The atavistic form was one of the earliest biological explanations of offending behaviour. Cesare Lombroso argued that some offenders were biologically different from non-offenders and represented an earlier stage of human evolution.
Although Lombroso’s conclusions have been rejected by modern psychology and criminology, his work was historically important because it helped move the study of crime towards the systematic investigation of possible causes of offending.
The Biological Approach to Offending
Biological explanations suggest that characteristics within the body may contribute to offending behaviour. Modern approaches focus on factors such as genes, brain structures and neurochemistry.
However, some of the earliest biological explanations were very different.
During the nineteenth century, Cesare Lombroso attempted to identify a biological criminal type. He argued that certain offenders were born with characteristics that made offending more likely.
His explanation became known as the atavistic form.
Cesare Lombroso and the Atavistic Form
Cesare Lombroso (1835–1909) was an Italian physician who became one of the most influential early figures in criminology.
His ideas were developed in L’Uomo Delinquente, usually translated as Criminal Man, first published in 1876. His thinking was influenced by evolutionary ideas that were becoming increasingly influential during the nineteenth century.
Lombroso proposed that some criminals represented an earlier stage of human evolution.
In other words, he believed they were evolutionary throwbacks.
According to Lombroso, these individuals had failed to develop biologically to the same extent as other members of modern society. Their supposedly primitive nature made it more difficult for them to follow the rules and expectations of what Lombroso regarded as a civilised society.
Therefore, Lombroso argued that offending was partly innate rather than learned.
This was a strongly biologically deterministic explanation because biology was seen as a major cause of criminal behaviour.
What Does Atavistic Mean?
The term atavistic refers to the reappearance of characteristics associated with distant ancestors.
Lombroso applied this concept to criminal behaviour.
He argued that the “born criminal” possessed physical and psychological characteristics associated with earlier stages of human development.
He therefore believed that criminals could sometimes be distinguished from non-criminals through their appearance.
Modern psychology does not accept this conclusion.
Lombroso’s Atavistic Stigmata
Lombroso believed the atavistic criminal could be identified through particular physical characteristics, which were sometimes called stigmata.
Features that Lombroso associated with criminality included:
- a strong or prominent jaw
- high cheekbones
- facial asymmetry
- a low or sloping forehead
- unusually large ears
- unusually long arms
- unusual skull shape or size.
He also linked criminality with characteristics such as tattoos, supposed insensitivity to pain and certain patterns of behaviour.
Importantly, these claims reflected nineteenth-century assumptions about evolution, ethnicity, class and human development rather than reliable modern science.
Different Types of Offender
Lombroso went further and claimed that different forms of offending might be associated with different physical characteristics.
For example, he suggested that:
- murderers might show features such as bloodshot eyes and particular hair or ear characteristics
- people convicted of sexual offences might display features involving the eyes, lips or ears
- fraudsters might display different facial characteristics.
There is no reliable scientific basis for identifying the crimes someone is likely to commit from their facial appearance.
However, Lombroso believed such physical differences reflected underlying biological differences.
This idea eventually contributed to the historical development of attempts to classify offenders.
Lombroso’s Research
Researcher and year
Cesare Lombroso, 1876, associated with the first edition of L’Uomo Delinquente.
Aim
Lombroso aimed to investigate whether people who committed crimes possessed distinctive physical characteristics that separated them from non-criminals.
Procedure or method
Lombroso collected extensive observations and physical measurements from convicted offenders.
Accounts of his research describe examinations of:
- 383 skulls or crania from deceased criminals
- measurements and observations involving 3,839 living criminals.
He examined characteristics such as skull structure, facial measurements and other physical features.
Findings
Lombroso reported that various physical abnormalities appeared frequently among the offenders he examined.
He believed these characteristics represented evidence of an atavistic criminal type.
His work was therefore used to argue that a proportion of criminal behaviour resulted from an innate biological predisposition.
Conclusion
Lombroso concluded that some offenders were born criminals whose biology made them fundamentally different from non-offenders.
For him, physical characteristics were outward signs of an underlying primitive biological nature.
From Moral Explanations to Scientific Investigation
One important aspect of Lombroso’s work is the historical context.
Before nineteenth-century biological criminology, crime was often discussed mainly in terms of morality. Someone who offended might simply be regarded as wicked, sinful or lacking moral character.
