SOC 201 Chapter Notes - Chapter 11: Cesare Lombroso, Intermediate Scrutiny
Document Summary
By the midnineteenth century, however, skeptical social observers began to look for different causes. The first attempts at scientifically explaining deviance focused on biological factors. For example, cesare lombroso, a physician who worked in italian prisons, argued in 1876 that deviants were, in effect, biological failures. Claimed lombroso, criminals are evolutionary throwbacks, or atavists. But lombroso"s study overlooked a couple of important factors. Had lombroso journeyed to sicily, he would have found the same physical characteristics to be present among the general nonimprisoned population. British psychiatrist charles goring and others later probed the matter more carefully. Comparing thousands of convicts and nonconvicts, they found no evidence of any physical differences that would distinguish members of one group from the other. Other researchers have attempted to identify physical characteristics typical of criminals. In the late 1940s, william sheldon contended that a person"s body shape plays a role in criminality.
