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Is There Evidence of a Physical Basis for Criminal Behavior William B Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Volume 31 Article 6 Issue 4 November-December Winter 1940 Is There Evidence of a Physical Basis for Criminal Behavior William B. Tucker Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/jclc Part of the Criminal Law Commons, Criminology Commons, and the Criminology and Criminal Justice Commons Recommended Citation William B. Tucker, Is There Evidence of a Physical Basis for Criminal Behavior, 31 Am. Inst. Crim. L. & Criminology 427 (1940-1941) 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. IS THERE EVIDENCE OF A PHYSICAL BASIS FOR CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR? William B. Tucker2 In the field of the social sciences the United States and abroad, has been there has been approximately as much concerned with efforts along many lines investigation into the cause of crime to ascertain more dearly the causes of as there has been, in the biological crime and the delineation of the crim- sciences, research into the etiology of inal. European investigations have cancer. In the one case crime may be more generally been concerned with broadly regarded as a malignant physical, biological and psychiatric fac- growth in a social body-anti-social be- tors; American research, for reasons havior. In the other, cancer is a ma- that do not need to be elaborated here, lignant growth in an organic body- has dealt primarily with the psychologi- anti-organic behavior. In the search cal and sociological parts of the picture. for the causes of either, in order to Each group has contributed facts to facilitate control, prevention and eradi- the mounting body of knowledge of cation, both environmental and heredi- the etiology of crime. Sutherland3 tary factors have been exhaustively groups the various theories of crime studied. The parallel of course is far as follows: (a) biological, (b) person- from perfect. No clear-cut answer to ality, (c) primary social groups, (d) the question of etiology in either case broader social processes. From the can be given at the present time. Lack- many theories expounded and the facts ing such a complete answer, known presented it has been inevitable that facts must be examined, to understand confusion should still exist, for, as either condition, and to guide us in Draper' has pointed out, "The causes our understanding of either problem. of crime in general are extremely com- As the physician will not have plex and multiple. No single cause has marked success in the control of can- been scientifically determined as the cer without greater understanding of responsible agent for criminality." its causes, so there seems to be general Perhaps because the biological fac- agreement among sociologists and crim- tors in the etiology of crime have re- inologists that there can be no appreci- ceived comparatively little attention in ably effective control of crime without this country, the recent contribution greater knowledge of its etiology. The of Hooton5, on the role of the physical research of the past twenty years, in make-up in etiology of crime, has re- I Revised version of address before the Chicago 4Draper, Paul A.: Mental Abnormality in Academy of Criminology, November 10, 1939. Relation to Crime, Amer. Jour. of Med. Juris- 2 Frank Billings Medical Clinic, University of prudence, 2: 161 (March-April), 1939. Chicago. 3 Sutherland, E. L: Principles of Criminology, 5Hooton, Earnest Albert: The American Philadelphia and New York, J. B. Lippincott Criminal: An Anthropological Study, Cam- Co., 1939, p. 55. bridge (Mass.), Harvard University Press, 1939. [427] WILLIAM B. TUCKER ceived extraordinary attention and Hooton is well aware of the fact that criticism. Hooton's thesis, briefly stated, he is walking on ground unpopular is that there is a physical basis for among students of crime. He says in criminal behavior, whatever other fac- this connection': tors play a role. He carefully delineated Distrust of anatomical guides through the scope of his investigation of 14,477 the maze of human conduct has resulted criminals, county jail inhabitants, and in a flat denial of the relationship of the deliquents (as compared with 3,203 body to the mind and to behavior, loudly non-criminal controls) when he said voiced by bigoted social scientists and feebly echoed by timorous students of in his summary volume of Lowell In- human biology. stitute Lectures6 : A finger here is put on a vital spot in It is no part of this research to examine the extent to which the criminal's be- our body of scientific knowledge, both havior is determined by his mental de- sociological and biological: is there any ficiency or sufficiency, or by the state of his mental health. Nor is it incum- relationship between morphology and bent upon us to ascertain