Lombroso asked a different type of question:
Could criminal behaviour have causes that could be scientifically investigated?
His specific answer was largely incorrect. However, the attempt to gather evidence, take measurements and formulate a testable explanation represented an important change in the study of crime.
For this reason, Lombroso is sometimes described as an important figure in the development of modern criminology.
Modern biological psychology continues to investigate biological influences on offending, but it uses genetics, neuroscience and statistical methods rather than attempting to identify criminals from their facial appearance.
Biological Determinism
The atavistic explanation is strongly deterministic.
If a person is a “born criminal”, then their offending appears to result from biological characteristics over which they have little control.
This creates an important issue concerning free will and responsibility.
The legal system generally assumes that people can make choices and can therefore be held responsible for many of their actions.
However, a strongly biological explanation could suggest that some individuals have much less control.
Modern psychology generally avoids the extreme position that one biological characteristic inevitably causes offending. Instead, researchers often investigate how biology interacts with factors such as:
- childhood experiences
- education
- socioeconomic conditions
- peer groups
- substance misuse
- opportunities for crime.
Reflection question: If biological factors increase someone’s probability of offending but do not make offending inevitable, how should this influence the way society thinks about responsibility and rehabilitation?
Goring’s Challenge to Lombroso
One important challenge came from Charles Goring (1913).
Aim
Goring wanted to investigate whether offenders really formed a distinctive physical type as Lombroso had suggested.
Procedure or method
Goring conducted a large statistical investigation involving approximately 3,000 English convicts.
Measurements were compared with groups of non-convicted people, and Goring used more systematic statistical methods than Lombroso had used.
Findings
Goring found no convincing evidence that offenders possessed the particular collection of physical characteristics predicted by Lombroso.
Conclusion
He concluded that there was no distinct anthropological criminal type identifiable from the physical features proposed by Lombroso.
Goring’s findings therefore provided an important empirical challenge to atavistic theory.
However, Goring’s work should not simply be treated as modern and unbiased. He continued to support problematic hereditary and eugenic ideas. Therefore, both Lombroso and Goring need to be understood within their historical context.
The Atavistic Form and Modern Biological Psychology
Lombroso’s explanation should not be confused with modern biological explanations of offending.
Modern biological researchers may investigate:
- inherited genetic vulnerability
- candidate genes and polygenic influences
- neurotransmitters
- functioning of the prefrontal cortex
- the limbic system
- executive functioning
- interactions between biology and environment.
Therefore, Lombroso is best understood as an important historical precursor rather than a scientifically accepted explanation of offending.
Evaluation
Strengths
One strength of Lombroso’s work is that it helped establish a more scientific approach to studying offending. Lombroso attempted to collect observations and physical measurements rather than explaining crime entirely through moral judgement. This was significant because it encouraged researchers to search for identifiable causes of behaviour. Although his specific conclusions were flawed, this shift helped contribute to criminology becoming an empirical area of study. Therefore, Lombroso’s importance lies partly in changing the questions researchers asked rather than providing a correct answer.
Another strength is that Lombroso recognised that individual differences might influence vulnerability to offending. Modern psychology also investigates individual biological differences, including genetic and neurological variation. Lombroso was therefore broadly correct that biological characteristics can contribute to behaviour, even though the physical stigmata he proposed are not supported. This means it would be unfair to conclude that every aspect of his biological approach was irrelevant simply because atavistic form itself was incorrect.
A further strength was Lombroso’s attempt to gather a relatively large body of observations. His work involved hundreds of deceased offenders and thousands of living offenders. This was more systematic than relying entirely on individual anecdotes. However, sample size alone cannot compensate for poor controls, biased measurement or faulty assumptions. Therefore, the quantity of observations gives his research historical significance but does not establish scientific validity.
Weaknesses
A major weakness is the lack of adequate control and comparison procedures in much of Lombroso’s research. Finding a characteristic among offenders does not show that it is more common among offenders unless comparable non-offenders are measured under similar conditions. Goring later used systematic comparisons and reported no distinct physical criminal type. Therefore, Lombroso’s evidence does not establish that his supposed stigmata caused, or were even uniquely associated with, criminality.
