Anthropological Criminology

ANTHROPOLOGICAL CRIMINOLOGY
Anthropology is the most humanistic of the sciences and the most scientific of the humanities. (Alfred Kroeber)

Anthropological criminology is more precisely referred to by its historical name, criminal anthropology, which was a leading field in American criminology from 1881 to 1911, although worldwide it has a longer history. Some of the names associated with this field in the 1800s include Jacob Fries, Cesare Lombroso, Alphonese Bertillon, and Hans Gross, to name a few. Jacob Fries (1773-1843) was a philosopher in the field of theoretical anthropology who published a handbook on criminal anthropology in 1820 and was the first to suggest that the nature of a crime can be related to the personality of the offender -- a major assumption of profiling; Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909) was an Italian physician who was the leading figure of positivist criminology and is sometimes known as the father of criminology; Alphonse Bertillon (1853-1914) was a French law enforcement officer who created "anthropometry" -- a kind of mugshot system of identifying captured criminals long before fingerprinting was invented; and Hans Gross (1847-1915) was an Austrian professor who is regarded as the founder of "criminalistics," criminal psychology, investigative psychology, or applied criminology). Almost all forms of criminal anthropology held that the worst criminals were atavists -- genetic throwbacks to an earlier stage of human evolution -- or at least criminals were anatomically or physically different from law-abiding individuals. It should be obvious that criminal anthropology was heavily influenced by the ideas of Charles Darwin (1809-1882), originator of the famous theory of evolution. There are many misconceptions about the theory of evolution. No scientific Darwinist ever stated that one species or group of people were morally superior to another. This claim was made by an unrelated group of people called Social Darwinists (Herbert Spencer, William Graham Sumner, Thomas Malthus, and Francis Galton, to name a few) who believed in eugenics by "culling the herd" of the human population by keeping down poor people and minority groups. Criminal anthropology only held that if it could be proven criminals were different in their physiological characteristics, it stands to reason that they might be different in their psychological characteristics also.

This lecture is divided into two parts: Part A: old, discredited theories in criminal anthropology like physiognomy and phrenology; and Part B: modern, promising theories in anthropological criminology like symbolism, fundamentalism, and imitation.

First the discredited ideas -- between 1750 and 1850, two popular fields of scientific practice consisting of the PHYSIOGNOMISTS and PHRENOLOGISTS tried to prove that there were links between the propensity to engage in criminal behavior and unusual physical appearance (mostly the face, ears, or eyes) and the shape of the skull (bumps on the head being an indicator of dominant brain areas). The physiognomists studied facial appearance and the phrenologists studied bumps on the head. Both fields of study were quite influential at the time, and are lumped together in history books as part of criminal anthropology, early biological perspectives, the legacy of demonology (ugliness as the mark of evil), or in the 20th century, known as constitutionalism (the study of human physique, or constitution of the body). The search for a constitutionally determined "criminal man" continued up until 1950 when it was finally discredited.

Physiognomy is the making of judgments about people's character from the appearance of their faces or countenance. Its founder was J. Baptiste della Porte (1535-1615) who studied cadavers, and associated small ears, bushy eyebrows, small noses, and large lips with criminal offenders. Johan Kaspar Lavater (1741-1801) was another physiognomist who associated "shifty-eyed" people who had weak chins and arrogant noses with criminal behavior. No serious criminologist today gives much credence to physiognomy.

Phrenology is the study of the external characteristics of a person's skull as an indicator of his or her personality, abilities, or general propensities. Some bumps on the skull indicate lower brain functions (like combativeness). Other bumps represent higher functions and propensities (like morality). Crime occurs when the bumps indicate that the lower propensities are winning out over the higher propensities. Phrenologists believed that with mental exercise, a criminal might be reformed. The most eminent phrenologists were Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828) and his pupil, John Gaspar Spurzheim (1776-1832). The phrenologists turned out to be not all that off in where they thought certain brain functions (35 of them showing up on bumps) were located. The destructiveness center, for example, which is located right behind the ear above Darwin's point, is pronounced in 17% of criminals. Other bumps, in the back of the head, turned out to be pronouncements of the Amygdala and Hippocampus, where tumors are associated with criminal behavior (as in the Texas sniper, Charles Whitman). The general rule is that any abnormality in the back of the head is bad ("back is bad"). The association between other bumps (on the head) and moral (or intellectual) functions were badly mistaken by phrenologists (such as Gall), but in his defense, research methods had not been well-developed by 1835 (note that some people regard Gall as the first criminologist).

