What is atavism theory of crime?

Have you ever thought criminals have similar looks? If you were to look at two individuals - one innocent person and a criminal- do you reckon you would be able to identify the criminal? Based on what is known to us today, deciding whether someone is a criminal or not based on their looks, would solely resemble human stereotypes. But this was different in the late 1800s. Cesare Lombroso developed a theory resembling the Atavistic Form or the primitive looks that criminals shared with one another. Let's explore it further in this explanation.

First, we will introduce the Atavistic Form in Psychology.
Then the Atavistic From of Crime will be presented and explained.
Moving on from this, the five atavistic form features will be presented.
Then the advantages of the atavistic form in psychology will be reviewed.
And last, an overall evaluation of the atavistic form for offending will be offered.

Atavistic Form Psychology

Cesare Lombroso was an Italian criminologist who studied the characteristics of criminals in the 1870s. His work was pioneering, meaning that his research involved new ideas and methods. Despite making great improvements in the field of criminal psychology, his work would not be accepted today and is not used. However, Lombroso is known to be the father of criminology, given that he offered the first step into understanding profiling criminals thus giving birth to a whole new field within psychology.

In his book "The Criminal Man", [1876] Lombroso suggested a biological theory for offender profiling.

Offender profiling refers to the definition of characteristics, behaviours and interests that are common to all individuals who commit crimes.

The biological theory suggested that individuals did not willingly engage in criminal behaviours, but rather, there was a biological class of individuals who were likely to engage in crime.

Atavistic Form Crime

The individuals engaging in crime presented "atavistic" features. The atavistic or primitive features suggested that the criminals had not followed the usual evolutionary development. This, in turn, made criminals experience some form of genetic throwback which would make them engage in crime.

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, atavistic is an adjective used to describe things that take place as a consequence of old habits in history, rather than because individuals are consciously choosing them. Lombroso however, understood the word atavistic as primitive or less developed by evolution.

According to Lombroso's Atavistic form of crime, criminals were not able to fit in society because they inevitably engaged in criminal behaviours. In this way, criminals had no free will. Criminality was meant to be inherited through genes and was reflected in individuals' physical characteristics.

Essentially, criminals were biologically different to non-criminals. Given that criminals had a savage nature, they were not able to successfully regulate their impulses to control their criminal desires.

5 Atavistic From Features

According to Lombroso, atavistic features were physical characteristics that were common to all criminal offenders. With regard to the face and head, Lombroso identified the following characteristics to be common to all criminals:

Strong jaw.
High cheekbones.
Facial asymmetry.
Sloping or non-horizontal brows.

Fig. 1. Example of the pictures that Lombroso included in his research.

Lombroso also identified other rather general features of criminals. These were believed to be:

Having dark skin.
Presence of extra fingers and/or toes.
Presence of extra nipples.
Insensitivity to pain.

Fig. 2. Picture of the different criminal profiles that Lombroso studies.

Taking a step further, Lombroso was able to distinguish among particular types of offenders given their physical characteristics. In this way, the following criminal profiles presented the following characteristics:

Offender type	Characteristics
Murderers	Longer ears, curly hair and bloodshot eyes.
Sexual criminals	Swollen lips, shiny eyes and prominent eyes.
Fraudsters	Thin lips.

Before writing his book, Lombroso conducted extensive research on the facial characteristics of convicts. Given his own nationality and location, he only studied Italian criminal offenders.

In the study, he investigated 3839 criminals that were alive, and 383 that had already passed. His conclusions stated that 40% of criminal offences were conducted by individuals who presented atavistic characteristics.

Advantages of Atavistic Forms Psychology

One of the main reasons why Atavistof Form is explained these days is due to the impact that this proposal had in the 1800s. Lombroso is known as the father of modern criminology because he was the first one to suggest that biological influences were playing a role in criminal behaviours.

Although today it is known that facial or cranial characteristics cannot be used to explain criminal acts, Lombroso's theory shifted the approach to the explaining of crime. Thus leaving behind the moral approach and putting emphasis on the biological approach.

Evaluate the Atavistic Form Explanation for Offending

Of course, the Atavistic Form theory presents some downsides or limitations.

DeLisi [2012] criticised Lobroso's ideas for their racist nature. Not only did Lombrosio only research individuals in Italy - thus questioning the generalizability of his ideas - furthermore, the atavistic features described were easily applicable to every individual with an African background. This, in turn, questions whether Lombrosio's ideas were merely expressions of his own prejudice towards certain individuals in society.

Further criticism of Lombroso's contribution relates to the methodology employed. Rather than comparing non-criminals and criminals, Lombroso merely described criminals' characteristics, which questions the validity of the research. This, in turn, does not establish causality between the variables but rather describes a potential correlation. In line with this criticism and challenging Lombroso's ideas, Goring [1913] compared 3000 criminals and 3000 non-criminals and found no evidence that one group had specific facial characteristics.

Further methodological issues emerge with the observation that Lombroso did not control for potential confounding variables such as the socio-cultural characteristics of the criminals. it is well known these days that low socio-economical status sets individuals at risk of committing crimes. Unfortunately, Lombroso did not gather this type of data of his sample, which further limits the application of his ideas.

Atavistic Form - Key takeaways

Lombroso [1876] suggested that criminals present evolutionary and therefore biological setbacks, which are responsible for their criminal behaviours.
Among the identified atavistic features there are having a strong jaw, high cheekbones, facial asymmetry and sloping brows.
Although the Atavistic Form gave birth to modern criminology, the profiles do not apply today.
Lombroso's ideas have been criticised for being racist and for the presence of methodological inconsistencies.

What is atavism theory in criminology?

Atavistic form is a historical approach used to explain criminal behaviour, which is based on the biological factors. This explanation was proposed by Lombroso in the 1870s and suggests that some people are born with a criminal personality [e.g. it is innate] that is a throwback to a previous more primitive ancestor.

What is atavism theory and how does it work?

Atavism is the theory that some individual animals for some reason revert back to an earlier evolutionary type. In the case of humans, many behavioral scientists once believed that atavisms caused certain persons to revert in a major way, both physically and mentally, to their animal origins.

Who made the concept of atavism theory?

Atavism was probably first suggested by Darwin [1881: 137] when he wrote, "with mankind some of the worst dispositions, which occasionally without any assignable cause make their appearance in families, may perhaps be reversions to a savage state from which we are removed by many generations." Because atavistic persons ...

What is an atavistic trait identified by Lombroso?

Essentially, Lombroso believed that criminality was inherited and that criminals could be identified by physical defects that confirmed them as being atavistic or savage. A thief, for example, could be identified by his expressive face, manual dexterity, and small, wandering eyes.