Lombroso's conception of the "atavistic born criminal"
The central idea of Lombroso's work came to him as he autopsied the body of a notorious Italian alleged criminal named Giuseppe Villella. Villella's label as a criminal is disputed as northern Italian racism toward southern Italians. As he contemplated Villella's skull, he noted that certain characteristics of it (specifically, a depression on the occiput that he named the median occipital fossa) reminded him of the skulls of "inferior races" and "the lower types of apes, rodents, and birds". The term Lombroso used to describe the appearance of organisms resembling ancestral (prehuman) forms of life is '' atavism''. Born criminals were thus viewed by Lombroso in his earliest writings as a form of human sub-species (in his later writings he came to view them less as evolutionary throwbacks and more in terms of arrested development and degeneracy). Lombroso believed that atavism could be identified by a number of measurable physical stigmata, which included protruding jaw, drooping eyes, large ears, twisted and flattish nose, long arms relative to the lower limbs, sloping shoulders, and a coccyx that resembled "the stump of a tail." The concept of atavism was glaringly wrong, but like so many others of his time, Lombroso sought to understand behavioral phenomena with reference to the principles of evolution as they were understood at the time. If humankind was just at one end of the continuum of animal life, it made sense to many people that criminals — who acted "beastly" and who lacked reasoned conscience — were biologically inferior beings. Thus understood, atavism became a popular concept, used for instance by the novelist Émile Zola in the '' Rougon-Macquart''.Typology of criminals
In addition to the "atavistic born criminal", Lombroso identified two other types: the "insane criminal", and the "criminaloid". Although insane criminals bore some stigmata, they were not "born criminals"; rather they become criminal as a result "of an alteration of the brain, which completely upsets their moral nature." Among the ranks of "insane criminals" were alcoholics,Ferri's penology
Ferri was instrumental in formulating the concept of "social defense" as a justification forGarofalo's "natural" definition of crime
Garofalo is perhaps best known for his efforts to formulate a "natural" definition of crime. Classical thinkers accepted the legal definition of crime uncritically; crime is what the law says it is. This appeared to be rather arbitrary and "unscientific" to Garofalo (like the British-American system of linear measurement) who wanted to anchor the definition of crime in something natural (like tying linear measurement to the circumference of the earth, as in the metric system). Garofalo felt that definitions of crime should be anchored in human nature, by which he meant that a given act would be considered a crime if it were universally condemned, and it would be universally condemned if it offended the natural altruistic sentiments of probity (integrity, honesty) and pity (compassion, sympathy). Natural crimes are evil in themselves (''mala in se''), whereas other kinds of crimes (''mala prohibita'') are wrong only because they have been defined as such by the law. Garofalo rejected the classical principle that punishment should fit the crime, arguing instead that it should fit the criminal. As a good positivist, he believed that criminals have little control over their actions. This repudiation of free will (and, therefore, of moral responsibility) and fitting the punishment to the offender would eventually lead to sentencing aimed at the humane and liberal goals of treatment and rehabilitation. For Garofalo, however, the only question to be considered at sentencing was the danger the offender posed to society, which was to be judged by an offender's "peculiarities." By "peculiarities," Garofalo was not referring to Lombrosian stigmata, but rather to those particular characteristics that place offenders at risk for criminal behavior. He developed four categories of criminals, each meriting different forms of punishment: "extreme", "impulsive", "professional", and "endemic". Society could only be defended from extreme criminals by swiftly executing them, regardless of the crime for which they are being punished. Here Garofalo departed from Lombroso and Ferri, both of whom were against theSee also
* Alexandre Lacassagne, founder of another school of criminology in France, rival to LombrosoReferences
Further reading
*Gibson, M. (2002). ''Born to crime: Cesare Lombroso and the origins of biological criminology''. Westport, CT: Praeger. {{ISBN, 0-275-97062-0External links