the "natural history of man" as eluci- or expounded the hypotheses of these two books, dated by the "zoological method," and who Darwin's theories exerted a deep and far-reaching founded the.Socigtd d'anthropologiede Parisin 1859 influence on the writings of Lombroso7!Meantime, and the- Revue d'anthropologie (1872). He had T. H. Huxley was basing his inferences on exten- earlier gained fame with his announcement that sive comparative studies of embryology, the skele- he had discovered and localized the center for tal system, the brain, other viscera, and general articulate speech in that region of the brain since bodily structure; he concluded in Man-'s Place in known as "Broca's speeclh area." Moreover, Broca Nature (1863): "Thus, whatever system of organs had originated methods of classifying hair and skin he studied, the comparison of their modifications color, and of establishing the ratio of brain to in the ape series leads to one and the same result- skull--information that was later to be of use to that the structural differences which separate Man Lombroso. from the Gorilla and the Chimpanzee are not so It is difficult to determine the degree to which great as those which separate the Gorilla from the predecessors of Lombroso affected his thinking lower apes ...." Slightly earlier, Schaafflhausen regarding the physiognomic, physiologic, or psy- (1858) inferred, after studying the newly-dis- chologic aspects of the criminal. In his investiga- covered skeleton of Neanderthal Man, that its tions as prison physician at Turin, Lombroso morphologic peculiarities indicated it belonged to minutely examined as many as two hundred pris- a "barbarous and savage race" and represented oners a year and subjected many more to ordinary the earliest inhabitants of Europe. Virchow, the clinical observation. It was in the course o.fthese renowned German pathologist who displaced invstigalions, we are told.43 that Lombroso first Rokitanski, considered the specimen to be that of became acquainted with the work of his predeces- an idiot and the result of a pathologic process. sors. Although he should not be denied credit for There is no doubt that Rudof- Virchow (1821- his originality and insight, there can be little 1902Y had an important influence on Lonibroso. argument that the intellectual- stage was estab- Virchow, who coined the aphorism, "every cell lished for his probing inquiries into criminal be- from a cell," published his cellular Pathology in havior. F. G. Gall (1758-1828)-, under joint author- 1856 and analyzed disease and diseased tissues ship with G. Spurzheim (1776-1832), had written from the viewpoint of cell formation and cell struc- .. natoie ei physiologic du ssytnc ner,'ux en ture. He spoke of the evolution of man from lower - general eldit cerv'eau en. particulfer (1810-1820.), and 46E.g., LOMBROso, L'Houmm CRIMINEL 542 (Paris Spurzheim had authored Phrenology in Connection 1887) [Hereinafter cited as L'Homxm CRImn-EL]. This With the Study of Physiognomy (1826). According DEUNQrE.-'TE. is the French edition of L'Como 4 r, Kt'REzxA, op. cii. supra note 4. at 116. sId. at 13. MARVIN E. WOLFGANG [Vol. 52

to the theory of phrenology (craniology), each It should be noted that Lombroso seems not to function has its organic seat in the brain, and the have been acquainted with-or at least not di- external signs of these mental functions are ob- rectly affected by-the writings of the Philadelphia servable on the skull, as, for instance, the "bump" physician, Benjamin Rush (1745-1813), which of theft, that of alcoholism, etc. It should be noted, include an essay on "The Influence of Physical however, that Lombroso, along with other critics Causes upon the Moral Faculty" (1786) and his of phrenology, had correctly evaluated Gall's ideas significant Diseases of the Mind (1812). In the as early as 1853, when he was only eighteen years essay Rush suggested that the total absence of a of age, and had written a brief work on the rela- moral sense be called anomia, and then proceeded tionship between sexual and cerebral develop- to discuss the effect of climate, diet, alcoholic ment.9 drinks, hunger, diseases, etc., on the moral faculty. Although his early investigations may have Moreover, although Lombroso made some use of been performed without the benefit of knowledge the work of Guerry (1802-66) and Quetelet (1796- of all his predecessors, Lombroso could hardly 1874), there is no trace of a line of historical help becoming aware of important works like continuity between the "cartographic" or "geo- those of H. Lauvergne (1797-1859), who worked graphic" method of analysis that Guerry intro- at the prison of Toulon and wrote Les forqats duced in his Essai sur la statistique morale de la considgrs sous le rapport physiologique, moral et France (1833) and the writings of Lombroso. Nor intellectuel (1841); J. C. Prichard (1786-1846), can we find evidence of any real effect that Quete- the English anthropologist who elaborated on the let's "social physics," in his Essai de physique meaning of "moral insanity" and authored A sociale (1835), may have had upon Lombroso, Treatise on Insanity (1835); P. Lucas (1805-85), although he does make three minor references to 51 who, in his Traitg philosophique et physiologique de Quetelet in Crime: Its Causes and Remedies. l'herddit6 naturelle (1847), contended that some In summary, then, we may say that Lombroso kind of criminal tendency is present from the was primarily influenced by a German materialism moment of birth, and that this tendency is heredi- that increasingly sought objective fact in opposi- tary; E. Dally (1833-87), who pointed out, in tion to the "natural philosophy" that had charac- Considerationssur les criminels an point de vue de terized the two preceding generations; by a Com- la responsabilite (1863), that crime and insanity tian positivism that demanded positive facts in are two forms of organic and mental decay; G. abundance (regardless of the extent of their imme- Wilson, the Englishman to whose paper "The diate relatedness to one another) and that sav Moral Imbecility of Habitual Criminals as Ex- the importance of biological factors underlying emplified by Cranial Measurements" (1869) Lom- social phenomena; and by a Darwinian biological broso gives much credit; J. Bruce Thomson (1810- evolutionary theory that was eloquently extended 73), the Scotish alienist, who summarized his into social evolution by Spencer. Within the intel- observations on over 5000 prisoners in "On the lectual climate established by these movements, Hereditary Nature of Crime" (1870), published in Lombroso studied, practiced, investigated, and the Journalof Mental Science; H. Maudsley (1835- taught. He fell heir to the growing body of medical, 1918), widely known for his Crime and Insanity clinical, psychiatric literature that dealt directly (1872), and Responsibility in Mental Disease and peripherally with the criminal. From this. (1874); P. Despine (1812-1892), often referred to knowledge he gained a perspective and theoretical as the founder of criminal psychology and whose orientation; to this knowledge he added new, excit- chief work, Psychologie naturelle (1868), refers to ing, and controversial dimensions. moral anomalies that stem from an organic cause; Herbert Spencer (1820-1904), whose First Princi- ATAVISM AND THE CLASSIFICATION O CRIMINALS ples appeared in 1862, and who was largely re- The ideas, investigations, and detailed volumi- sponsible for development of evolutionary theory nous analyses of Lombroso have been reviewed in social thought; and many others that space 0 predecessors and contemporaries who expressed similar prevents our listing here. or related ideas have been gleaned from works pre- viously mentioned, such as: LOMBROso-FERRERO, 11Lombroso, Di un fenomeno fisiologico connote ad CESAiE LoMBROSO, op. cit. supra note 18; ELLIS, op. alcuni neurotfiere ed imenotteri, COLL=xTOR DELL cit. supra note 36; BONGER, op. cit. supra note 37; DE 'ADIGE (Verona 1853); cited by KvLRELLA, Op. cit. supra QuIR6s, op. cit. supra note 41; ANTIXORI, op. cit. supra note 4, at 17. note 35. 50 Most of these cursory references to Lombroso's 51 See LOMBROSO, CRIME: ITS CAUSES AND REMEDIES CESARE LO.IBROSO so oiten in criminological literature that it is both earlier: "The first idea came to me in 1864, when, unnecessary and impossible to present all of this as an army doctor, I beguiled my ample leisure material here in abridged form. We shall discuss with a series of studies on the Italian soldier. From only highlights of his ideas regarding the criminal the very beginning I was struck by a characteristic and shall refer to sources for further details. Our that distinguished the honest soldier from his task is not to point out the abundant fallacies of vicious comrade: the extent to which the latter his reasoning, but to review his theories and argu- was tattooed and the indecency of the designs that ments. covered his body."D1 His general theory suggested that criminals are Dissatisfied with abstract judicial methods of distinguished from non-criminals by the manifesta- studying crime, and desirous of applying the experi- tion of multiple physical anomalies which are of mental method to a study of differences between atavistic or degenerative origin. The concept of lunatics, criminals and normal individuals, Lom- atavism (from Latin: alavus, ancestor, great- broso began examining criminals in Italian prisons. great-grandfather's father; arus, grandfather) He became acquainted with the famous brigand, postulated a reversion to a primitive or subhuman Vilella, and found him to be a man of extraordinary type of man, characterized physically by a variety agility, cynicism, and exceptional braggadocio. On of inferior morphological features reminiscent of the death of this brigand, Lombroso was appointed apes and lower primates, occurring in the more to make the postmortem examination, and on simian fossil men, and to some extent preserved opening the skull he found on the interior of the in modem "savages." It is additionally implied lower back part a distinct depression which he that atavistic individuals have the mentality of named the median occipital fossa, a characteristic primitive men, that they are biological "throw- found in inferior animals, and a depression corre- backs" to an earlier stage of evolution, and that lated with an overdevelopment of the vermis, the behavior of these "throwbacks" will inevitably known in birds as the middle cerebellum. In review- be contrary to the rules and expectations of modern ing this and similar moments in his life he says:5t civilized society. Lombroso later added to this "This was not merely an idea, but a revela- conceptualism the theory of degeneration, which tion. At the sight of that skull, I seemed to see included a pathological condition in the criminal. all of a sudden, lighted up as a vast plain under of diseased ancestral The degenerate was a product a flaming sky, the problem of the nature of the elements which ceased to evolve progressively and criminal-an atavistic being who reproduces in gave evidence of the process of devolution, so that his person the ferocious instincts of primitive pathological individuals manifested rudimentary the inferior animals. Thus were physical and mental attribdtes of primitive man. humanity and We have previously seen how the general intel- explained anatomically the enormous jaws, high lectual climate of Europe and the accumulated cheek-bones, prominent superciliary arches, sol- body of knowledge from physiology, biology, out- itary lines in the palms, extreme size of the dated physiognomy and phrenology, and even orbits, handle-shaped or sessile ears found in psychiatry converged in the training and experi- criminals, savages, and apes, insensibility to ence of Lombroso to give birth to his emerging pain, extremely acute sight, tattooing, excessive insights regarding the nature and causes of criminal idleness, love of orgies, and the irresistible crav- behavior. The idea of atavism, of a reversion to an ing for evil for its own sake, the desire not only earlier phylogenetic level of development was ex- -1 Lombroso, Introduction, op. cit. supra note 19, at pressed by Darwin when he said: "With mankind xii. i'Id.at xiv-xvi. some of the worst dispositions which occasionally The description of this same episode without any assignable cause make their appear- was made by Lombroso in his opening speech at the ance in families, may perhaps be reversions to a Sixth Congress of Criminal Anthropology at Turin in April, 1906. In this speech the month is changed from savage state, from which we are not removed by November to December for the time when he examined very many generations. This view seems indeed Vilella,'and the declaration of his having resolved the rccognized in the common expression that such problem of the origin of the criminal is more pro- - nounced: "At the sight of these strange anomalies I men are the black sheep of the family."5 But saw, as on a large plain under a red horizon, the solution specifically, the notion occurred to Lombroso of the problem of the nature and of the origin of the delinquent; the characteristics of the primitive man and 179. 182, 185 (Horton transl. 1912). [Hereinafter cited of the animals reproduced in our day." Opening Address, as CRUxE:2 ITs CAUSsS AND REtDIES.] COMPTES RENDUS DU VP' CONGRES INTERNATIONAL 5 DARWIN, DESCENT OF MAN 137 (2d ed. 1881). D'ANTHROPOLOGIE CRIMIXELLE, at xxxii-xxxvi (Turin). MARVIN E. WOLFGANG [Vol. 52

