Anthropological criminology

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Anthropological criminology" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (October 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Criminology
Main Theories
Conflict theory Criminalization Differential association Integrative criminology Rational choice theory Structural functionalism Subcultural theory Symbolic interactionism
Methods
Comparative Crime statistics Profiling Ethnography Uniform Crime Reports Crime mapping Positivist school Qualitative Quantitative BJS NIBRS Recidivism
Subfields and other major theories
American Anthropological Biosocial criminology Conflict Criminology Critical Culture Cyber Demography Development Environmental Experimental Organizational Political Public Radical criminology
Browse
Bibliography Index Journals Organizations People
v t e

Anthropological criminology (sometimes referred to as criminal anthropology, literally a combination of the study of the human species and the study of criminals) is a field of offender profiling, based on perceived links between the nature of a crime and the personality or physical appearance of the offender. Although similar to physiognomy and phrenology, the term "criminal anthropology" is generally reserved for the works of the Italian school of criminology of the late 19th century (Cesare Lombroso, Enrico Ferri, Raffaele Garofalo and Lorenzo Tenchini). Lombroso thought that criminals were born with detectable inferior physiological differences. He popularized the notion of "born criminal" and thought that criminality was a case of atavism or hereditary disposition. His central idea was to locate crime completely within the individual and divorce it from surrounding social conditions and structures. A founder of the Positivist school of criminology, Lombroso opposed the social positivism developed by the Chicago school and environmental criminology.