Criminal anthropology is the name usually thought of in regards to the work of Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909) and his followers who performed autopsies on criminals and found they had characteristics similar to primitive humans, monkeys, and chimpanzees. Some of the anomalies (differences or defects) found among criminals included head width, height, degree of receding forehead, head circumference, head symmetry, and so on. Lombroso had his Goring (1870-1919), a British scientist dedicated to disproving Lombroso. While Goring found height and weight differences, he concluded there was no such thing as a "born criminal" based on physical inferiority, and that, in fact, the statistical correlations between Lombroso's indicators were greater among law-abiding people. The idea of degeneracy lived on, however, and criminal anthropology in the U.S. was spearheaded by a diffuse group of Social Darwinists called degenerationists who were active between 1881 and 1911 (e.g. MacDonald's Criminology, Benedikt's Anatomical Studies upon Brains of Criminals, Talbot's Degeneracy, Lydston's The Diseases of Society, and Parsons' Responsibility for Crime; Fink's Causes of Crime, Haller's Eugenics are good secondary sources.) In 1911, Maurice Parmelee (whom some regard as an early founder, if not the founder, of American criminology) began rejecting anthropological theories, and ever since, sociological criminology has gone to great lengths to discredit any criminal anthropological ideas. Fortunately for sociology, this was easy, because the criminal anthropologists (like Cesare Lombroso and Ernst Kretschmer) didn't really develop any theories -- only typologies and profiles.

Cesare Lombroso (1836-1909), the father of modern criminology, and chief historical figure in the Italian positivist movement has the following works associated with his name:

For many years, Lombroso's text on the female criminal would have great influence. It described the female offender as worse than male offenders, contending that they had more masculine than feminine characteristics. Lombroso also popularized the notion of a "born criminal" which represents an extreme statement of biological determinism which had great influence well into the 20th Century (and for the founding of criminology) even though much of this thinking is now outdated except for the recurring idea that criminals have particular physiognomic defects or deformities. The born criminal would have 18 key indicators, but the indicators would be spread among the population and other types were possible, such as insane criminals and criminaloids. Most students are familiar with his checklist of physiognomic indicators.

Constitutionalism, or body-type theories, became popular in the 1920s mostly on account of the work of German psychiatrist Ernest Kretschmer (1888-1964), and in the 1930s mostly on account of the work of Ernest Hooton (1887-1954), a popular Harvard lecturer on physical anthropology and comparative anatomy. Kretschmer is also sometimes discussed in the history of profiling because his ideas were an attempt to relate body types to mental illnesses. Hooton is more familiar to Americans and studied thousands of criminals and noncriminals from eight different states, concluding that criminals are inferior to civilians in all physical respects. There were racist and sexist overtones to his work because he would say things like the Negroid forehead was a perfect example of a criminal forehead and that women could be classified by the spread of their butt cheeks. He got away with this stuff because he always said it in a humorous or witty fashion.

In the 1940s, the work of William Sheldon (1899-1977) followed on the heels of Hooton and shifted attention away from adults to the physiques of juvenile delinquents. Sheldon produced an "Index of Delinquency" based on three-way photographs which was used in many states to determine if a child in trouble should be institutionalized or not, and later as a way to classify prison inmates upon reception. Sheldon's approach is sometimes called somatotype theory. Sheldon's methods and results were given considerable support by Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck in the 1950s who found that narrow faces, wider chests, larger waists, and bigger forearms were associated with 60% of delinquents and only 30% of nondelinquents. The Gluecks would go on to study practically every known theory or idea in criminology so much that their approach became known as "eclectic" or multiple factor theory -- the notion that "everything causes crime."