to extinguish life in the victim, but to mutilate umes totaled 1,903 pages. To these was added Le the corpse, tear its flesh, and drink its blood. crime: causes et remdes (527 pages) in 1899. More "I was further encouraged in this bold hv- than the addition of thousands of new measure- pothesis by the results of my studies on Verzeni, ments appeared in the last edition, for, as would a criminal convicted of sadism and rape, who be expected, changes occurred in his thinking to showed the cannibalistic instincts of primitive modify his original pronouncements of the atavistic anthropophagists and the ferocity of beasts of criminal type. These modifications principally took prey. the form of increasing emphasis upon the element "The various parts of the extremely complex of degeneration and the commonality among the problem of criminality were, however, not all criminal, the insane, and the epileptic. He came solved hereby. The final key was given by an- to designate the epileptic criminal, the insane other case, that of Misdea, a young soldier of criminal, and the born criminal as separate types, about twenty-one, unintelligent but not vicious. all stemming from an epileptoid base. Critics and Although subject to epileptic fits, he had served friends alike, particularly Ferri, were later to sug- for some years in the army when suddenly, for gest to him that "the congenital epileptoid criminal some trivial cause, he attacked and killed eight did not form a single species, and that if this class of his superior officers and comrades. His hor- was irretrievably doomed to perdition, crime in rible work accomplished, he fell into a deep others was only a brief spell of insanity, determined slumber, which lasted twelve hours and on awak- by circumstances, passion, or illness." 56 ing appeared to have no recollection of what had Lombroso had spent many long years assembling happened. Misdea, while representing the most his material, making literally thousands of post- ferocious type of animal, manifested, in addition, mortem examinations or anthropometric studies of all the phenomena of epilepsy, which appeared criminals, of the insane, and of normal individuals. to be hereditary in all the members of his family. In order to find the origin of the atavistic phenome- It flashed across my mind that many criminal non he studied what he believed to be the evolu- characteristics not attributable to atavism, such tion of crime in the animal kingdom, among un- as facial asymmetry, cerebral sclerosis, impul- civilized races, and finally by using Haeckel's siveness, instantaneousness, the periodicity of concept of recapitulation-in the child..Lombroso criminal acts, the desire of evil for evil's sake, became convinced that the criminal was not a were morbid characteristics common to epilepsy, variation from a norm but practically a special mingled with others due to atavism." species, a subspecies, of man, having distinct As we have noted, his early ideas of a theory of physical and mental characteristics. Among these the criminal man were published in proceedings of physical stigmata are included the following:51 the Royal Lombardian Institute of Science and "Deviation in head size and shape from the type Letters in 1872 and 1874. 55 In 1876 a full discussion common to the race and region from which the of atavism and the criminal man appeared in the criminal came; asymmetry of the face; excessive first edition of L'Uomo delinquente, published in dimensions of the jaw and cheek bones; eye de- Milan by Hoepli. It comprised only one volume of fects and peculiarities; ears of unusual size, or 252 pages and received relatively little attention. occasionally very small, or standing out from The second edition, published in 1878, gained him the head as do those of the chimpanzee; nose a wide reputation. Still one volume, it was now 740 twisted, upturned, or flattened in thieves, or pages. In 1887 the French edition, L'Homme aquiline or beaklike in murderers, or with a tip crininel, and the German edition, Der Verbrecher, rising like a peak from swollen nostrils; lips appeared and disseminated his ideas abroad. By fleshy, swollen, and protruding; pouches in the 1889, with the accumulation of many new measure- cheek like those of some animals; peculiarities ments of criminal skulls, etc., L'Uomo delinquente of the palate, such as a large central ridge, a appeared in two volumes comprising 1,241 pages 5ILombroso, Introduction, op. cit. supra note 19, at (vol. 1, 660 pages; vol. 2, 581 pages). And in the xvii.5 fifth and final edition, published in 1896 (v -1. 1, 7This summarized list is adequate for our purposes 650; 2, 576) and 1897 (vol. 3, 677), the three vol- and is a partial listing adapted from the basic work of LOMBRoSO-FERRERO, CRIMINAL MAN, op. cit. supra 55 See supra, note 18. For a good discussion of the note 19, at 10-24; is summarized by GTLLrT, Ca msNoL- first edition of L'UoMo DELINQUENTE, see the article by OGY AND PENOLOGY 79 (3rd ed. 1945); and appears in Marro, op. cit. sufpra note 40, at 193-203. VOLD, TnEORETICAL CRIMINOLOCY 50-51 (1958). 19611 CESARE LOMBROSO

series of cavities and protuberances such as are thin beard, prominent frontal sinuses, protrud- found in some reptiles, or cleft palate; abnormal ing chin, large cheekbones, etc." 59 dentition; chin receding, or excessively long or In addition to physical stigmata, Lombroso short and flat, as in apes; abundance, variety, noted in the born criminal (a term, as we have and precocity of wrinkles; anomalies of the mentioned, coined by Ferri) such factors as:, (1) hair, marked by characteristics of the hair of sensory and functional peculiarities, including less the opposite sex; defects of the thorax, such as sensibility to pain and touch, more acute sight, too many or too few ribs, or supernumerary less than average acuteness of hearing, smell, and nipples; inversion of sex characteristics in the taste, greater agility, more abidexterity, greater pelvic organs; excessive length of arms; super- strength in the left limbs; (2) a lack of moral'sense, numerary fingers and toes; imbalance of the including an absence of repentance and remorse, hemispheres of the brain (asymmetry of cra- or only from hypocritical motives, the presence of nium)." cynicism, treachery, vanity, impulsiveness, vindic- In summarizing the anatomical study of the tiveness, cruelty, idleness, participation in orgies, criminal he pointed out that his studies show "new possessing a passion for gambling; and (3) other analogies between the insane, savages, and crimi- manifestations, such as a special criminal argot, nals. The prognathism, the hair abundant, black or slang, the tendency to express ideas pictorially and frizzled, the sparse beard, the skin very often and the extefisive use of tattooing.6 brown, the oxycephaly, the oblique eyes; the As his analyses continued, Lombroso came to small skull, the developed jaw and sygomas, the believe that the moral imbecile and the criminal retreating forehead, the voluminous ears, the were fundamentally alike in physical constitution analogy between the sexes., a greater reach, are and mental characteristics. His atavistic theory new characteristics added to the characteristics had been subjected to wide criticism and to further observed in the dead which bring the European accumulation of more facts. Many of the anomalies criminals nearer to the Australian and Mongolian that he had found in the criminal could not be

type ....'2 He even believed that it was possible explained by atavism, and he searched for some to distinguish special types of delinquents, and as other pathological condition that caused the early as 1874, two years before publication of arrested development of certain organs, particu- L'Uomo delinquente, he said that larly the nerve centers. He finally identified this "as a rule, the thieves have mobile hands and condition with epilepsy, as he points out in the face; small, mobile, restless, frequently oblique last edition of his work: "The fusion of criminality eyes; thick and closely set eyebrows; flat or with epilepsy and with moral insanity alone could twisted nose; thin beard; hair frequently thin; explain the purely pathological and non-atavistic almost a receding brow. Both they and those phenomena in the delinquent."'" Epilepsy be- commiting rape frequently have ears ad ansa. comes the "uniting bond," the morbid condition that unites and bases the moral imbecile and the The latter often have brilliant eyes, delicate born criminal in the same natural family."'' Al- faces, and tumid lips and eyelids; as a rule they though all born criminals are epileptics, not all are of delicate structure and sometimes hunch- backed.... The habitual homicides have cold, 19Della fossetta cerebellare mediana in un criminale, R. Ist. LOMSARDO DI SCIENZA E LETTERE-RENDICONTI glassy eyes, immobile and sometimes sanguine 1058-65 (1872); cited and translated by Sellin, A New and inflamed; the nose, always large, is fre- Phase of Criminal Anthropology in Italy, 125 Annals 234 (May, 1926). quently acquiline or, rather, hooked; the jaws 601 LoarRoso, L'Uomo DELINQuENTE 388-568 (5th are strong, the cheekbones large, the hair curly, ed. 1897) (hereinafter cited as L'Uoseo DELINQUENTE). These traits of the born criminal may also be found in dark, and abundant; the beard is frequently thin, most other editions of the same work, passim, and in the canine teeth well developed and the lips the English summary, LoPLBRoso-FERRERO, CRIMINAL delicate; frequent nystagmus and unilateral MAN, op. cit. supra note 53, at 24-48. See also, and in summary, Lombroso's description of atavism in facial contractions, with a baring of the teeth Cax: ITs CAUSES AND REMEDIES 365-69. However, it and a contraction of the jaws ....In general, must be kept in mind that by the time of this last writing he had modified his ideas to include other types all criminals have ears ad ansa, abundant hair, of criminals and had reduced his emphasis on the delinquente-nato. 531 L'Hosnt CRIMINEL 222; cited by Parmelee, op. 611 L'UoMo DELINQUENTE 59 (5th ed.). cit. supra note 33. 822 L'Ho CRIMINEL 50. MARVIN E. WVOLFGAXG [Vol. 52 epileptics are necessarily born criminals. By this degree, not in kind. This is so true that the greater time in his writings, he no longer saw the born number of them, having become habitual criminals, criminal only in terms of an atavistic return to the thanks to a long sojourn in prison, can no longer be savage; he spoke also of arrested development and distinguished from born criminals except by the disease, and combined both atavism and degenera- slighter character of their physical marks of 6' tion in his analysis of the etiology of the born criminality. 1 criminal --a combination that many scholars, The habitual criminal constitutes the third group including E. A. Hooton, were to take issue with of occasional criminals, and it is this group that later. seems to come closest to a "normal" criminal in all In addition to the epileptic criminal, the insane his writings, for the habitual criminal was born criminal, and the born criminal, Lombroso refers, without serious anomalies or tendencies in his in his later editions, to a large corps of occasional constitution that would predispose him to crime. criminals."4 These criminals "are those who do not Poor education and training from parents, the seek the occasion for the crime but are almost school, and community at an early age causes these drawn into it, or fall into the meshes of the code individuals "to fall continually lower into the for very insignificant reasons. These are the only primitive tendency towards evil." Associations of ones who escape all connection with atavism and criminals such as the mafia and camorra in Italy epilepsy. . . . ,,65 Although the first part of this contain members drawn into crime by association.1 statement from his last major work (which con- Finally, among the delinquente d'occasione Lom- siders environmental factors in some detail) is broso mentions briefly a class of epileptoids in consistent with earlier remarks about the occa- whom a trace of epilepsy may form the basis for the sional criminal, the last part does not conform to development of th6ir criminal tendencies. his summary diagram in the 5th edition of L'Uomo There is another category of criminals, one that delinquente that tries to show the relationship lies outside the general base of epilepsy. Crimes of among his various criminal types. At any rate, the violence, based not upon conditions arising from first group of occasional criminals is that of the the nature of the organism but often from "anger, pseudo-criminals, or those who commit crimes platonic or filial love, offended honor, which are involuntarily, whose acts are not perverse or pre- usually generous passions and often sublime," judicial to society but crimes so defined by law, characterize the "irresistible force" manifested by committed in defense of the person, of honor, or the "delinquente d'impeto o passione." Political of family. These crimes do not cause societal fear, criminals are included under this classification, nor do they disturb the moral sense of the com- and characteristics such as a powerful intellect, munity. exaggerated sensibility, great altruism, patriotic, The next and largest group of occasional crimi- religious, or even scientific ideals, are described as nals is the criminaloids. In their case precipitating significant factors. Finally, the high frequency of factors in the environment, or opportunities to suicide among criminals of passion indicates, he commit crimes, constitute the most important ele- felt, a pathological state of mind. 8 ments in their etiology. Opportunities offered for In order to show the relationship between these fraud, the associate of the prison, and other un- groups, Lombroso presented a diagram, which is favorable exogamous factors lead this group to reproduced here, in which all the delinquents, crime. The criminaloid, nonetheless, possesses in- regardless of type, were placed on an "epileptoid" nate traits that tend to cause him to be only base. slightly less predisposed to criminality. His organic Lombroso considered the female offender in tendency is less intense than that of the born virtually the same terms used in his analyses of criminal, and he has only a touch of degeneracy. males. His first edition of La dbnna delinquente, la "In the biology of the criminaloid we observe a prostituta e la danna norrnale, written in collabora- smaller number of anomalies in touch, sensibility tion with his son-in-law, G. Ferrero, appeared-in to pain, psychometry, and especially less early 1893, after which a new edition was published in baldness and grayness, and less tattooin ... Criminaloids, then, differ from born criminals in 66 Id. at 374. 67Is there not here the suggestion of Sutherland's 61 1 L'UoMo DELINQLENrrE 62-68 (5th ed.). concept of "differential association"? Cf. SUTHERLAND, 64Id. at 482-564. PRINCIPLES OF CRIMINOLOGY (4th ed. 1947). i" CRIME: ITS CAUTSES AND REMEDIES 376. 682 L'UoMo DELINQUENTE 204-65 (5th ed.). CESARE LOMBROSO

Criminal Epileptic

Born Criminal SCriminaloids

Occasional Criminals

EPILEPTOIDS Crim. by Passion LomBRoso, 2 L'Uomo DELiNQUENTE 60 (5th ed. 1896.)

