Biological Positivism
Lombroso , Eugenics & Social Darwinism
BIOLOGICAL positivist Criminology
Late1800s Context

Reification of Science
◦
◦
◦
◦

Emergence of experts
Society as a social fact
1850s heredity studies
1840s ‘Mug Shots’ (Belgium)
Statistics


Growing underclass
Rise of the Penitentiary
Positivism
A method & a paradigm
 Focus on actors not acts
 Deterministic
 Locate difference in people
Assumptions of Positivist Criminology

Causes of criminal behaviour
is different than causes for
normal behaviour

Consensus
Darwinism..
On the Origin of Species Principles of Biology (1864)

Some specimens were
"better adapted for
immediate, local
environment”

Influences Herbert
Spencer…
Social Darwinism
Herbert Spencer (1820 -1903)
‘Survival of the Fittest’
Hierarchy of social inferiority
Fitness becomes synonymous with
health AND deserving
 ‘naturalness’
Not what Darwin intended….
Social Darwinism
Ethnocentric
Image: Duncan Walker
Progress/Civilization
Scientific justification for inequality
Tautology:
‘We’ are in power because we are more evolved
How do you know that you are more evolved?
Because ‘we’ are in power...
Birth of Criminology:
The Italian School
The foundations of biological
explanations
Assumed people in prison =
criminals
Cesare Lombroso


Enrico Ferri
Raffael Garofalo
Canada
Phrenology
Founded on Aristotle ...
“brain as the organ of the mind”
◦
Exterior skull/interior brain
◦
Mind – faculties & function

Requires ‘exercise’
◦
Behavior – bumps in skull
◦
1830s scientifically accepted

Criminal determined by trained
phrenologists
Cecare Lombroso (1835 – 1909)

Medically trained

Psychiatry
Professor of legal medicine
Testified at trials

The Criminal Man (1876)



w/ Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
Criminal Classification
Born Criminals




Atavistic Man
Primitive
Less evolved/developed
1/3 of offenders
Lombroso
Military observations: well-disciplined
and aggressive or criminal soldiers
Deviations common to particular
races/cultures
Autopsies
 criminals & non
 animals
 ‘inferior races’ –
physically/intellectually
Criminal Woman
Smaller variations
Less evolved than men?
Naturally vengeful, weak and dumb ~
balanced by ‘feminine’
Criminal women:
masculine (negative quality)
Sir Fancis Galton (1822-1911)
Coined the term Eugenics

Positive


Encourage ‘good birth’
Negative
Exclusion of ‘inferior’
populations
Recognized eugenics would have
to have spiritual framework to
work in his “vision”

Mental Hygiene Movement
Feeble-mindedness not curable
 Burdensome populations $
 Fear of ‘inferior’ peoples


Emily Murphy “The Black Candle”
(1922)
Calls to limit immigration
How is this connected to Rousseau’s
‘Ideal Society’?
Implications
Experts needed to
determine defectives
Long term custody of
‘untreatable’ kids
Sterilization (gendered)



Domestics
1928 Sterilization Act in
Alberta
Repealed in 1972

why? In the movie…
The Jukes
Robert Dugdale (1875) “The Jukes: A Study in Crime,
Pauperism, Disease, and Hereditary”





Impoverished family
Many assumptions
“Inept methodology”
Cost to taxpayers
Used to support negative Eugenics

Defining mental illness?
The Kallikaks
Henry H. Goddard
Focused on IQ as
manifestation of
degeneracy
“Inept methodology”
Martin Kallikak
‘Feeble-minded barmaid’
Respectable Quaker woman
Positivist Criminology
“ Ye Olde History”?
 Focus on the actor
 Treatment of the individual
Critiques of Positivist Criminology

Cure for crime?
◦

If no cure.....
Marked by poor methodology
◦
despite scientific foundation

Repressive responses (not cure)

Pathologizing deviance
◦
◦
◦
Illness of non-conformity
Discourse of non-responsibility
Industry of experts
Rehabilitation

Treatment programs



Treatment as punishment




Problem of delivery
Non-voluntary
E.g. substance use, parenting...
Guard or Counselor?
Punitive environment
Critique from right


Can access programs ‘honest’ citizens can’t
Similar to issues of ‘training’ in Kingston