Sheldon's classification of physique and temperament (somatotype theory) is as follows:

Each person possesses the characteristics of all three types. Sheldon therefore used three numbers, between 1 and 7, to indicate the extent to which the three types were evident in each person. A person whose somatotype is 7-1-4, for example, would have many endomorphic characteristics, very little mesomorphic characteristics, and an average number of ectomorphic characteristics. He found that the average institutionalized delinquent was a 3-5-2 somatotype. The Gluecks (always eclectic, or multiple factor, theorists) found that the average adult criminal was a 2-6-3 somatotype, and that 60% of delinquents were mesomorphs. Mesomorphy being associated with criminal behavior flew in the face of fitness gurus, like Charles Atlas, who were trying to shape up America. Body-type or constitutionalist theories in criminology have proven to be of little value in predicting criminal behavior.

In contemporary times, ideas about physical appearance still occasionally show up in criminology, however. All the constitutionalists studied tattoos, for example. They were never really able to make anything of it; they were just there for the study; lots of criminals had them. Tattoo removal (as well as plastic surgery) has found its way into a few correctional rehabilitation programs and serves a useful purpose in gang de-initiation (Kurtzberg et. al.. 1978). There's also a whole subspecialty field that, for lack of a better term, might be called the "physical attractiveness" studies (Cavior & Howard 1973; Agnew 1984) which suggest that ugliness really has got something to do with becoming a criminal, or at least how badly you get treated in court.

There's no necessary relationship between criminal anthropology and eugenics (the idea that a nation can save its stock by preventing reproduction of the unfit - negative eugenics -- and/or simultaneously encourage the fit to produce more offspring -- positive eugenics). A small number of criminal anthropologists support the idea of eugenics; another, larger group strongly rejects it. Almost all criminologists today would be appalled at the idea of eugenics theory, yet it remains in the background of criminology as the field tries to develop agenda-free information, but at one time (during the 1930s, eugenics was taken quite seriously).

Physiognomy, or at least some bits of it, will sometimes find its way into social psychology and forensic psychology, primarily in studies of attractiveness and beauty, and in studies of jury lenience depending upon the physical look of the defendant. This literature is not well-organized, and only appears to be of sporadic interest to researchers.

Twin studies have also looked at physical similarities and differences. Identical twins are more similar in their (criminal) behavior than fraternal twins, however, no definitive conclusions can be drawn from twin studies at this time. Adoption studies is another promising area of research, but again, strong causal statements are rare in the whole area of heredity-crime linkages.

The XYY chromosone syndrome became popular during the 1960s. People with this condition tend to be tall supermales who often exhibit aggression and violence. Some researchers have found that XYY types are more likely to have a criminal record. Other observers note that the prison populations are filled with fairly short people, a pattern noticed early on by physiognomists, who also took an interest in height.

Galvanic skin response (the rate at which electricity travels across the surface of the skin) is also a characteristic of mesomorphic criminality to some extent. Many criminals have slower GSR rates, which means they are somewhat more impervious to pain or at least might have a different neuromusculatory system.

An Aside Commentary on Demonology

     Although there's no connection between anthropology and demonology, for lack of a better place, it can be discussed here. Widely regarded as pseudoscientific, demonology sometimes is talked about as having had an influence on criminology. More than one scholar (Stitt 2003) has pointed out that both criminology and theology are concerned with combating evil. Demons can be defined either under an Old Testament version as "fallen angels" or under a New Testament version as "malignant spirits." Many of them, for which names are known, are involved with various temptations toward lust, mischief, and crime. If these notions were to be taken seriously, the key research question would be whether demons work by temptation or possession. The more scientific question in criminology is whether evil is too absurd a notion for serious consideration (Lyman 1973), but the word sometimes appears in discussions of psychopathy.
     Asmodeus was believed to be the most active demon, and he could take male or female form to fill people with an insatiable lust and desire for adultery, buggery, and child molestation. Belphegor, identified in the Jewish Kaballah, operated much the same way, but concentrated on breaking up romances and about-to-happen marriages. Beelzebub (not to be confused with Satan or Lucifer) was believed to be associated with murder, cannibalism, and anything to do with dead bodies (because of the flies he attracted). His favorite sin was gluttony whereas Lucifer's was pride. Sammael, the bat-winged demon, was also associated with the joy of taking life, or murder. Rakshasas, the vampire demon known mostly in India, also was associated with murderlust, reanimation of dead bodies, and perverting the holy.
     Modern demonology (as it might be called) is concerned less with identifying (and exorcising) the likes of demons with ancient names. Bloom (1997), for example, is representative of the modern approach which holds that the Devil is holed up in every single one of us. The desire to brutalize, murder, pillage and destroy, and to revel in the weeping of our enemy's women is hard-wired into our makeup.