1903 and translated into several Ianguages. 69 He brains, anthropometry, facial and cephalic anom- emphasized that anatomically there is much less alies, atavistic origins, tattooing, the born criminal, variability among women in general and that occasional criminals, hysterical offenders, crimes deviations from type are more significant than of passion, suicides, criminal lunatics, epileptic similar deviations occurring in men. Moreover, he delinquents and moral insanity. Although he noted that there was less general sensibility and less asserts that female born criminals are fewer in sensibility to pain among women compared to men. number than male, he contends that the former Women are very much like children in many are much more ferocious. His explanation for their respects, he suggests, and by use of historical and "greater ferocity," although not acceptable today, some ethnological materials he proceeds to show is succinct:n that prostitutes and prostitution represent "We have seen that the normal woman is reversionary or atavistic phenomena. The intimate naturally less sensitive to pain than a man, and descriptions he gives of the psychical life of the compassion is the offspring of sensitiveness. If prostitute led him to conclude that the born the one be wanting, so will the other be. criminal type is found more frequently among "We also saw that women have many traits prostitutes than among other female offenders. in common with children; that their moral sense The prostitute, even more than the homicidal is deficient; that they are revengeful, jealous, robber, is the genuine typical representative of inclined to vengeances of a refined cruelty. criminality. With his usual detailed descriptions of "In ordinary cases these defects are neutral- Darwin's tubercle, sessile ears, alveolar progna- ised by piety, maternity, want of passion, sexual thism, and many case studies, he attempts to coldness, by weakness and an undeveloped show that genuine women criminals are endowed intelligence. But when a morbid activity of the with the same fundamental peculiarities found in psychical centres intensifies the bad qualities of male criminals, and that prostitutes and other women, and induces them to seek relief in evil genuine, criminal feminine types (tea nala) are deeds; when piety and maternal sentiments are characterized by a lack of the "mother-sense." By wanting, and in their place are strong passions the time he had written the fifth edition of L'Uomo and intensely erotic tendencies, much muscular delinquente, he could still say, however, that "an strength and a superior intelligence for the con- extensive study of criminal women has shown us ception and execution of evil, it is dear that the that all the degenerative signs, such as functional innocuous semi-criminal present in the normal anomalies, are lessened in them (among the dead woman must be transformed into a born crimi- as among the living), and are closer to the normal nal more terrible than any man. type of women. They seem to escape therefore from "What terrific criminals would children be the atavistic laws of degeneration. " 0 if they had strong passions, muscular strength, Consideration is given in The Female O.ffetder to and sufficient intelligence; and if, moreover, pathological anomalies, investigations of female their evil tendencies were exasperated by a morbid psychical activity! And women are big 11The English version, THE FEMALE OFFENDER, with an Introduction by W. Douglas Morrison, was children; their evil tendencies are more numerous first published in 1895, in New York. The edition was and more varied than men's, but generally re- re-issued in 1958. (Hereinafter cited as ThE FEMALE main latent. When they are awakened and OFFENDER.) 7 1 -0 2 L'UoMo DELINQUENTE 69 (5th ed.). THE FEMALE OFFENDER 150-52. MARVIN E. WOLFGANG [Vol. z

excited they produce results proportionately tive difference from the born criminal, and re- greater. sulting more from precipitating factors than from "Moreover, the born female criminal is, so to predisposing ones, became another category; and speak, doubly exceptional, as a woman and as a the pseudo-criminal, the habitual criminal, and criminal. For criminals are an exception among the criminal by passion lifted Lombroso consider- civilized people, and women are an exception ably beyond his original monistic descriptions of among criminals, the natural form of retrogres- the atavistic offender. He considered atavism as a sion in women being prostitution and not crime. possible form of degeneracy, and although biol- The primitive woman was impure rather than ogists have challenged the theoretical marriage of criminal. atavism and degeneracy, we see here evidence of "As a double exception, the criminal woman is his trying to produce a more catholic conceptualism consequently a monster. Her normal sister is than the delimited rigidity of the reo-nato, the kept in the paths of virtue by many causes, such latter of which is usually the basis of attack by as maternity, piety, weakness, and when these most contemporary critics. counter influences fail, and a woman commits a Despite his abundant use of reported precision of crime, we may conclude that her wickedness anthropometric details and statistical descriptions, must have been enormous before it could tri- Lombroso usually gave only general figures for the umph over so many obstacles." proportions and diffusions of anomalies among Finally, with respect to female crime, he was criminal types and only an approximation of the aware of the common sex differentials reported in proportion that born criminals constituted among criminal statistics. After referring to data collected all criminals. In his last edition of L'Uomo de- from England, France, Spain, and other European linquente he speaks of 40 percent of criminals countries showing much lower percentages of falling into his category of the born criminal type; female participation in officially recorded crime, he and further reduces this proportion to 33 percent noted that "aside from these facts many other in Crime: Its Causes and RernediesY4 Whether grave reasons make us suspect that the criminality Lombroso believed that all criminal behavior had ' 2 of women is greater than the statistics show. " some organic origin will be discussed briefly later, Furthermore, he was convinced that "if cases of but there is no doubt that he never completely prostitution are included in the criminal statistics relinquished his belief in the existence of a born the two sexes are at once placed on an equality, or criminal type, albeit the proportion of this type the preponderance may even be thrown on the side among all criminals was reduced in his latest dis- of women." 3 cussion. In sum, it is obvious that Lombroso experienced HIs RESEARCH METHODS a change of ideas regarding his criminal typology. The excessive emphasis in his first edition to It is difficult to find a description of the methods anatomical and anthropometric data was the result of investigation or analysis that Lombroso used of a single framework of orientation. Consequently, without encountering personalized praise by his by focusing attention on skull measurements. contemporaries or supercilious, contemptuous facial asymmetries, etc., he distinguished but one disdain by later environmentalists who either type of criminal-the born criminal-and this failed to read his writings or simply refused to give type led to a unilateral theory of atavism. But cognizance to any of his efforts to employ goad by the time later editions were published he had research habits. Many of his contemporarieshad to expanded his theory as well as his investigations, examine his material with virtually the same level so that now he could adopt the concept of degen- of statistical training as he possessed, and which some commentatos contend was relatively low, eracy as one of the causes of criminality. Patho- 5 logical similarities between the born criminal, the even for this period. Critics of today, of course, moral imbecile, and the epileptic broadened his can enjoy the kind of statistical sophistication that base and added the insane criminal and the has continued since the writings of Karl Pearson, epileptic criminal; the criminaloid, by a quantita- ' 2 L'UOMO DELINQUTENTE 68-69 (5th ed.); CRIME: ITS CAUSES AND REMEDIES 365. In his Introduction to 72 CRIME: ITS CAUSES AND REMEDIES 187. his daughter's summary. CRIMINAL MAN, op. cit. supra ,3Id. at 186. Relative to this contention by Lom- note 53, at 8, he also says that "born criminals form broso, see POLLAK, ThE CRIMINALITY OF WOMEN about one third of the mass of offenders.. (1950). 75 BONGER, op. ci. supra note 37, at 69. CESARE LOMBROSO whose benefit Charles Goring possessed at the phenomena that he noted always recurring in the time he engaged in his study of The English same manner. Such a goal could be achieved, he Convict. felt, by a thorough search for facts-empiric data. This section makes no pretense of a detailed It was as if the philosophic sophistry of Italian examination of Lombroso's procedures, his legalists and German intellectuals provided the anthropometry, his deductive thought patterns, historical moment for a negative reaction, a nor his statistical tables. We are interested only in search for raw, naked empiricism.18 And it was reviewing briefly typical comments made about optimistically believed that the facts, regardless of his methods, and in demonstrating by way of il- their apparent unrelatedness at the moment, lustration a few of his obvious faults and some of would eventually accumulate into an emergent his virtuous attempts at a valid scientific approach theory of universal applicability. to the understanding of criminal behavior. With- There are, of course, many doubts that could be out need of much comment errors in method, registered about Lombroso's anthropometry, but merely by their presentation, become obvious. we are not prepared to examine this aspect of his In general terms it may be said that Lombroso methods. Earnest Hooton, certainly no enemy to used both clinical and historical methods in the Lombroso, and who was one of the world's highly collection of factual data from which he deduced reputed physical anthropologists despite his his theories of atavism and degeneration. Historical fleeting failure with his venture into criminology, references abound in his many articles and books raised serious questions about the validity of the that seek to provide illustrative material in support procedural tools of criminal anthropology in its of theory. But it is essentially the minute and early years. "Lombroso and subsequent investiga- detailed examination of the individual that tors," he says when discussing cranial and facial characterizes his most basic tool of investigation asymmetry, "have, almost without exception, and of gathering data. Not crime in the abstract, contented themselves with a mere subjective but a study of the criminal himself was the starting description of the presence or absence and the point in 1864 of his criminological career. "I degree of, such asymmetry, and have not de- began dimly to realize," he says in retrospect, veloped any quantitative method of appraising "that the a prioristudies on crime in the abstract, it.... Consequently, the validity of Lombroso's hitherto pursued by jurists, especially in Italy, conclusions as to the prevalence of cranial and with singular acumen, should be superseded by facial asymmetry in the criminal skull is impaired. the direct analytical study of the criminal, com- ...Anyone who has attempted to master the 76 pared with normal individuals and the insane." method of grading non-mensurable.morphological His analysis of the individual offender was, how- development is well aware of the great personal ever, of a static, not a processual or dynamic equation which affects such estimates, even of a phenomenon. -is criminal anthropological ap- skilled observer who is not obsessed by a theory.'79 proach was surely more comprehensive than that Although Ferri did not refer specifically to his of Virchow, Broca, or Mantegazza, but less experi- elder colleague, he spoke of the defects of some of mental and more descriptive. He assumed that the anthropological data being collected during congenital and physical characteristics were his day. A careful reading of Lombroso leads one always ready for observation and could be sub- to suspect that Ferri's comments may apply: jected to statistical treatment. He had, says Kur- "One of these defects is the measuring of skulls ella, "little inclination for the clinical observation in order to determine the cranial capacity of of transient, morbid processes." The anomalies 7 This generalization is in the same spirit with which and stigmata were for Lombroso permanent Talcott Parsons reviews the development of sociology. documenats and primary sources of information. He After the grand theorists and theoretical speculators of the Spencer era had produced little useful knowledge was interested in psychical processes but felt them that could be applied to social situations, a reaction, too elusive for direct observation; hence his both negative and crudely empirical, occurred in America during the 1920's and 1930's. See Parsons, emphasis was on a typology based upon organic The Present Position and Prospectsof Systematic Theory factors. He sought somc kind of invariablq uni- in Sociology, EssAYS IN SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY 212- formity, a principle of universal law among the 237 (rev. ed.); Parsons, Some Problems Confronting Sociology as a Profession, 24 Am. Soc. REv. 547-59 76Lombroso, Introduction, op. cit. supra note 53, at (1959). xiv. 791 HOOTON, ThE AMERICAN CRIMINAL, AN ANTHRO- - KuRELLA, op. cit. supra note 4, at 136. POLOGICAL STUDY 12-13 (1939). MARVIN E. WOLFGANG [Vol. 52 criminals without knowing anything of the stature crimes.. .2 He viewed it [behavior] in its de- and respective ages of the subjects, whereas there pendence upon numerous external and internal is a settled connection between the different factors, in part belonging to the organization of anthropological characteristics, the capacity of the the individual and in part to his environment."81 skull, for instance, being definitely related to the The collection of positive facts-this above all age and especially to the stature.""0 If this criti- constituted Lombroso's abiding orientation. From cism of metric methods does not apply directly to facts emerge theory; but the collector of facts even Lombroso, it surely could apply to the many with an embracing hypothesis is usually faced with measurements made by students throughout an a posteriori dilemma of interpretation. It is at Europe which he seems to have used with in- this level that Lombroso has been challenged, so adequate discrimination as supporting evidence. frequently that documentation would be impossible. In his primary concern with the biological As the late John Gin," one of the more diligent principle in personality, Lombroso did not make and historically-oriented American textbook much use of the analytique morale of Guerry nor of writers, has observed, Lombroso's explanation of the physique sociale of Quetelet, although he did criminality on the basis of atavism, which his refer to both of these early statisticians in his later demonstrated abnormalities were made to prove, works, after being criticized for neglecting- such was a philosophical deduction not warrented by data. However, in view of Lombroso's remarks that the facts. Even the friendly Kurella said that he could examine only one type of phenomenon at "he knew, also, how to demonstrate his results a time, and in the light of his intellectual integrity forcibly and vividly; but was less richly endowed and efforts to recognize deficiencies and to change with the faculty of sifting his data, and of group- his approach at times, the comments by Linde- ing them in accordance with a natural, and not smith and Levin seem unjust: "What Lombroso merely superficial criterion." 5 Lombroso, we are did was to reverse the method of explanation that repeatedly told, was a "slave to facts"; yet, it was had been current since the time of Guerry and under this same slavery that he spoke of the facts Quetelet and, instead of maintaining that institu- of spiritualism with credulity. After his first tions and traditions dtermined the nature of the sittings with Eusapia Paladino he said that he was criminal, he held that the nature of the criminal inclined to reject the spiritualistic theory, "but the determined the character of institutions and facts exist, and as regards facts I glory in saying traditions." '8 On this point Lombroso seems to be that I am their slave." 6 If his acceptance of interpreted correctly by Kurella who said: these "facts" was not the result of senility, it is not "It was quite inevitable that Lombroso's difficult to understand why some doubt has been sociological thought should be powerfully cast upon his definition and interpretation of facts stimulated by the view of his opponents that concerned with criminals and criminal behavior. law is a product of the intellectual, not of the Rash and easy generalizations about atavism and organic life of mankind, and that therefore it degeneracy deduced from biological anomalies was not nature that produced criminals, but left a vulnerable hiatus between theory and fact. 87 social and national processes. Thus it became As Merton and Montagu suggested in their necessary for him to prove ...that nature makes review of Hooton's criminological research, "To the criminal, but that society provides the insinuate an axiom is not to demonstrate a fact." Even some of the most ardent advocates of conditions in which the criminal commits Lombroso complained of his "obvious neglect of 6oFERRI, CRIMINAL SocroLoGy 63 (Kelly & Lisle critical examination of his sources of informa- transl. 1917). For details on the method of criminal tion."s His reliance upon cranium measurements anthropological research, see FERxi, L'OhUcmro NELL 'ANTROPOLOGIA CRIMINALE, 97 (Torino 1895). and other anthropometric data compiled by 81 Lindesmith & Levin, The Lombrosian Mlyth in 8 Crininology, 42 Au. J. Soc. 661 (1939). There is some 2 KURELLA, op. cit supra note 4, at 117. 83 Id. at 161. contradiction in the words these authors use when they 84 refer to institutions and traditions determining the GILLIN, CRIMINOLOGY AND PENOLOGY, 79 (3rd ed. "nature" of the criminal and then criticize Lowbroso 1945). for holding that the nature' (biology) of the cr ninal 85 KURELLA, op. cit. supra note 4, at 98. determines the character of institutions and traditions. 3 Id. at 175. Surely the authors do not mean to say that social, 7 Merton & Ashley-Montagu, Crime and The institutions are primary factors affecting the individ- .1 :thr",'logist, 42 Am. ANTnRoPoLoGIsT 384 (1940). ual's biology, heredity, or, more loosely, his nature. ss KURLL., op. cit supra note 4, al 56. l1%,I1 CESARE LO.1BROSO

