Cesare Lombroso

Abstract

Perhaps one of the pioneers of modern criminological studies is Cesare Lombroso. Lombroso was born in Verona (then under Austrian rule) in 1835. Cesare received a medical degree from the University of Pavia in 1858. In 1859 he received his post graduate degree in surgery from the University of Genoa. As soon as he graduated he enlisted as an army physician. It was during this time in the army that he started developing theories about criminal identification through physical and behavioural characteristics. According to the Lombrosian theory illustrated in the book "L'Uomo delinquente" (the delinquent man), serious and heinous offenders are born with criminalistic attitude and with physical features that tends to propel them towards delinquent behaviour; he emphasized that the primary causes of crime are the biological features that are mainly inherited. Lombroso acknowledged that besides the born criminal there are other kinds of criminals. One particular kind of criminals is the "criminaloid". This kind of criminal lacks most of the distinctive "atavistic features" (external looks) which are prominent in the "born criminal". Criminaloids are impelled towards crime by their passion towards easy money. Lombroso also studied the other types of criminals, such as the "insane criminal", whom he identified as a kind of a "more serious born criminal" who acts without any compassion, despicably, and impulsively, the "criminals by passion", who acts deviantly through an uncontrollable passionate moment, and the "occasional criminal of pseudo criminals", who is impelled into criminal activity by sociological and environmental factors. Although through the years the sociological factors prevailed as the main causal factors of crime, Lombroso's research was a great contribution to the early criminological studies of the modern world.