Anthropological criminology

{{Short description|Subfield of anthropology}} {{Criminology}} [[File:Bertillon, Alphonse, fiche anthropométrique recto-verso.jpg|thumb|Anthropometric data sheet (both sides) of Alphonse Bertillon, a pioneer in anthropological criminology]]

'''Anthropological criminology''' (sometimes referred to as '''criminal anthropology''', literally a combination of the study of the human species and the study of criminal behaviour) is a field of offender profiling, based on perceived links between the nature of a crime and the personality or physical appearance of the offender.<ref name="Aggress. Violent Behav.">{{cite journal |last1=Duntley |first1=J. D. |last2=Shackelford |first2=T. K. |date=October 2008 |title=Darwinian foundations of crime and law |location=Amsterdam, Netherlands |journal=Aggression and Violent Behavior |publisher=Elsevier |volume=13 |issue=5 |pages=373–382 |doi=10.1016/j.avb.2008.06.002 |issn=1359-1789 |lccn=96640730 |s2cid=143101230}}</ref><ref name="Riv. Biol."/><ref name="Funct. Neurol."/>

Although similar to physiognomy and phrenology,<ref name="Kellor 1899"/> the term "criminal anthropology" is generally reserved for the works of the Italian school of criminology of the late 19th century (Cesare Lombroso, Enrico Ferri, Raffaele Garofalo, and Lorenzo Tenchini).<ref name="Riv. Biol."/><ref name="Funct. Neurol."/><ref name="Kellor 1899"/> Lombroso thought that criminals were born with detectable inferior physiological differences.<ref name="Riv. Biol."/><ref name="Funct. Neurol."/><ref name="Kellor 1899"/> He popularized the notion of "born criminal" and thought that criminality was a case of atavism or hereditary predisposition.<ref name="Aggress. Violent Behav."/><ref name="Riv. Biol."/><ref name="Funct. Neurol."/> His central idea was to locate crime completely within the individual and divorce it from surrounding social conditions and structures. A founder of the Positivist school of criminology, Lombroso opposed the social positivism developed by the Chicago school and environmental criminology.

==Mugshot and fingerprinting== {{multiple image |header=Alphonse Bertillon created a mugshot identification system for criminals prior to the invention of dactyloscopy |header_align=center |header_background=#CCCCFF |align=right |direction=horizontal |image1=Bertillon selfportrait.jpg |caption1=Bertillon selfportrait |width1=150 |image2=Fingerprintforcriminologystubs2.png |caption2=Fingerprint detail |width2=65 }}

French police officer and biometrics researcher Alphonse Bertillon (1853–1914) created a mugshot identification system for criminals prior to the invention of fingerprinting. Austrian criminal jurist and criminologist Hans Gross (1847–1915), regarded as the "Founding Father" of criminal profiling, was also involved in the development of the theory.<ref name="faculty.ncwc.edu">{{cite web |author= |date=2 October 2006 |title=Anthropological Criminology |url=http://faculty.ncwc.edu/toconnor/301/301lect03.htm |url-status=dead |website=faculty.ncwc.edu |location=Rocky Mount, North Carolina |publisher=North Carolina Wesleyan University |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061009044430/http://faculty.ncwc.edu/toconnor/301/301lect03.htm |archive-date=9 October 2006 |access-date=1 October 2025}}</ref>

==Theory== {{Main|Italian school of criminology}} {{Further|History of anthropometry}}

In the 19th century, Cesare Lombroso and his students performed autopsies on the cadavers of convicted criminals and declared that they had discovered similarities between the physiologies of the formers' bodies and those of "primitive humans" (i.e., non-human primates), such as monkeys and apes.<ref name="Riv. Biol."/><ref name="Funct. Neurol."/><ref name="Kellor 1899"/> Most of these similarities involved receding foreheads, height, head shape, and size; Lombroso postulated the theory of the born criminal based on these physical characteristics.<ref name="Funct. Neurol.">{{cite journal |last=Mazzarello |first=Paolo |date=July 2011 |title=Cesare Lombroso: An anthropologist between evolution and degeneration |location=Rome, Italy |journal=Functional Neurology |publisher=CIC Edizioni Internazionali |volume=26 |issue=2 |pages=97–101 |doi= |issn=1971-3274 |pmc=3814446 |pmid=21729591 |s2cid=42707544}}</ref> Moreover, he also declared that the female offender was worse than the male, as they had distinct masculine characteristics.

Lombroso outlined 14 physiognomic characteristics which he and his followers believed to be common in all criminals, some of which were (but are not limited to): unusually short or tall height; small head, but large face; fleshy lips, but thin upper lip; protuberances (bumps) on head, in back of head and around ear; wrinkles on forehead and face; large sinus cavities or bumpy face; tattoos on body; receding hairline; bumps on head, particularly above left ear; large incisors; bushy eyebrows, tending to meet across nose; large eye sockets, but deep-set eyes; beaked or flat nose; strong jaw line; small and sloping forehead; small or weak chin; thin neck; sloping shoulders, but large chest; large, protruding ears; long arms; high cheek bones; pointy or snubbed fingers or toes.<ref name="faculty.ncwc.edu"/>

Lombroso published several works regarding his research in the field of criminal anthropology: ''The Criminal Man'', ''The Female Offender'' (originally titled ''Criminal Woman, the Prostitute, and the Normal Woman'') and ''Criminal Man, According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso''.<ref name="Riv. Biol."/><ref name="Funct. Neurol."/><ref name="Kellor 1899">{{cite journal |last1=Kellor |first1=F. A. |date=January 1899 |title=Criminal Anthropology in Its Relation to Criminal Jurisprudence |location=Chicago, Illinois |journal=American Journal of Sociology |publisher=University of Chicago Press |volume=4 |issue=4 |pages=515–527 |doi=10.1086/210825 |doi-access=free |issn=1537-5390 |jstor=2761731 |jstor-access=free}}</ref>