-ulldntSz over whoml he had no control compounded scientific research may- sometimes be fruitful, if for the types of errors Ilooton refers to in his discus- no other reason than to dispel their tendency to sion of "the personal equation" in such matters. persist, although data collected to test a lay Perhaps, however, critics and zealots alike have hypothesis may sometimes confirm it.9Not only been most disturbed by his use of the anecdotal was Lombroso heir to an abundance of old Italian method ant the method of analogy in presenting proverbs that implied physiognomic correlations his material. Although providing piquancy and to criminality, but also it seems as if he was to some reading interest, they constitute doubtful meth- extent influenced by them as he sought to find odology. Hooton expresses his dissatisfaction physical stigmata that would identify the criminal explicitly: type. To suggest this is not to indict his methods, "One of the greatest defects of Lombrosian but merely to indicate the probable role of pro- presentation of criminal anthropological data is vincial thought on his intuitions and insights-an the sensational anecdotal method which is element of methodology that is, after all, as much utilized to clinch arguments. Individual case artistry as science. Creative work in music, descriptions are still copiously spread over the poetry, or painting may make use of regional pages of most works on criminology. Although legends, myths, and proverbs; these same sources these are absolutely essential as the primary appear in Lombroso's writings and seem to have sources from which general deductions may be contributed to his thinking.9 Surely something of drawn, they are quite useless and misleading this sort must have occurred in the thoughts he when introduced singly into discussions, since it expressed at the Fifth Congress of Criminal is perfectly evident that they are not random Anthropology in Amsterdam (1901) when he selections or illustrations, but rather special delivered his paper on "Why Criminals of Genius cases chosen to bolster up some particular argu- do not Manifest the Criminal Type," and in which ment. Generalization from a single case, which he suggested that "the habit of thinking elevated is often encouraged by the use of such anec- thoughts gives certain characteristics to the dotes, is wholly unscientific."8 9 physiognomy, such as a straight brow and a 93 The same general remarks may be made about voluminous cranium. Lombroso's use of analogy. As he compares the Probably the most persistent and valid criticism criminal type with the insane, and both of these of Lombroso's methods pertains to his use of with epileptics he approaches identification on the statistics. It is generally agreed that the chief basis of similarities in the number and kinds of refutationof Lombroso'swork was Charles Goring's anomalies. "Thus it happened often enough that, The English Convict, published in 1913. In this perceiving intuitive analogies, his lively imagina- study the author praises Lombroso for his hu- tion led him falsely to regard them as identities. '90 manitarianism but makes a vitriolic attack upon In his statistical statement of genius, which appears his research methods. The time that separated in L'Uomo di genio (1888), he derives an "index of L'Umno delinquenle and The English Convict was genius" by use of analogy and shows his index for 91With respect to the use of laymen's hypotheses in every department in France, according to which sociological research, see Gouldner, Theoretical Require- ments of the Applied Social Sciences, 22 Am. Soc. REv. index the departments are arranged in groups 92 2(1957). corresponding to department groupings based upon 9 In LOMBROso-FERRERO, CRIMIINAL MAN, op. cit. their republican or monarchical character. In supra note 53, at 49-51, Cesare Lombroso refers to some of these proverbial statements: "There is nothing additional diagrams, charts, and tables he ar- worse under Heaven than a scanty beard and a colorless ranges the French departments according to face" (Rome); "An ashen face is worse than the itch" configurations, such as (Piedmont); "Greet from afar the red-haired man and certain geographical the bearded woman" (Venice); "Beware of him who mountains, hills, plains, and the nature of the soil. looks away when he speaks to you, and of him who keeps Then for each group the predominant political his eyes cast down and takes mincing steps" (Venice); genius" are deter- "The squint-eyed are on all sides accursed" (Venice); aliliations and the "index of "Better sell a field and a house than take a wife with a mined. In this questionable fashion he deduces a turned-up nose" (Venice). His use of these proverbs was virtual identity between genius and republicanism. to inlicate that they express universal distrust of the criminal type. See also, MACDONALD, CRIMINOLOGY, The use of "laymen's hypotheses" as guiles to 43 (1893). 93 CONGRES INTERNATIONAL i',ANTHROPOLOGIE CRT- I looio,0, op. cit. supra note 79, at 16-17. MINELLE, COMPTERENDU DE rRAVAUX DE LA CIN- KtURII..A, op. cit supra note 4, at 98. QITI-ME SESSION 215 (Amsterdam 1901). MARVIN E. WOLFGANG [Vol. 52

not long,- but the development of standard devia- refers to individuals who are not "legal criminals," tions around the mean, regression lines, and but who are "anthropologically criminal." For probable errors constituted a wide difference in- purposes of analysis, homogeneity of the criminal deed. The Biometric Laboratory in London and and non-criminal groups is a basic requirement. the prison at Turin were more than kilometres Such principles, of course, are easier to state than apart. This distance permitted Goring to state to accomplish in a research design, and much that "since this belief of Lombroso's was arrived contemporary research still suffers, although in at, not by methods of disinterested investigation, lesser degree than Lombros6's, from the same but, rather by a leap of the imagination, the deficiencies. notion thus reached then forming the basis upon There is both error and truth in the statement which he conducted his researches, and con- by Lindesmith and Levin regarding this point: structed his theory-the whole fabric of the "The assumption of the Lombrosians that the Lombrosian doctrine, judged by the standards of weighing and measuring of criminals was the science, is fundamentally unsound." 94 Few re- only scientific method of studying criminals was searchers are without their critics, and Goring's particularly ironical in view of the notoriously work in turn was blasted because it "bristles slipshod methods of the father of criminal an- with ... logical fallacies and ...statistical soph-" thropology and in view of the neglect of control istries, all devoted to his purpose of proving that groups which has characterized the movement to s criminals are not different from non-crimi- the present day."9 r We agree with SellinM that nals ... "95 the Lombrosians did not assume that "the The absence of adquate control groups, which weighing and measuring of criminals was the only was recognized even in Lombroso's day, is the most scientific method of studying criminals." That basic and damaging criticism made in any con- there was a "neglect of control groups" can hardly temporary evaluation of his methods. Even if he can be denied, but it must be remembered that the be excused for his anecdotal approach, use of sociological studies of the nineteenth century analogies, philosophical deductions based on were "in most instances just as poor in method and unrelated facts, and subjectivism in his anatomico- execution as anything done by the adherents of the pathological method, the lack of a good sample or biological approach."99 Lombroso had no adequate of a control group of normals that meets the basis for a comparison with the general population demands of statistical procedures causes the whole of the same economic and social class and oi the 96 superstructure of analysis to crumble. Durkheim, same general level of intelligence; there was in his study of suicide in 1897, followed closely in numerical inadequacy of the ethnic and racial the steps of historical continuity that can be heterogeneity of the material, and there was a lack traced from Guerry and Quetelet; consequently, of any scientific statistical analysis of the data he needed only data from human ecology, fre- assembled by a wide variety of students. In some quency distributions, rates per unit of population, cases thousands of cranial and other types of etc. Durkheim suffered principally from the lack measurements are reported, but mere magnitude of test statistics, but Lombroso and his fellow of a sample does not guarantee its representative criminal anthropologists established the tradition character; and unless there is some adequate of looking for differences between criminals and statistical method of appraising the amount of non-criminals. Hence, extreme importance must be fortuitous divergence in comparing the characteris- placed on the representativeness of the sample, or tics of two or more samples, conclusions drawn outhe variables controlled in an individual or group from such differences cannot be considered valid. matching of a "normal" population with the Lombroso crudely correlated a host of factors criminal one. Moreover, when reviewing Lom- with crime without much questioning of the broso's writings, one is impressed with the lack of presence or absence of the underlying cause-and- definition regarding the criminal. He sometimes effect relationship. Perhaps one of the most indictable instances of this fallacy may be seenin 94GoRiNG, THE ENGLISH CoNvicr: A STATISTICAL STUDY 16 (abridged ed., London 1919). his analysis of the relationship between the use of 95HoOTON, op. cit. supra note 79, at 23. See the. tire 97Lindesmith & Levin, op. cil. supra note 81, at 664. section devoted to a criticism of Goring. Id. at 18-31. Also, Charles Goring's THE ENGLISH CONvIcT: A 98Sellin, The LomnbrosianMyth in Criminology (Letter S.wmposizni, 5 J. CRru L. & C. 207, 348 (1914-1915). to the Editor), 42 Au. J. Soc. 897 (1937). 16DURKHEIM, LE SUICIDE (1897). 19Id. at 898. (ES. A RE LOMBROSO

tlacco and crime. After u.-i:g questitnale data prostitutes, 225 on normal women in hospitals, and irom other countrie- regarding the proportion of 30 other also normal."' 0' Criminal women are prisoners who smoke, his conclusion begins with compared with normals relative to height and age, an unwarranted, dogmatic a.-sertion followed by"an weight and age, span of arms, average height of the interesting ambiguity': body seated, the hand, neck, thigh, leg, foot. hair, "Itis clearly to be seen, then, that there is a eve color, and a variety of other physical traits. causal connection between tobacco and crime, He relies again upon measurements taken I) many like that which exists in the case of alcohol. But, other persons whose instruments of analysis he as in the case of alcohol, it is a curious fact that could not control, and whose "normals" were the countries where the consumption of tobacco selected without the characteristic of representa- is greatest have a lower criminality. This tiveness. Still, one is impressed with his attempt, contradiction is frequently met in our researches; even in the case of examining wrinkleb among wo- but it soon disappears, because the abuse of men, to provide a valid comparison and. to use these stimulating .ubstances, as in the case of control groups. With a classification of eight major alcohol, takes place especially among civilized wrinkle types (deep frontal, hori/ontal; deep fron- 00 people, who learn to control themselves.' tal, vertical; crow's feet; wrinkles under the eye- However obvious the limitations and errors of lids; naso-labial wrinkles; zygomatic wrinkles; Lombroso's statistical procedures may be to the goniomental wrinkles; labial wrinkles) he divides contemporary criminologist (who cannot afford to three age-groups (14-24 years; 25-49 years; 50 be too self-rightious), there is evidence of his having years and over) into normal and criminal popula- been cognizant of the importance of a control tions. The approach to acceptable comparison is group. In numerous instances he attempts, how- present, and his caution is noted when he says: ever crudely, to compare prisoner groups with "Taking into account only the deeper wrinkles, I normals. The median occipital fossa, which he first concluded, after examining 158 normals (working described, was found, for example, to be present in women and peasantrv) and 70 criminals, that 4.1 per cent of the skulls examined for student among the latter class wrinkles are not more com- demonstration, in 14.3 per cent of prehistoric mon than among the former. Nevertheless, certain skulls, in 15 per cent of ancient Peruvian skulls, in wrinkles, such as the fronto-vertical, the wrinkles 28 per cent of Australian aborigines, and in 20 per on the cheek-bones, crow's feet, and labial wrinkles 0 cent of criminal skulls.' ' As a crude test of his are more frequent and deeply marked in criminal beliefs that the criminal could be identified on women of mature age.' 0 4 We are not told how the sight Lombroso once asked a school teacher to 158 normals were chosen or even where and how show her thirty-two young girls twenty portraits he obtained the criminal women, but there is an of thieves and twenty of great men. We are told implicit attempt to hold constant socio-economic that 80 per cent of the children correctly identified class by use of normals from "working women and the subjects.'0 peasantry." The same awareness is evident else- Especially in The Female Offender (which Kurella where in his discussion of crime among Jews: believes is the book in which Lombroso used the "The statistics of many countries show a lower best methods), does Lombroso seem to exercise degree of criminality for the Jews than for their caution and make attempts frequently to compare Gentile fellow-citizens. This is the more re- a group of prostitutes and other female criminals markable since, because of their usual occupations, with a control group of "normal" women. For they should in fairness be compared, not with the example, after describing his own observations population in general, but with the merchaits and 05 adlded to those of Tarnowsky and Ottolenghi, he petty tradespeople."' says; "This constitutes a total of 1,033 observa- He frequently allows himself the luxury of much tions on female criminals, 176 observations on the too free interpretation or speculation based on skulls of female criminals, 685 on the skulls of meager data, as in the case of his observation of the bust of ban old woman from Palermo (Vecchia "" CRIME: ITS CAUSES AND REMEDIES 102. Cf. Itt INGFR, op. cit. sirpra note 37, at 77. dell'Acclo) whom he had never seen but which he rotReported in KURELLA, op. cit. supra note 4, at 32. 03 102LOMBROSO-FERRFRO, CRIMINAL MAN, op. cit. 1 THE FEMALE OFFENDER 47. supra note 19, at 50-51; also. ELLIS, op. cit. suipra note "I Id. at 71-72. 36, at 86. '0 CRIME: ITS CAUSES AND REMEDIES 37. _1.IRVIN E. WIIOLFG.IXG [Vold. .52