to what pre- function? Hooton's work can be under- cise degree the career of the delinquent stood only in the light of the under- is an effect of his social environment. Our task is to study the physical charac- standing of this larger problem. teristics of criminals for the purpose of discovering whether or not these are As we have pointed out, a vast related to antisocial conduct. amount of work has been done in in- Aside from whatever crijicisms that vestigating the relations between man's may be made of Hooton's methodology constitution and his behavior. The idea and of his interpretation of his results, is ancient. Aristotle hypothecated a there should be no criticism of this relationship between form and be- approach. Man, criminal or non-crim- havior. Celsus, 2000 years ago, claimed inal, is an organic being, born with a a relationship between constitution and more or less immutable organic struc- function. Polemonis in the third cen- ture, functioning within the limits of tury A.D., Adamantius a century later, his genetic structure under the in- Avicenna in the eleventh century, and fluence of his environment. As Hooton Giambattista della Porta in the six- intimates, others have chosen to ex- plain crime in terms of intelligence, teenth century, claimed that similar mental deficiency, psychiatric states, correlations exist. Walkington in 1663 and many psycho-social conditions. correlated constitution with psychiatric Hooton chooses to test the validity of disturbances; John Hunter, recognizing the thesis that the physical structure the complex nature of constitution, of the individual is likewise a contrib- studied its relationship in disease in utory factor. fairly scientific fashion in the eight- 6Hooton, Earnest Albert: Crime and the Man, s Tucker, W. B., and Lessa, W. A.: Man: A Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard University Press, Constitutional Investigation, Quart. Rev. Biol. 1939, p. 5. 7Hooton, E. A.: Crime and the Man, op. cit., 15 no. 3 (Sept.) and no. 4 (Dec.), 1940. p. 3. EVIDENCE OF A PHYSICAL BASIS eenth century; and many others wrote crania of civilians of the same ethnic of such relationships. and racial origin, will provide the only solution of the problem. It was therefore perhaps natural that Not agreeing with Lombroso's unten- this tendency, to note a relationship able conclusions as to atavistic and de- between form and function, should generative traits, Hooton does caution have been carried too far. Gall and against drawing the conclusion that all Spurzheim, 9 at the end of the eight- of Lombroso's results are erroneous. eenth and in the early part of the The tide had turned. The philosophi- nineteenth centuries published their cal observations of early writers, the which has since work on phrenology, inadequate data of the earliest scien- that"constitutional been so discredited tists, the overdrawn conclusions of the from studies have not yet recovered phrenologists, the fairly obvious loop reflected from the over- the disrepute holes in many of Lombroso's argu- enthusiasm of the phrenologists. Yet ments, led to a mounting distrust of the there are in Spurzheim's work observa- constitutional approach, in the light of with tions which are in accordance the newer science. Dr. Charles Goring present-day scientific knowledge. set out avowedly to disprove Lom- It was in this setting, about forty broso's thesis, and his book, "The Eng- years after Gall and Spurzheim, that lish Convict"", published in 1913, is C6sare Lombroso published his famous widely accepted as having accomplished 0 book, "L'Uomo Deliquente"' . Its con- this purpose. But Goring, too, had in- tents, as well as the dicta later pro- adequate control data, in addition to a pounded by Lombroso and his follow- strong and open antagonism to the ers, Garofalo, Ferri, and others, are Lombrosian doctrine, and his conclu- too well known among criminologists sions must likewise be accepted with to need restating. As Ross" has pointed reserve. In spite of Goring's bias, his out, Lombroso "had poor and scanty inadequate controls, and his question- data and preceded the development of able statistical manipulations, it is im- 2 modern statistics." Hooton" says of portant to note that he says "there is Lombroso's work: no such thing as an anthropological No impartial and accurate investiga- criminal type", but 14 tor has taken the trouble to go into the question with sufficient thoroughness despite this negation and upon the evi- either to refute or to confirm Lombroso's dence of our statistics, it appears to be claims. A completely new survey of all an equally indisputable fact that there documented crania, carefully distin- is a physical, mental, and moral type of guished as to race and nationality and person who tends to be convicted of compared with adequate samples of the crime ..
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