Trends in Criminological Research in Italy

Abstract

WX THEN IN I87i Lombroso found in the cranium of the notorious bandit Villella an occipital depression usually found in the anthropoid apes in place of the occipital crest found in man, much that is now known as criminal anthropology and biology was born. This discovery, made over sixty years ago, dominates all of the more important efforts of the present day Italian criminologists toward the understanding of criminal behavior. The hypothesis germinated in the mind of the much-abused Lombroso is well known: the deviation noted in Villella's cranium led him to the formulation of the theory concerning the atavistic nature of crime. This theory was supplemented by the concept regarding association between criminality and insanity, both of which he believed were caused by atavism. In testing this theory Lombroso became convinced that criminality and insanity were expressions of the same thing; namely, degeneracy. He called criminality a variety of epilepsy in which irresistible and violent impulses to commit criminal acts take the place of convulsions. Thus was conceived the born criminal, the cardinal concept in the Lombrosian scheme. In the course of time, and following investigations, it became imperative to modify and broaden the concept of the born criminal. The criminal came to be regarded successively as primitive or savage in character, degenerate, morally insane, and suffering from some form of epilepsy. Lombroso's work and writings precipitated a violent conflict whose major battles were fought at the International Congress of Criminal Anthropology at Paris in i885 and at the International Congress of Criminal Anthropology at Brussells in i892. Lombroso was accused of having arrived at generalizations on meager and incomplete data, of having ignored the role of environment in human behavior, of having given too much importance to physical abnormalities, and of having attempted to draw attention to himself by proposing dramatic and fantastic theories. Later, the work of Goring