describes as "so iall of virile angularities, and rato comprised 65 or 70 per cent. It was Ferri, in above all so deeply wrinkled, with its Satanic leer, his review"' of Lombroso's L'omo delinquenle in suffices of itself to prove that the woman in question 1878, who convinced himself and influenced was born to do evil, and that, if one occasion to Lombroso to believe that anthropological postu- commit it had failed, she would have found an- lates do not apply in their complete and charac- otler." 06 But in the summary statement on the teristic entirety to all those who commit crime: anthropometry of female criminals he again "As to the results of the researches of criminal tempers his earlier license: "It must be confessed anthropology, they show that in the mass of that these accumulated figures do not amount to delinquents, there are from fifty to sixty per cent much, but this result is only natural. For if external who have only a few organic and psychic anomalies, differentiations between criminal and normal sub- while about a third show an extraordinary number jects in general are few, they are still fewer in the and a tenth show none at all.""' We have seen '107 female than in the male. that in his last work Lombroso reduces the propor- References to tattooing demonstrate both his tion of the born criminal type to one-third. attempt to compare criminals with normals and Although far from providing convincing and his hasty theoretical deduction from the observed valid statistical proof of his contentions, some of facts. Using statistics of 13,566 individuals of Lombroso's tables represent the character of his which 4,376 were "honest," 6,347 criminal, and scientific research in criminal anthropology. By 2,943 insane, he shows that tattooing is quite way of illustration, let us examine one of these common among criminals. "It may be said that, tables, which is reproduced here. for these last," he suggests, "it constitutes on DISTRIBUTION OF SKULL ANomALIEs FOUND account of its frequency a specific and entirely new BY LomBRoso1' " anatomico-legal characteristic."s8' He mentions several "causes" for tattooing, such as religion, Criminals Guilty of Homicide and Non- carnal love, imitation, idleness, vanity, and above Conditions as to criminal all atavism: "But the first, the principal cause Anomalies of Skull SoldiersItalian Penal Imprison- N - 711 which has spread this custom among us, is, in 'Serviture ment my opinion, atavism, or this other kind of historic N - 346 N -363 atavism called tradition. Tattooing is in fact one of the essential characteristics of primitive man No anomalies of skull 11.9% 8.2% 37.2% and of the man who is still living in a savage One or two anomalies 47.2% 56.6% 51.8% Three or four anoma- 33.9% 32.6% 11.0% state."' 09 lies Lombroso seems to have had trouble deciding Five or six anomalies 6.7% 2.3% 0.0% the proportionate number of anomalies necessary Seven or more anom- 0.3% 0.3% 0.0% to apply to his designation of the born criminal. alles In an early examination of a group of 383 criminals, he found 21 per cent who had only one physical 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% anomaly and 43 per cent with five or more anom- alies. He concluded that as many as five in any As Void suggests, "Lombroso deserves respectful individual should be taken as the minimum indica- credit for utilizing the method of control group tion of physical criminal type. (The same inability comparisons in the application of statistical to objectify and quantify the number or intensity methods to his problem" although "it remained for of personality and behavioral traits needed to others to make more exact and careful application designate a psychopath still plague the psycholo- of more adequate statistical methodology to the gist and psychiatrist."') Although he never problem of physical differences between criminals seemed to consider all criminals of the born crimi- and non-criminals.""' We have previously raised nal type, he first estimated that the delinquente- It Ferri, Studi critici sidl 'Uomo ddinquente-di Lombroso, RIvisTA EUROPEA (1878); cited by FERRI, 106Id. at 72-73. Italics added. CRIMINAL SoCIo.oGY, op. cit. supra note 80, at 129. "07Id. at 74. 112Ibid. 108 1 L'How CRIMINaL 266. i13 L'UOMO DELINQUENTE 273 (4thed. 1889); cited by "09 rd. at 295. FERRi, CRImrNAL SOCIOLOGY, op. cit. supra note 80 at 110See, for example, Schuessler & Cressey, Personality 12; also used by VOLD, op. cit. supra note 43, at 52. Characteristicsof Criminals, 55 Am. J. Soc. 476 (1950). '" Void, op. cit. supra note 43, at 52. ESARE LO.11BROSO

4crious questions about I.oibroso'saitiropometry, thirty-two years and that the most fatal month is his determination (if specific anomalies and their December, no one understands by that that every- dimensions, as well as his use of representative body must die at thirty-two and in the month of control groups. If, however, we assume validity of December.""1 these measurements and of the sample of "non- Often unnoticed in contemporary quick dis- criminal Italian soldiers," and then apply the missals of Lombroso's life and contribution is the non-parametric tool of chi-square to test for fact that he challenged his opponents to test his significance of difference between observed and ideas by a controlled investigation of criminals and theoretical distributions, we may note that there non-criminals. He felt that such a study would is: (a) a significant difference between the distri- vindicate him from the criticisms made previously, bution of anomaly categories found among principally by French scholars. The Second criminals sentenced to penal servitude compared to International Congress of Criminal Anthropology Italian soldiers (X2 = 119.74; df = 4; P < .001); at Paris (1889) followed a proposal from Garofalo (b) a significant difference between criminals and had appointed a commission of seven members sentenced to imprisonment and the Italian soldiers to make a series of comparisons between 100 (X2 = 148.9; df = 4; P < .001); (c) less of a dif- criminals (one third murderers, one third violent ference between criminals sentenced to servitude criminals, and one third thieves) and 100 "honest" and those sentenced to imprisonment. (x = 15.0; persons. The commission consisted of Lacassagne, df = 4; P < 0.2). We have not taken time to test Benedikt, Lombroso, Manouvrier, Magnan, Semal, significance of difference between proportions and Bertillon. The report was to be submitted to within each of the anomaly categories, but inspec- the Third Congress, but was not made; the only tion indicates obvious differences and, combined result of the commission's work was Manouvrier's with the tests computed from this table, support private report examing the "basic questions for the the point Lombroso is trying to demonstrate. comparative study of criminals and honest We are not defending this table, nor Lombroso's people."''n As a result, except for Ferri, the theoretical deductions from it, nor even the important Italians stayed away from the Third desirability of applying test statistics to it. We Congress in Brussels (1892) and informed the are merely trying to show that he applied a Congress in a letter sent from forty-nine scientists scientific approach to his data; that he obviously headed by Lombroso, Garofalo, Ferrero, Otto- possessed intellectual integrity in his pursuit of lenghi, and Sighele."1 Thus, nothing came of understanding; that many contemporary re- Lombroso's request until 1913, when Charles searches use data that have little more validity Goring published The English Convict as a direct than his; and that with statistical tables similar to result of that challenge. his, conclusions purporting wide applicability have In sum, Lombroso investigated the etiology of appeared in present-day research. We must remem- crime with procedures in which he had been trained ber that Lombroso could not make use of the and felt competent. He used clinical and historical probable error, the significance of differences methods, anthropometric and statistical tech- between means, the standard deviation, the co- niques, the tools of analogy and anecdotal illustra- efficient of variation, the coefficient of correlation, tion. His ill-defined measurements, unwarranted the chi-square, the coefficient of mean square deductions, and inadquate control groups con- contingency, etc., etc. These tools, sometimes stitute serious deficiencies of his research. But he used today to camouflage dubious research design, also manifested imaginative insight, good intuitive were not *available to him. Nonetheless, he pos- judgment, intellectual honesty, awareness of some sessed a methodological insight that should not be of his limitations, attempts to use control groups, denied him. and a desire to have his theories tested impartially. In referring to his conception of the criminal type \Ianv researchers of today fare little better than lie speaks of the type in general and with awareness this. of a mental construct not in direct correspondence to individual empiric reality: "In my opinion, one 115L'HoMmE CRIMINEL iX. should receive the type with the same reserve that 116A. TS I)U TiROisIEME COXGR.S INTERNATIONAL D'INTHROPOLOGIE CRIMI\ELLE., BIOLOGIE ET SocIo- one uses in estimating the value of averages in LooGI 171 (Brussels 1893). statistics. When one says that the average life is 1.-Id. at xvi. .M[.IRIVIN E. IWOLF:GANG [Vol. 52

SOCIAL FACTORS obedient to a scholastic ab well as to a linguistic Although the name of Lombroso is most closely necessity, consider them one by one, as is done associated with terms like atavism, arrested with all other human phenomena, to which practically never a single cause can be as- development, degeneracy, and the born criminal, 11 9 his positive approach also included a concern- for signed." factors in the physical and social environment of Moreover, in the second edition of L'Uomo the offender. It would be incorrect to assert, of delinquenle (1878) and twenty years before Le course, that he gave attention to social factors Crimne: causes etremhdes, Lombroso gives attention equal in space or import to the biological ones. to several environmental conditions that cause or Nonetheless, induced by his critics and friends, that have an effect on criminality. He makes use of as well as by new opportunities to make more London data found in Mayhew's Criminal Life expansive inquiries than purely anthropometric, (1860) and of American descriptions from Barce's Lombroso came to write Le Crime: causes et Dangerous Classes of New York (1874).2 In this early edition he discusses the influence of pov- remndcs in 1899. Generally, he was intent upon 1 showing that political and economic develop- erty;2 the relationship between prices of wheat, ments of civilized nations have given rise to the rye, potatoes, other food products and minor appearance of abnormalities which induce social violations, arson, crimes against property, and reactions. Throughout his discussions of socio- crimes against the person;iM the influence of alcohol;D emigration;1 24 the evils of criminal economic factors there is emphasized a mutual 125 interactive relationship between heredity and gangs and corruption of police; and the del- environment. Nature makes the raw material, eterious effects caused by criminal association in society provides the circumstances within which prisons that are not constructed in the cellular 12 6 the biological structure operates; but the social system. While it is unfortunate that most of circumstances may be partially responsible for these items were omitted in the fourth edition, encouraging or calling forth a variety of transmis- which was used as the basis for several translations, sible biological anomalies that in turn function Lombroso deserves credit for giving early cogni- within and affect the social structure. The emphasis zance to a variety of social factors. is on the biological, it is true, but it would be It is not possible to discuss in detail Lombroso's fallacious to denv Lombroso's recognition of Crime: Its Causes and Remedies. Such a discussion environmental, precipitating factors that lie out- would not necessarily be very fruitful of generaliza- side the individual and contribute to the etiology tion other than the fact that he modifies some of crime. original perspectives found in earlier editions of Both in the definition of crime and in the deter- L'Uomo delinquente. There are in the work in- mination of penalties, lie was aware of cultural teresting statements and amusing deductions, but relativity and could not always accept purely no theoretical framework of sociological relevance legal classifications. As Mannheim points out, that emerges from the plethora of facts, save that "Not even Lombroso failed to recognize that of a mutual interrelationship between the organic crime in the sociological sense changes its contents and the environmental. A few summary state- just as much as does the legal conception." ' ments and illustrations will suffice- to demonstrate And as early as 1875 Lombroso published an his social perception, on the one hand, and his article on the causes of crime, in which he stated: consistent clinging to the early concept of the born "There is no crime criminal, on the other. which does not have its 1 19 roots in numerous causes. If these often merge LOMBROso, ETIoLOGIA DEL DELITTO, MEMORIE DEL LABORATORIO DI PSICHIATRIA E MEDICINA LEGALE or are interdependent, we should, nevertheless, DELLA R. UNIVERSIT DI PAVIA (Bologna, 1875); quoted by Sellin, A New Phase of CriminalAnthropology 118MANNHEIM, Loynbroso and His Place in Modern in Italy, op. cit.,supra note 59, at 235. Criminology, 28 SOCIOLOGICAL REV. 31, 40 (1936). 120 L'Uomo DELINQUENTE 118, 120, 156, 374 (2d ed. Mannheim refers to Lombroso's CRIME: ITS CAUSES 1878), are good examples of his use of these sources-in AND REMEDIES, where the latter remarks: "Civilization connection with socio-economic factors. introduces every day new crimes, less atrociou, per- 121 Id. at 363-365. haps than the old ones btit nonetheless injuious" 122 Id. at 260-262. (Id. at 57); "Is it possible to believe in an eternal and 123 Id. at 263-265. absolute princilple of justice among men when we see '24 Id. at 368-370. this pretended justice vary so greatly within a brief 125 Id. at 373-374. interval of space or time. . ." Id. at 34. 126 Id. at 370-371. CESARE LOMBROSO

