Anthropological Criminology
Considered by many as the father of modern criminology since he was a pioneer in using science to connect to crime, Cesare Lombroso was heavily influenced by the theory of evolution by Charles Darwin that was published in Europe in the 1860s. This is commonly named Darwinism. The theory says humans evolved from animals through a process of mutations and natural selection. Lombroso applied Darwin's theory to the ideas of crime causation. Eventually he produced a working theory, called anthropological criminology, based on the concept of atavism. Atavism says criminals are members of society that have regressed in their evolutionary advancement as evidenced by certain physical traits.
It didn't just end with atavism though. Lombroso had a student that was heavily inspired by his ideas. This is where Raffaele Garofalo came in.
Raffaele Garofalo & Criminology
Born in 1851 in Naples Italy, Raffaele Garofalo became one of Italy's leading criminologists. As mentioned before, Garofalo was a student of Cesare Lombroso. Like his mentor, Raffaele Garofalo rejected the classical view of free will saying that criminals were slaves to impulses out of their control. However, Garofalo, like many of his contemporary criminologists, didn't accept his teacher's view regarding physical traits (e.g., big forehead or large head), rather he linked criminal behavior to a defect in their physiological make up. Garofalo worked as a magistrate in the Italian court system, served as a senator, and eventually became the Minister of Justice in 1903. This intimate view of the workings of the justice system gave Garofalo an unprecedented perspective to the problem of crime and punishment.
As evidence of this criminal deviation, Garofalo defined crime, not as a violation of a law, but as a violation of nature. An act was a crime if it violated human nature in either of two forms: probity, which is honesty and integrity, or pity, which is compassion for others. These acts that violated nature were mala in se (evil in themselves). Other acts that broke the law but were absent the violation of human nature were, mala prohibita (technical violation of the law). The technical violations of the law can be dealt with by changing the law or a civil fine. However, acts against humanity must be dealt with harshly to protect society.
Garofalo rejected the classical view that punishment should be proportional. For each crime, the individual should be examined. If that person violated the natural laws of probity and pity, then they should be ''eliminated.'' If they broke a technical offense, then no serious punishment was warranted. Garofalo created the Law of Adaption as a means for eliminating those natural law violators.
He suggested three means of elimination:
- Death
- Partial elimination, meaning long-term prison or isolation in agricultural colonies for young offenders where there is hope for rehabilitation; and finally,
- Enforced reparation, which means making amends for the crime
In cases of youth or special circumstances where outside pressures influenced the conduct, then a lighter sentence as there exists likelihood that criminal behavior won't continue.
He listed three societal benefits of his Law of Adaption:
- First, it satisfied society's demand for punishment.
- Second, the elimination principle had a deterrence effect.
- Third, the application of this law would slowly improve the ''stock'' of humanity by ridding the society of defective ''stock.''
Lesson Summary
All right, let's take a moment or two to review what we've learned. Criminology, the study of crime and the search for its causation, can be divided into two groups. First, the classical theories, which state that humans have free will, and criminal behavior is a result of bad choices, which can be corrected through proportional punishment, with proportional punishment meaning more severe crimes get harsher punishments. Second, modern criminology, which rejects free will and suggests that through reason, rationality, and science, society can understand the causation of crime and formulate the proper response. Its backbone was that of empiricism, which is the use of reason, knowledge, and experimental investigations to discover life's truths. Finally, there was anthropological criminology, a creation of Cesare Lombroso, which states that humans that have physical traits such as overly large forehead, a big head, or asymmetry of head or faces, were indications of atavism and criminal behavior, with atavism being evolutionary regression.
Raffaele Garofalo, a pupil of Lombroso, a magistrate, senator, eventually the Minister of Justice, and most importantly one of Italy's leading criminologists likewise rejected the concept of free will and proportionalism. Instead of the physical trait linkage his teacher developed, Garofalo suggested that humans exhibit psychological traits, outside of their control, that made them commit crimes. He defined crime as those acts that violated human nature in two forms: probity, which is honesty and integrity, or pity, which is compassion for others. Either violation exposed a deficiency in a person who should be punished under his Law of Adaption, which proposed to eliminate the deficiency in one of three ways: death, imprisonment or isolation, or reparation.