Another weakness concerns sample bias. Lombroso mainly studied people already imprisoned or identified by the authorities as criminals. These individuals are not necessarily representative of everyone who commits crime. People who are arrested and convicted may differ from undetected offenders in social class, poverty, ethnicity and access to legal representation. Therefore, characteristics identified within prison populations may partly reflect who was most likely to be caught and convicted rather than who was most likely to offend.
The theory also suffers from serious cultural bias. Lombroso used nineteenth-century European assumptions about supposedly “primitive” and “civilised” populations. Some characteristics that he described negatively were associated with ethnic or racial groups. Modern historical analysis therefore identifies substantial racist assumptions within his interpretation of human variation. Such ideas risk turning cultural and ethnic differences into supposed evidence of criminality. Oxford’s review of Lombroso’s work describes clear racist and sexist elements within his writings and highlights their connection with eugenic thinking.
A further weakness is biological determinism. Lombroso’s notion of the born criminal suggests that offending is driven by biology and underestimates environmental explanations. Poverty, childhood adversity, peer influence, education, substance misuse and social learning can all contribute to offending. An interactionist explanation is therefore more appropriate because biological vulnerability does not mean that a person will inevitably commit crime.
There are also serious ethical and social implications. If appearance were treated as evidence of criminality, innocent people could be stereotyped or subjected to greater surveillance because of facial features they cannot control. Such reasoning can encourage racial profiling, discrimination and stigma. Therefore, even apparently scientific classifications can cause substantial harm when questionable correlations are interpreted as biological destiny.
Lombroso’s work also has very poor temporal validity. It developed within nineteenth-century understandings of evolution, race, social class and criminal justice. Psychological science, genetics and neuroscience have changed dramatically since then. Consequently, assumptions that appeared plausible to some researchers at the time cannot simply be applied to contemporary populations.
Finally, the theory confuses correlation and causation. Even if a physical characteristic occurred more frequently among an offender sample, this would not prove that the characteristic caused offending. A third variable might explain both. For example, childhood nutrition, poverty or illness could influence physical development while also being associated with environmental risk factors for offending. Therefore, biological appearance alone cannot provide a valid causal explanation.
Summary
Atavistic form suggests that some offenders are evolutionary throwbacks with biologically inherited primitive characteristics.
Lombroso (1876) examined the physical and cranial characteristics of convicted offenders and proposed the idea of the born criminal.
Lombroso believed physical stigmata, including features of the jaw, forehead, cheekbones and ears, could indicate criminality.
Goring (1913) found no convincing evidence for a distinctive physical criminal type, weakening Lombroso’s explanation.
Lombroso helped encourage scientific investigation of crime, but his theory suffers from poor controls, determinism, sample bias, cultural bias and serious ethical problems.
Quick Questions
What is meant by the term atavistic form?
Atavistic form refers to the idea that some offenders are evolutionary throwbacks who possess characteristics associated with earlier human ancestors.
Who proposed the atavistic explanation of offending?
Cesare Lombroso.
Name two physical characteristics Lombroso associated with offenders.
Any two from prominent jaw, high cheekbones, facial asymmetry, sloping forehead, large ears or unusually long arms.
What did Goring’s 1913 research conclude about the physical criminal type?
Goring found no convincing evidence that offenders formed a distinctive physical type.
Give one reason Lombroso’s research may be considered culturally biased.
Lombroso interpreted human physical variation using nineteenth-century European ideas about race and supposedly primitive populations.
Key Terms
Atavistic form – The idea that some offenders are evolutionary throwbacks who possess primitive biological characteristics.
Atavism – The reappearance of characteristics associated with earlier ancestors.
Lombroso – Cesare Lombroso, a nineteenth-century Italian physician and criminologist who developed the atavistic explanation of offending.
Born criminal – Lombroso’s proposed category of offender who has an innate biological predisposition towards crime.
Stigmata – Physical characteristics that Lombroso believed indicated an atavistic criminal type.
Criminal anthropology – The historical attempt to explain offending by studying physical and biological characteristics.
Biological determinism – The view that behaviour is controlled or strongly influenced by biological factors.
Physiognomy – The historically influential but scientifically unsupported idea that personality or behaviour can be inferred from someone’s physical appearance.
Anthropometry – The systematic measurement of the human body.
Scientific racism – The misuse of supposedly scientific ideas or methods to support claims of biological racial superiority or inferiority.