He begins with examination of meteorological "We see that theft becomes more and more and climatic influences and suggests that extremes frequent as the density increases. Homicides of temperature, hot or cold, sap the individual's and rapes, on the contrary, show the highest energy and leave little time or enthusiasm for proportion with the minimum or the maximum deviations such as crime. His discussion of the of the density. This contradiction is explained influence of race leads to the conclusion that cer- by the fact that where the population is most tain groups in every culture are responsible for compact occur the great industrial and political most criminality, and he gives details of various centers, and ports of immigration, where the robber tribes in India and elsewhere. The con- opportunitiesfor conflict are more frequent; and clusion minimizes the social factors, however, for where there is the minimum density there is the he suggests that hereditary predispositions seem maximum of barbarism, and we have seen that to function in the case of crime among Jews and assaults and assassination are there often re- Gypsies. The influence of civilization, density of garded more as necessities than as crimes." population, alcohol, education, economic condi- (P. 62, emphasis added.) tions, religion, prisons, criminal associations, and Women and urban crime: "'Women are more political crimes constitute the remaining portions criminal in the more civilized countries. They are of the first part of the book, while "Prophylaxis almost always drawn into crime by a false pride and Therapeusis of Crime," and "Synthesis and about their poverty, by a desire for luxury, and Application" comprise the last hundred pages. In by masculine occupations and education, which the third part of the book, he recapitulates his give them the means and opportunity to commit position on atavism, epilepsy, and the classifica- crimes against the laws of the press, and swin- tion of other types. dling." (P. 54.) Some provocative, imaginative, and insightful Immigration and emigration: "When the tide statements appear in the first section of Crimc: Its moving men to emigrate is weak it draws the Causes and Remedies. The examples that follow stronger and more intelligent, but when it be- were specifically selected to show these traits. comes too violent it sweeps along good and bad Civilization, wealth, and crinw: "The progress alike. In fact, the greater part of the criminality of civilization, by endlessly multiplying needs of the immigrants is furnished by the border and desires, and by encouraging sensuality provinces, where emigration is easy.... On through the accumulation of wealth, brings a the other hand, the less stable the immigration is flood of alcoholics and general paralytics into the the more crimes it furnishes. The Belgians, who insane asylums, and crowds the prisons with became naturalized Frenchmen, commit fewer offenders against property and against de- crimes than the Spaniards, who are nearly al- cency." (P. 51.) ways merely temporary residents." (P. 66,) Urban congestion of population: "This un- "The emigration from the country to the fortunate concentration of crime is to be ex- cities is such that the rural emigrants constitute plained by the greater profits or the greater a fifth part of the urban population; and it is the security which the large cities offer to criminals. better and more intelligent who emigrate, thus But this, perhaps,-is not the only reason, for if lowering the level of the country and in return in cities vigilance is more relaxed, prosecution is bringing back to it the vices and customs of the more active and systematic; and if temptations city." (Pp. 72-73.) and inducements to crime are more numerous, Food prices: "But of all studies of the in- so are the opportunities for honest labor. .'.The fluences at work in the different kinds of crime very congestion of population by itself gives an in Italy; the most conclusive is that of the hours irresistible impulse toward crime and im- of labor necessary to obtain the equivalent of a morality." (P. 53.) kilogram of wheat or bread. In this way the "We see, therefore, that homicide decreases as price of food is corrected for variations in wages the density [of population] increases, especially (Fornasari di Verce, 'La CriminalitA e le in the great cities ....Theft, rape, and re- Vicende Economiche in Italia," Turin: Bocca, -istance to the officers of the law also diminish 1895) ....We see here that all crimes against with the increase in density, to rise again property (except where contradictory factors rapidly, however, with the excessive density of come too powerfully into play) run with great the great cities." (P. 61.) fidelity parallel to the curve of the hours of work JItAR'IN E. I'OLFGANG [Vol. 52

necessary to procure the equivalent of a kilogram Lindesnith and Levin,1 ° in their unwarranted of bread or grain ...Crimes against morality denouncement of Lombroso. claim that Crime: increase as the necessary hours of labor dimin- Its Causes and Remedies -was in no sense a con- ish." (P. 79.) tribution to criminology." Van Kan '- argues that "The effect of the price of provisions upon Lombroso's discussion of social factors in crime murder is uncertain or negligible, the latter being was chaotic and confused, comprised of hetero- also true of assaults. The influence upon theft is geneous unrelated facts imperfectly subjected to very great, as is also the inverse effect upon critical examination of sourcez by the author, who crimes against good morals, which increase with tries to cover too much territory in his preoccupa- the falling off in the price of food. Famine tion with arriving at a hasty conclusion. Van Kan is lessens sexual vigor, and abundance excites it; probably correct in asserting that despite all of the and while the need of food drives men to theft, socio-economic causes upon which Lombroso the abundance of it leads to sexual crimes." reflects, organic factors remain the primary cause (P. 81.) even in this last important work. In the final We have previously mentioned his awareness of analysis, external causes themselves become class differences and the necessity to hold the organic according to Lombroso: "Finally, we have occupational variable constant in an analysis of seen that certain circumstances have so strong an crimes among Jews. At several points in his action upon criminaloids that they are equivalent writings, Lombroso comes close to admitting that to organic causes, and we may even say that they there are normal criminals, although he never become organic."in2 Even while recognizing social totally departs from his original concept of class differences when discussing Sighele's division atavism. There are two forms of criminality, he of "collective criminality" into crimes of the suggests, which consist of "atavistic criminality," upper and lower classes, he still refers to atavistic and "evolutive criminality": "Into the first class of causes: criminals fall only a few individuals, fatally pre- "Confronted by these two forms of collective disposed to crime; into the second any one may criminality it is natural to ask ourselves, 'Why come who has not a character strong enough to does the criminality of the rich take the form of resist the evil influences in his environment."' ' cunning, while that of the poor is based upon He means that the second group are criminals by violence?' The answer is easy. The upper classes legal definition but not from the point of view of ,represent what is really modem, while the criminal anthropology; the real criminals could lower still belong in thought and feeling to a always be identified by physical and psychological relatively distant past. It is, then, logical and traits. Thus, as Sellin contends, although Lombroso natural that the former should show the result 'appreciated the exciting and the restraining effect of modem development in their collective of the environment, he never brought himself to criminality, and that the latter should remain, admit the existence of a normal delinquent, one on the contrary, still violent, not to say ab- that is 'provoked and not revealed' by social solutely atavistic."In3 conditions."'' 8 Lombroso's occasional criminals At the First Congress of Criminal Anthropology and criminals by passion were conceptually close to in Rome (1885), Lombroso gave little or no atten- borderline normality, and the false or "pseudo- tion to social and economic factors, and he pro- criminals" were "not criminals either in the eyes posed only the pure doctrine of the born criminal. of society or of anthropology." This last group In his attempt to oppose Lombroso, Lacassagne included those who unintentionally committed was quickly rebuked by Fioretto (called the alter crimes or who broke laws enacted "by a dominant ego of Ferri), who remarked that "the criminal opinion or prejudice," poachers, smugglers, real type is a fact definitely acquired by science. 2 political criminals, etc.1 9 Discussion does not seem appropriate on this point."'2 4 Only after the Second Congress in Paris 121 CRIME: ITS CAUSES AND REMEDIES 45. 130Lindesmith & Levin, op. cit supra note 81, at 666 12 Sellin, A New Phase in Criminal Anthropolo y in n.21. Italy, op. cit. supra note 59, it 235. See also Sellin, En '3'VAN KAN, LES CAUSES EcoNoMIQUES DE LA historik aterblick, op. cit. supra note 42, at 12. CRIMINALITA 57-58 (Paris 1903). 129L'Uosso DELINQUENTE 491 (5th ed.); also cited by 2 2 CRIME: ITS CAUSES AND REMEDIES 376. Sellin, A New Phase of Criminal Anthropology in Italy, 133Id. at 52. op. cit. supra note 59, at 236. 134ACTES DU PREMIER CONGRhs INTERNATION%L CESARE LOMBROSO

(1889), says van Kan did Lombroso begin to Lombroso's terms. Only that amount of punish- introduce social factors into his writing as a result ment is justifiable that is compatible with social of the criticism his ideas encountered at that defense. Retribution and vengeance are excluded, meeting. At the Fourth Congress in Geneva (1896) while Beccaria's emphasis on deterrence is embod- there was recognition of Lombroso's modifications, ied within a more embracing theory of protection. for Dallemagne announced: "Lombroso himself If the first object of punishment should be the seems to be affected by the objections raised, and protection of society, the second is the improve- his writings depart from unilateral formulae by ment of the criminal. The fundamental principle, 135 their extended horizons."' he consistently repeats, is that we ought to study Regardless of increasing emphasis that Lombroso and to treat not so much the abstract crime as the may have put on environmental factors, we are criminal. Resulting from this emphasis was his inclined to accept Sellin's judgment that "Lom. demand for individualization of treatment, "which broso, in spite of the very great modifications in his consists in applying special methods of repression theories, never departed from a monogenetic and occupation adapted to each individual, as a concept of crime," and we must agree with van physician does in prescribing dietary rules and Kan, who concluded that "c'6tait en effet le cas special remedies according to the various ill- [that Lombroso had abandoned his unilateral nesses."'3 These were ideas, we should note, theory], mais non sans le maintien in~branable du expressed as early as his second edition of L'Uomo type criminel et du criminel-n6."'38 delinquente (1878); and because this was the edition in which he also discussed a variety of PUNISHMENT AND CORRECTION social factors in the etiology of crime, individualiza- Lombroso's determinism did not lead him to tion of treatment meant the social necessity to indecision regarding a theory of punishment. There consider the particular type of criminal beyond were some negative but certainly not sterile that of the original atavistic category. Consistency proposals that his position on the born criminal of penological views was maintained throughout were bound to produce, but in general he his life, for a few months before his death in 1909 emphasized sound views regarding the fundamen- he could write to Prof. John Wigmore about ap- tal principles of reformatory treatment of all portioning penalties to fit the special type of prisoners except born criminals. Accepting the offender rather than the crime, in the same fashion basic theory of Beccaria, Lombroso contended that in which he had written about these ideas thirty only natural necessity and the right of social years earlier. In his final work he was still saying defense constituted a sound basis for any theory of that "the penalty should be indeterminate and punishment."1 Hence, both crime and punishment should be subdivided according to the principle of were of natural necessity. Critics were quick to Cicero: 'A natura hominis discenda est natura point out that one could hardly punish a person juris.' We must make a difference according to unless assumptions were made about moral whether we have under our eyes a born criminal, responsibility. But Lombroso did not mean to an occasional criminal, or a criminal by passion."139 suggest that crime was a social need; crime was As modern and progressive a statement as he makes simply an inevitable consequence of social life. anywhere is the following: Similarly, the law was inevitable for the protection "In the case of every criminal in whose case of society, and since society has the right to defend the crime itself and the personal conditions itself against aggressors, it has an equal right to show that reparation of the damage is not a punish. This relationship constitutes justice in sufficient social sanction, the judge should give sentence of imprisonment for an indeterminate D'ANTHROPOLOGm CaMrNELr.E 165, 169 (Turin time in a criminal asylum, or in the institutions 1886-87); cited by v x KAN, op. cit supra note 131 at (agricultural colonies or prisons) for occasional 54. 5 1' CONGRtS INTERNATIONAL D'ANTHROPOLOGIE criminals, adults or minors. The carrying out of CRnriNELLE, COMPTERENDU DES TRAVAux DE LA QUATRIkMS"E SESSION 201 (Geneva 1897). Dallemagne the sentence should be regarded as the logical was not happy with this concession: "Voill qu'aujourd' and natural continuation of the work of the hui Lombroso fait surgir &.nouveau sa thorie dans sa judge as a function of practical protection on the forme la moins acceptable." Ibid. part of special organs. The commission "'VAN KAN, op.,-cit. supra note 131, at 55 n.2. for 1 1 VL'Uomo DELINQUENTE 382ff (2d ed. 1878); 3 L'UoMo DELNQUENTS 429 (2d ed.). CRIME: ITS CAUSES AND REMEDIES 379, 381. 139CRIME: ITS CAUSES AND REMEDIES 386. MARVIN E. WOLFGANG [Vol. 52