It's difficult to describe a field as vast as anthropology or to even begin listing all the inroads into criminology. When I majored in this as an undergraduate, the choices were either physical or cultural anthropology, and those are about the only choices you get at the undergraduate level, and if you express an interest in crime or criminals, they tend to steer you towards physical anthropology which studies bones (presumably so you'll make a good crime scene investigator). However, the area of cultural or sociocultural anthropology is a much larger field (see Benedict 1934 or Garbarino 1977), and then there's symbolic anthropology (Douglas 1966), the field of social anthropology, and all sorts of hard-to-classify kinds of anthropology like Girard (1979). In this section, I'll try to explain some of the more popular contemporary anthropologists and why their ideas are so popular.

Mary Douglas' book Purity and Danger is probably one of the top ten most influential books ever written in the last 500 years. It is about the subject of ritual, and rituals are the ways societies and people mark out their boundaries. There are many kinds of rituals: for purification, reconciliation, renewal, purity, passage, and mourning, for example. Douglas is concerned with purity rituals, which relate to the feeling of safety from dangers such as crime. You might understand the idea as the notion that there are "lucky charms" which protect you from danger, and there are plenty of theological examples as well (the Ark of the Covenant; the Holy Grail), etc. Each person also has their "bubble space" for self-protection, which is a kind of purity ritual. The existence of an angry person in one's space is considered dangerous, and everything on the margins (of society; one's environment) is also considered strange or dangerous. When people do wrong things, they are also polluting the purity of the environment, and pollution rules are not as equivocal as moral rules. A pollution rule might call for the immediate execution of a transgressor, for example, while a moral code might give them the benefit of the doubt. Like others (Garfinkel 1967), Douglas is saying that our criminal justice system as well as what we consider rights and wrongs are determined by our underlying, inborn, ritualistic responses. We see criminals as contaminating our world (like dirt). Justice provides no guarantee, but our ritual impulses always come out.

Paul Ricoeur's book, The Just is a companion piece to his other book called Oneself as Another. In it, he develops what may be called a "fundamental anthropology" which focuses upon the affective or emotional sense of justice that we all feel as an object of desire. This goal of justice, says Ricoeur, has nothing to do with evil, vengeance, or any compensation for a slight, but instead is aimed at the primary goal of peace. Peace is the final destination of justice. Peace is achieved thru self-esteem and self-respect, and people who are just are people who have a expanded concept of the "other" which is the notion of a neutral third party who can (if called upon, hypothetically to) mediate our disputes over the subject of rights. Ricoeur goes on to say that every culture develops a meaningful conception of such a third party, and for most people, it's a conception of "everything and everyone." Those who commit crime are those who transgress this "me/you" relationship and selfishly pursue justice only for themselves by adding violence to violence, and suffering to suffering. There is also something that Ricoeur calls a "just distance" between the me and the you which has to do with the subjective sense of time or moment of justice. Our judicial systems fail to reflect this just moment because we are too caught up in prolonging the sensation of vengeance. Verdicts which establish peace are needed. Anthropologically, Ricoeur is comparing the justice process to the grief process or the healing process.

Rene Girard's book is about mimetic desire which comes from the word mimesis, meaning imitation. Much of his work hasn't been translated yet from the French, but it's obvious that the main inroad into criminology is with learning theory (Anderson 2003). If you've ever wondered why violence begets violence, then you should read this book. It stands as a classic example of how extensively the imitation concept can be put to use.

Anthropological criminology is about the human condition, our human nature, our human impulses, our human bodies, and how we always seem to be creating rules and regulations in our communities that reflect those basic things. People are diverse, and it is important to study how they get along, with all their different appearances, different languages, and different ways of life.

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Last updated: Nov 30, 2006
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