===Social Darwinism=== The theory of anthropological criminology was influenced heavily by the theory of evolution of Charles Darwin (1809–1882).<ref name="Riv. Biol.">{{cite journal |last=Bergman |first=G. |date=January–April 2005 |title=Darwinian criminality theory: A tragic chapter in history |location=Perugia, Italy |journal=Rivista di Biologia |publisher=University of Perugia |volume=98 |issue=1 |pages=47–69 |issn=0035-6050 |lccn=75646630 |pmid=15889340 |s2cid=}}</ref> However, the influences came mainly from the political and racial views of Herbert Spencer that had reinterpreted Darwin's evolutionary theory in order to fit his own worldview based on the concept of social Darwinism, specifically that some human races were morally superior to others.<ref name="Riv. Biol."/> This idea was in fact spawned by Spencer but nevertheless formed a critical part of anthropological criminology.<ref name="faculty.ncwc.edu"/> The work of Cesare Lombroso was continued by social Darwinists in the United States between 1881 and 1911.

===Modern times=== {{Main|Eugenics|Nazi racial theories|Scientific racism}} {{Further|Anti-miscegenation laws|Racial hygiene|Social degeneration}}

Despite general rejection of Lombroso's theories, anthropological criminology still finds a place of sort in modern criminal profiling. Historically (particularly in the 1930s) criminal anthropology had been associated somewhat with eugenics as the idea of a physiological flaw in the human species was often associated with plans to remove such traits.

This was found primarily in the United States with the American Eugenics Movement between 1907 and 1939 and the Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation until the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and also in Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945, where 275,000–300,000 people with disabilities were killed<ref name="denkmal">{{cite web |title=Exhibition catalogue in German and English |url=https://www.stiftung-denkmal.de/fileadmin/user_upload/projekte/oeffentlichkeitsarbeit/pdf/T4_Flyer_2015_EN_Web.pdf |publisher=Memorial for the Victims of National Socialist ›Euthanasia‹ Killings |location=Berlin, Germany |year=2018 |access-date=4 March 2018 |archive-date=16 May 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170516185355/https://www.stiftung-denkmal.de/fileadmin/user_upload/projekte/oeffentlichkeitsarbeit/pdf/T4_Flyer_2015_EN_Web.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Euthanasia Program |url=https://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%206303.pdf |website=Yad Vashem |year=2018 |access-date=21 December 2022 |archive-date=21 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221221110017/https://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%206303.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Welle">{{cite web |title=Remembering the 'forgotten victims' of Nazi 'euthanasia' murders |url=https://www.dw.com/en/remembering-the-forgotten-victims-of-nazi-euthanasia-murders/a-37286088 |first=Jefferson |last=Chase |work=Deutsche Welle |date=26 January 2017 |access-date=21 December 2022 |archive-date=21 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221221110015/https://www.dw.com/en/remembering-the-forgotten-victims-of-nazi-euthanasia-murders/a-37286088 |url-status=live }}</ref>{{efn|As many as 100,000 people may have been killed directly as part of ''Aktion T4''. Mass euthanasia killings were also carried out in the Central and Eastern European countries and territories occupied by Nazi Germany during the war (''see'' Nazi war crimes). Categories are fluid and no definitive figure can be assigned but historians put the total number of victims at around 300,000.<ref name="Welle"/>}} in the concentration camps as part of Hitler's eugenics program to purify the "Aryan race" from perceived undesirable traits in accordance with the Nazi ideology and its racial policies.<ref name="faculty.ncwc.edu"/>

Criminal anthropology, and the closely related study of physiognomy, have also found their way into studies of social psychology and forensic psychology.<ref name="faculty.ncwc.edu"/> Studies into the nature of twins also combines aspects of criminal anthropology, as some studies reveal that identical twins share a likelihood of criminal activities more so than non-identical twins. Lombroso's theories are also found in studies of Galvanic skin response and XYY chromosome syndrome.

==Notes== {{notelist}}

==References== {{reflist}}

==Bibliography== * {{cite book |author-last=Black |author-first=Edwin |author-link=Edwin Black |year=2018 |orig-date=2003 |title=War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race |location=New York City |publisher=Barnes & Noble |edition=Reprint |isbn=9780914153399}} * {{cite book |author-last=Garbarino |author-first=Merwyn S. |year=1977 |title=Sociocultural Theory in Anthropology: A Short History |location=New York City |publisher=Holt, Rinehart, and Winston |isbn=978-0-88133-056-4}}

==External links== * {{cite web |author= |date=19 April 2018 |title=APA Dictionary of Psychology: "Criminal anthropology" |url=https://dictionary.apa.org/criminal-anthropology |website=dictionary.apa.org |location=Washington, D.C. |publisher=American Psychological Association |access-date=13 October 2025}} * {{cite web |author= |date= |title=USLegal Dictionary: "Anthropological criminology" |url=https://definitions.uslegal.com/a/anthropological-criminology/ |website=definitions.uslegal.com |publisher=USLegal, Inc. |access-date=13 October 2025}}

Category:Anthropometry Category:Criminology Category:Forensic anthropology Category:Medical malpractice Category:Offender profiling Category:Physiognomy Category:Political abuses of psychiatry Category:Race and intelligence controversy Category:Scientific racism