carrying out penal sentences should include and believed it ineffectual because of its little expert criminal anthropologists, representing usage, Lombroso felt that "it should remain the judge, the defense, and the prosecution. suspended, like the sword of Damocles, over the These men, together with administrative head of the more terrible criminals." For the born officers, would stand, not for neglecting and criminal, "organically fitted for evil," capital forgetting the prisoner as soon as sentence is punishment was still unfortunately necessary. pronounced, as happens now, but for a humani- After having admitted the utilitarian application tarian work which would be efficacious for the of the death penalty for this criminal type, he protection, now of the individual against the seems sorry and suggests additionally a "doctrine execution of a sentence which in his case, has of symbiosis" by which the criminal could be been proved to be excessive. It is apparent, utilized to accomplish socially useful purposes. then, that conditional liberation is bound up "But we shall attain this end completely only upon with the principle of the indeterminate sen- the basis of the new science of anthropology, tence." 14 which, by individualizing its work, can give us The pessimistic note in his penological views powerful aid in discovering the special tendencies concerned the incorrigible and born criminal type. of criminals, in order to direct them and utilize the His recommendations for indeterminate sentences, less anti-social of them."i 4 This substitute for use of fines and probation, and his proud connec- repressive measures would seek "to direct to great tion with influencing Z. R. Brockway and the altruistic works that energy, that passion for Elmira Reformatory, 141 were all related to of- good" which he believed exists particularly in the fenders other than the born criminal. "It would be criminal by passion and in the political criminal, a mistake," he says, "to imagine that measures but even in some cases in the born criminal. which have been shown to be effective with other Along with Ferri and Garofalo he believed that criminals could be successfully applied to born the victim of a crime should be properly com- criminals; for these are, for the most part, refrac- pensated for injury. This would not only be an tory to all treatment, even to the most affectionate ideal punishment, but would benefit the victim as care begun at the very cradle. ... ,,4 He also well, he thought. He recognized the difficulties of expressed fear that better education of the prisoner administering such a proposal, but like a recent in prison would merely produce more educated suggestion presented to Parliament in England, recidivists, principally because of increased crimi- Lombroso's idea was that "the victim should be nal associations in the institution. Based on this legally entitled to receive a part of the proceeds same kind of apprehension, he favored the cellular from work done by the culprit during deten- 145 prison, although he was aware of its psychological tion. disadvantages. Despite some pessimistic expressions, Lombroso He favored retention of the death penalty as the was more concerned with preventive measures than only recourse left to a society seeking to protect punitive ones, and when he discusses any criminal itself against irreformable elements. The in- type except that of the born criminal, he sees adequate powers of natural selection should be opportunities for prevention. Society has pro- supplemented by deliberate social selection (pre- gressed to the point, he felt, where "it has already sumably excluding, however, positive eugenics) found means of treating the diseases it has pro- aimed at the elimination of extremely anti-social duced, with its asylums for the criminal insane, its individuals. With this perspective, the death system of separate confinement in the peniten- penalty becomes for him "estrema selezione." Not going so far as Garofalo, but disagreeing with " CRiuE: ITs CAUsEs AND RE IEs 448. Ferri,'4' who basically opposed the death penalty 145 In LoarRoso-FERRERo, CRIufNAL MAN,op. cit. s-upra note 19, at 191-192. Cf. FERI, CRINAL 4 1 0 Id. at 386-387. SOCIOLOOY, op. cit. sztpra note 80, at 511-512; GAXo- 41 Id. at 393-394. Cf. BaocxwAv, FIrrT YEARS OF FALO, CRIMINOLOGy, 434-35 (Millar transl. 1914). PRISON SERVIcE 215 (1912). At the First Congress (1885), a resolution was passed 42Id. at 432. which essentially followed the suggestions of Ferri and 143FERI, CRsINAL SOCIOLOGY op. cit. supra note Garofalo. The Third International Juridical Congress 80, at 530-532. Pinatel suggests that the position of at Florence (1891) recommended the institution of a Lombroso on this matter is situated somewhere between Compensation Fund. Relative to contemporary Eng- the totalitarian social defense of Garofalo and the land, see PENAL PRACTICE IN A CHANGING SOCIETY, humane social defense of Ferri. Pinatel, La vie ef a Paper presented to Parliament by the Secretary of l'oeuvre de Cisar Lombroso, BuLLETiN, Socirmr INTER- State for the Home Department (London February NATIONALE DE CRIMINOLOGIE 217 (2e semestre 1959). 1959). 19611 CESARE LOMBROSO

tiaries, its industrial institutions, its savings banks, Aschaffenburg, van Kan, and Bonger were added and especially its societies for the protection of to the opposition. children, which prevent crime almost from the Many students of criminology followed directly cradle."' or indirectly in the theoretical or methodological It remained for Ferri and other followers of the footsteps of Lombroso. Winkler and Aletrino Positive School to expand and implement some of were evidence of the interest in criminal anthro- the basic suggestions introduced by Lombroso, pology in the Netherlands. But it was principally who was less of a legal and penal reformer than in Italy, .as might be expected, where Lom- were his colleagues and disciples. broso's influence was most deeply felt and con- tinues as a force. Although there was considerable REACTiON AND INFLUENCE opposition by Italian lawyers from the beginning, Space precludes a detailed treatment of the both legislation and research (as much through reaction to or influence of Lombroso's work in the reform efforts of Ferri as from the ideas of criminology. His immediate and direct influence Lombroso) became explicit results of the Positive on Italian scholars such as Ferrero, Ferri, Garo- School. In the first quarter of the twentieth cen- falo and others is well known, and out of this tury, Italian research in endocrinology, psychology, personal contact arose the Positive or Italian and forensic psychiatry had greatly extended the School. Particularly after publication of the horizons of Lombroso beyond the contributions second edition of L'Uono delinquente, and as a he had made. The work of Morselli, Pende, result of the Congresses of Criminal Anthro- Lugaro, Vidoni, Clerici, Ottolenghi, and others pology, friends and critics of Lombroso became added convincing data regarding the interrelation- more clearly demarcated and vociferous. Tarde's ship between morphological and psychological attack in Criminalitgcompare (1886) consisted in characteristics.'" Research since the 1920's has showing a lack of agreement on what stigmata to been led by Ottolenghi, Saporito, DeSanctis, use to identify the criminal; and this demonstra- Pende, Niceforo, Ceni, Grispigni, and Di Tullio.'4 tion of inconsistency among the anthropologists The chain of lombrosian continuity can be traced convinced many of his French colleagues. Laca- through these scholars to the present status of sagne, Manouvrier, Joly, and Topinard (successor research in Italy, best reflected in the competent of Broca and director of the Archives d'Anthro- work of Benigno di Tullio, who is the most out- pologie) wrote articles opposing Lombroso's ideas. spoken heir of clinical criminology and forensic At the Second Congress in Paris in 1889, says psychiatry. The results of his work have appeared Gina Lombroso, 117 these men "vomitarono fuoco in numerous publications and were early sum- contro Lombroso." Defenders came to his side, marized in his book, Manuale di Antropologia e including Ferri, Garofalo, Laschi, Van Hamel, Psicologia Criminale, published in 1931. His latest Moleschott and many lesser known followers. edition of Principi di Criminologia Clinica e Anthropological societies concerned with criminal PsichiatriaForense (1960) makes abundantly clear behavior and based at least in part on Lombroso's the comprehensive clinical approach of the con- theories were founded in Buenos Aires, Petrograd, temporary Italian School, which emphasizes the Rio de Janeiro, and elsewhere. Kurella became individual, pragmatic, eclectic, treatment-oriented the leading defender of Lombroso in Germany approach. with publication of the former's Naturgeschichte In his studies, Di Tullio has support from des Verbrechers (1893), and in England Ellis schools of Forensic Medicine and from the present disseminated many of Lombroso's ideas through Italian correctional administration. The present publication of The Criminal (1890). But inde- Commissioner, Nicola Reale, provides govern- pendent investigations reported by Baer in Der mental recognition of the Italian clinical approach, Verbrecher it anthropologischer Beziehung (1893) and through his support the Institute at Rebibbia and by Goring in The English Convict (1913) were extremely damaging to concepts of the born ' For specific details of these researches and a good bibliography for this period, see Sellin, A New Phase criminal, and the voices of highly respected of Criminal Anthropology in Italy, op. cit. supra note scholars such as Hans Gross, von Oettingen, 59. 1 For details of this later period in Italy, see 14 CRIME: ITS CAUSES AND REMEDIES 58. Monachesi, Trends in Criminological Research in Italy, 147See Gina Lombroso's descriptions of these battles 1 Am. Soc. REv. 396 (1936); BEcKER & BARNEs, in LomBRosO-FERRERo, CESARE LOuBROSO, op. cit. SOCIAL THOUGHT FROM LORE To SCIENCE 1004-07 supra note 18, at 279ff. (2d ed. 1952). M. IRIN E. WOLFGANXG [Vol. 52

(Rome) has become one of the important centers known for his study of twins and concordant for clinical criminology, which Di Tullio designates criminal behavior. The crimino-biologists in Ger- as the new phase in the evolution of lombrosian many, says Cantor ' in his review of research in doctrine and criminal anthropology. Together that country during the 1930's. assumed that while with his two capable assistants, Ferracuti and no one is born predetermined to a life of crini., Fontanesi. Di Tullio has both continued a posi- heredity plays the more important role in determin- tivist lombrosian tradition and expanded earlier ing the manner in which one's social experience emphases on the psycho-physiological clinical will be undergone and a-imnlated. The series ot examinations of criminals. These examinations studies under the editor~hi, of F. Exner at the are deemed essential for understanding the moti- University of Munich was largely devoted to vational dylnamics of criminal behavior and are psychological and statistical studies undertaken to be used as an integral basis for treatment by lawyers and dealt widi particular offenses or programs.'5' Instead of the static approach of particular classes of criminals, but publication of Lombroso, this "iotvpological-constitutionalist" Exner's Kriminalbiologie (1939), in which he method, as Di Tullio calls it. seeks to study the refers to biologically "delinquent dispositions," dynamic processes of personality formation, places him in the post-lombrosian tradition. whether that personality be normal, abnormal, or Lombroso received little attention in the sick. References are made in his writings to the United States before the 1890's, largely because psychologically underdeveloped; the constitutional his major works remained untranslated into psychopath is compared to the constitutional English. Never has any" full edition of L'Uomno delinquent; and- in some delinquents, traits similar delinquente been translated into English even to 5 to the epileptic are still noted.' ' this day. However, both the abridged, summary, To the list of those who have continued the and sketchy version written by his daughter, post-lombrosian framework of reference in their Gina, which was available in 1911, and Crime: Its research and writings should be added Vervack Causes and Remiedies, published in 1912 under the in Belgium, Saldafta in Madrid, and Berardinelli auspices of the American Institute of Criminal in Rio de Janeiro. But Germany and Austria have Law and Criminology, increased the publicity reflected the influence of this tradition probably given to his theories. Before this time, Fletcher, more than other countries outside of Italy. From then president of the Anthropological Society of the work of Kretschmer's psychiatric clinic and Washington, D.C., wrote on "The New School of his famous Kdrperbau und Charakler (1921), Criminal Anthropology" in the American Anthro- scholars had a new and firmer basis for asserting pologist (July, 1891); after his recital of European the significance of the relationship between crime, works, he declared that nothing had yet been character, and constitution. The Bavarian in- done in the United States. William Noyes had vestigations of the period prior to World War II uncritically adopted the Lombrosian position in included studies by Lenz, in charge of the crimino- his 1888 article on "The Criminal Type," and biological station at Graz and who spoke of the Hamilton Wey (1890) and James Weir (1891) had criminal as a unified system of biological disposi- summarized criminal anthropology.'1' August tions; Vierstein, director; and Lange, who is best Drahms, chaplain of San Quentin prison at Lhe 150For further details on the contemporary Italian time, asked Lombroso to write the introduction to School. see the following as examples: Di TULLiO, his book, The Criminal (1900), in which Lombroso PRINCIPI DI CRInNOLOGIA CLINICA E PSICHIATRIA said, "I have not had the good fortune for some FORENSE (Roma 1960); Di TutLto, ANTROPOLOGIA time to find an author who so thoroughly CRIMUNALE (Roma 1940); Di TuLo, MANUEL D'- under- ANTHROPOLOGIE CRIMINELLE (Paris 1951); Di Tullio, L'Endocrinologia e la morfologia constittizionale in 152 Cantor, Recent Tendencies in Criminological Re- antropologiaz criminale, Z.\CCRsA 1 (July-Oct. 1923); Di search in Germany, 1 Am. Soc. REV. 407 (1936). Gennaro, Ferracuti & Fontanesi, L'Esamne della 113Fletcher, The New School of CrininalAnthropology personalild del candannato nell'fsiluto di Osserra:ione 4 Amr. ANTHROPOLOGIST 201 (1891); Noyes, The Crind- di Rebibbia, ATTI DEL PRIMO CONVEGNO INTER.NAZIO- nal Type, J. Soc. Scr. 31 (1888); Wey, Criminal NALF DI CRIMI-NOLOGI CLINICA (Roma, April. 1958), Anthropology, PROCEEDINGS OF THE NAT'L PRISON published in RASSEGNX or STUDI PENITEXZI.\Rl 371 Ass',v 274 (1890); Weir, Criminal Anthropology, 45 fMay-June 1958). MEDICAXL RECORD 42 (1894). All of these references and '51 Di Tullio, Cesare Lombroso. 4 SC1ENTIA MEDICA a description of the first influences of Lombroso in ITALICA 133 (1955). See also. DI TLLIO. PRINCIPl D America may be found in FrxI\. CAUSES OF CRIME: CRIMINOLOGIA CLINIC' 14. 17, 67, 73-74. 78. as ex- BIoLoOGIcAL TiiCORTS IN THlE UNITED STATES eS). amples, (1954). 99-133 (1938). CESARE LOMBROSO

