Lombroso Aimed to Be a True Adherent Essay

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Lombroso aimed to be a true adherent of the positivist theory in constructing his criminologist theory. The way that he used positivism however shows how empiricism -- or true science as it is otherwise known -- can be misused and can lead to erroneousness results.

Positivism is the orientation that attempts to follow empirical or sensory experience only and eschew metaphysical or spiritualist renderings. The irony of this was, at least in Lombroso's case, that his rendering of positivism when combined with criminology took him straight into metaphysics.

(This wasn't the only case where Lombroso's scientific manipulations led him into the mystical realm. Later on, he wrote books on spirits and seances claiming these to have empirical base too).

Cesare Lombroso (1835 -1909) saw crime as being an inherited or genetic feature that could be recognizable by experts according to certain physiognomy, or physical defects, that characterized someone as being atavistic or savage.

Criminals, he claimed were a throwback to an earlier, more primitive, Neanderthal form of man and this could be glimpsed in physical forms such as sloping forehead, ears of unusual size, asymmetry of the face, prognathism, excessive length of arms, asymmetry of the cranium, and other "physical stigmata.

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" All of these made them modern savages and throwbacks to an earlier form of animal-human.

According to Lombroso's reasoning, therefore, criminals were not to blame for their behavior; they were born so. In fact, given this reasoning, there was little to prevent one from becoming a criminal and treatment or cure was minimal if at all. The 'creature' was, after all, inherently, destined to become so by some eevolutionary error of nature.

Specific criminals, such as thieves, rapists, and murderers, had specific physical characteristics, and all criminals (being a throwback to animals) lacked the feelings (such s impression of pain) and sentiments (such as shame) that 'normal' human beings possessed.

Lombroso emerged with a host of criminals. There were the 'born criminals' as well as the infrequent criminals (criminaloids ), criminals by passion, moral imbeciles, and criminal epileptics.

For him, certain predisposing factors, namely the organic and genetic, converged with others, such as environment, opportunity, and economy, to produce the habituated criminal.

The irony of all of this is that Lombroso's conclusions came from punctilious and exact….....

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