stands my ideas and is able to express them with the native-born white male inmate population in so much clearness, as the author of this book."'15 Illinois had failed to supply convincinig evidence Arthur .MacDonald's Criminology had been dedi- of a relationship between offense, type of bud- cated to Lombroso as early as 1893, and while build, and temperament, although the authors were Lombroso's ideas were not unknown to American themselves satisfied with their findings. A more students even before this time, it was probably recent report on crime and constitution is William Drihms' book that most fully and fairly presented Sheldon's study'r of the relationship between these ideas in America. Thereafter, a number of delinquency and somatotypes. He claims that three lesser known persons, mostly physicians, wrote temperamental types and three psychiatric types about degeneration, the criminal brain, the are closely related with three basic somatotypes, triminal cranium, and other anatomical deviations. and that in an analysis of delinquents compared About the time that an increase in endocrino- with non-delinquents significant differences emerge logical research was taking place in Italy, Schlapp with respect to these various components. His and Smith produced their "consideration of the general approval of Hooton's work is explicit, chemical causation of abnormal behavior" in and his observations of delinquents convinced The New Criminology (1928). These authors him that "where essential inadequacy is present sought to show that children born malformed the inadequacy is well reflected in the observable through chemical imbalance due to disturbances structure of the organism." The damaging critique of the ductless glands show gross defects and "are by SutherlandM8 probably reflects the thinking of- typical criminals of Lombroso. They exhibit the most American criminologists regarding Sheldon's physical stigmata to which he attached so great study. Sutherland remarks: "Ifis data, in fact, an importanceiM The major study of mor- do not justify any of these conclusions, either that phology and crime in the United States was the delinquents are different from the non-de- The American Criminal, by Hooton (1939), whose linquents in general, or that the difference if it focus has been called "neo-lombrosian" and who exists indicates inferiority, or that the inferiority became associated with the constitutional school if it exists is inherited." in biology and psychology. Within a theoretical Sheldon's somatotypes have been used in frame of reference which assumed that consti- Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck's Unraveling Juvenile tutional (hereditary) differences denoted superi- Delinquency ( 1950))1M Physique and Delinquency ority or inferiority of basic organisms, his empiric (1956) proceeds under the hypothesis that if data, based upon a highly inadequate control bodily structure is relevant to delinquency, then group, led him to conclude that criminals were the a number of (mainly) personality traits and result of environment operating upon inferior sociocultural factors should be found to vary biological organisms. The methodological faults of among the physique types. In all, 67 personality this study were widely discussed, and they further traits and 42 sociocultural factors are analyzed in dissuaded overtures to investigate criminal be- relation to body structure. The study is in the havior from the lombrosian or neo-lombrosian positivist, eclectic, multidimensional tradition and perspective. certainly can be considered an historic heir of Earlier attempts by 'Mohr and Gundlachli 6 Lombroso. However, the Gluecks are cautious in to apply Kretschmer's theory and typology to their interpretations, are supported by sophisti- cated statistical manipulations, and are quite 151Lombroso, Introduction to DRAtMS, TIHE CRIMI- NAL (1900). explicit in their wishing to be absolved from a 15,ScnLAPP & E. H. SMITH, THE NEW CRIMINOLOGY unilateral approach when they remark that "the 72-73 (1928). For good reviews of endocrinological present work is not animated by altl notion of literature relative to crime, see KINBERG, BASIC PROBLEMS OF CRIMINOLOGY (Copenhagen 1935); .7SHELDON, VARIETIES OF l)ELI\QUENT YOUTH HURWITZ, CRIMINOLOGY (Copenhagen 1952). See also, (1949). Berman, Crime and the Endocrine Glands, 12 Am. J. 158Sutherland, Critique of Sheldon's VARIETIEs OF PSYCHIATRY 226 (1932); Podolsky, The Chemical Brew DELINQUENT YOUTH, 16 Am. Soc. Rvv. 10 t1951). qf Criminal Behaior, 45 J.CRim. L., C. & P. S. 675 A detailed review of the methods and research deal- (1955). ing with crime and constitution may he found in 116Mohr & Gundlach, The Relation Between Physique Snodgrasse, Crime and The Constitutfion: Human. A and Perfornance, 10 J. EXPERIMENTAL PSYCiHOLOGY Sur.ey, 42 J. CRiM. L., C. & P. S. 18 (1951). 117 (1927); Mohr & Gundlach, A FurtherStudy of the 5'SIIELDONY & ELEANOR (LVFCK. UNHAVI.IxcG Relation Between 'hysique and Performance in Crini- J'VVINiLE DELINQUFNCY (19501; also, their P'ivi~~'l: nals, 24 J. ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOO 91 (1929-30). AND I)ELINQUENCY, (1956). MARVIN E. IWOLFG.4NG [Vol. 52

rez-pectful reawakening of the somnolent Loin- be credited to Lonbroso. In penology, his em- brosian theory that 'e criminal' is a distinct phasis on the importance of understanding per- hereditarv species of 'atavistic' or of degenerative sonality traits of the offender and on individualiza- nature. Nor is it begun with any preconception tion of treatment has long been academically that bodily structure is the most weighty etiologic accepted and is increasingly emploved in the factor, or matrix of influence, in criminogenesis. It administration of diagnostic centers, probation, is merely found to be a promising focus of at- parole. and classification systems. We now hold tention .... ,'6 This statement is probably a that the evolution of man has not been along the valid reflection of whatever vestige of Lombroso's simple lines followed by Lombroso. and the theory etiologic ideas of the criminal type may remain in that the criminal is physically atavistic has been American criminology. abandoned. But his later concern with psychologi- cal differences among criminals has formed A CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVE the basis for much contemporary research. A review of the life, research, and continuing By his supporters Lombroso has been referred influence of Lombroso cannot fail making obvious to as a scientific Columbus who opened up a new the relationship he bears to contemporary crimi- field for exploration, and his insight into human nology. The institutional and general sociological nature has been compared to that of Shakespeare approach to an analysis of crime and the criminal and Dostoevski. Perhaps these encomia are predominates in American criminology, and with exaggerations, but also from the man generally its emphasis on culture conflict, subcultures, believed most responsible for refuting Lombroso anomie, and social leviance, this approach may we are told that "all thinking people today, appear far removed from the anthropometry of legislators and judges, as well as the general Lombroso. Nonetheless, even this approach is public, the morality of the age. as well as the indebted to Lombroso for shifting focus from voice of science, attest the truth which Lombroso metaphysical, legal, and juristic abstraction as a was the first to enunciate as the fundamental basis for penology to a scientific study of the principle of criminology and penology: the princi- criminal and the conditions under which he ple that it is the criminal and not the crime we commits crime. Research anywhere that con- should study and consider; that it is the criminal tinues to examine differences between a delin- and not the crime we ought to penalize."'' Even Bonger remarked that "Lombroso's merits in the (1uent and non-delinquent population, or that seeks to analyze differences within the criminal group, field of criminal law are exceptionally great. He can find its framework antedated by Lomboroso. has, indeed, given the impulse to a revolutionary movement the effects of which cannot, as yet, Contemporary endocrinological and biotypological - studies are direct outgrowths of his most pervasive be estimated."" And van Kan says, "Cesare and consistent thinking. The clinical, psychological, Lombroso has the glorious merit of having been the great instigator of ideas in criminology, and psychiatric analyses of today that report data he on personality traits (some of which are dependent created systems and conceived of ingenious and bold hypotheses."' In his treatise on penitentiary upon organic structure and function) are similar 64 to, but much more refined and sophisticated than, science and social defense, Pinatel in France many of the '" GORINO, op. cii. supra note 94, at 11. findings reported by Lombroso. 162Bonger, op. cit. supra note 37, at 76. 63 The constitutional psychopath, or sociopath, is a 1 VAN KAN, op. cit. supra note 131, at 59. Even psychiatric category only a little less nebulous and Benedikt, who had often criticized Lombroso's theories, amorphous in conceptualization than terms and said at the Third Congress at Brussels (1892): "If Lombroso had created nothing more than the phrase ideas used by Lombroso to designate similar Uomo delinquente, v-hich contains a great idea and a individuals and specific forms of criminal behavior. great program, and had discovered nothing else than The common multiple-factor analysis is related to Enrico Ferri, he still would have done enough for Science to be immortal." AcrEs Du TROISidME CONGRkS his search for all kinds of positive facts. The wide INTERNATIONAL D'ANTHROPOLOGIE CRIMINELLE, op. diffusion of the deterministic (in lieu of the free cit.1 6supra1 note 116, at 276. PINATEL, TRAIT L MENTAIRE DE SCIENCE will) approach to an understanding of crime and PENITENTIARE ET DE D-FENSE SOCIALE (Paris 1950). the most appropriate means for treatment should Pinatel agrees with Vervaeck (La ithoric lombrosienne et l'r,'olution de i'anthropologie crininelle, ARcUnvEs 160 SHELDON & ELEANOR GLUECK, PIIYSIQUE AND D'ANTHROPOLOGIE 561 (1910)) that Lombroso was )ELINQI'ENCY 2 (1956). "the first worker of the reform of our judicial and CES.IRE LOJ[BROSO gives credit to the positivist doctrine that de- relation of the individual and his society was a veloped from Lombroso and that has substituted phenomenon he did not fail to consider. In any for punishment, responsibility, and equality the case, as Sellin has well said: "Whether Lombroso notions of social defense, tnililimd (the danger the was right or wrong is perhaps in the last analysis individual presents to society), and individualiza- not so important as the unquestionable fact that tion. his ideas proved so challenging that they gave an This review of Lombroso's work should dispel unprecedented impetus to the study of the offender. the contention of some contemporary authors that Any scholar who succeeds in driving hundreds of Lombroso and his school "'delayed for fifty years fellow-students to search for the truth, and whose the work which was in progress at the time of its ideas after half a century possess vitality, merits 16 origin and in addition made no lasting contribu- an honorable place in the history of thought.' lion of its own."' 65 The fears of these critics that Living up to the etymology of his name, Lombroso Lombroso diverted attention from social to illuminated the scientific study of criminal be- individual phenomena reveal their basic mis- havior with many provocative ideas and deserves understanding of his work and its effect; for, as has a place of honor in his own field. been indicated, Lombroso served to redirect Lombroso's statements at the opening and emphasis from the crime to the criminal, not from closing sessions of the Sixth International Congress social to individual factors, The reciprocal inter- at Turin in 1906 provide a fitting close to this review of his life and work: ". the oldest soldier superannuated penitentiary system." See Pinatel, La of Criminal Anthropology I have the honor of ie et l'oeutire de Cesar Lombroso, BuLrETTN, SOCIfTI' IN'TERNATIONALE DE CRIMI.OLOGIE 217 (2e semstre opening this Sixth Congress, which will be the 1959). last one for me, but for all of you will be only a 15 SUTHERLAND & CRESSEY, PRINCIPLES OF CRIMI- NOLOGY 55 (5th ed. 1955). See also, Lindesmith & step towards greater exploits.... Your energy Levin, op. cit supra note 81, who express similar views. more than reassures me for the toils, spent in In answer to the charge that Lombroso set back re- thirty years of this work. The idea that it represents search in criminology fifty years, Sellin has said: "The fact that he succeeded in getting many psychiatrists and developed, strengthened and handed down to others with a natural science training to concentrate on posterity by you will not die-quasi cursores vitae the study of the offender could hardly have caused lampada tradunt,"'' sociologists or others interested in environmental theories to fold their tents, nor is there the slightest 166 Sellin, The Lombrosian .fytyh in Criminelegy, reason to suppose that, had Lombroso never existed, (Letter to the Editor), 42 AM. J. Soc. 898 (1937). the social science approaches to the problem of crime '6" COMPTESRENDUS DU Ve CONGRtS INTERNATIO.AL would have enjoyed any greater prosperity." En D'ANTHROPOLOGIE CRIMINELLE, xxxi, xxxvi (Turin hislorik aterblick, op. cit. supra note 42. 1908).