Lombroso’s Theory has long been one of the most important and influential theories in the world of crime. While the theory has largely been replaced by more modern, more updated policies, Lombroso’s Theory did take hold during much of the twentieth century. An Italian who lived mostly during the nineteenth century, Lombroso believed that he could pinpoint a person who would eventually be criminal by looking at certain physiological traits. This “born criminal” theory was the primary underpinning of both his own ideas on criminality and the ideas of an entire generation, many of whom believed criminality to be some innate trait that linked individual criminals to sub-human “savages” (Ellwood, 1912). A person adhering to this theory would be less likely to seek rehabilitative policies and much more likely to favor incapacitation as a goal of the criminal justice system.
Fundamental to this particular theory is the idea that criminal behavior in certain people is not a deviation from their norms, but rather, something that they are apt to do because they are, themselves, a different kind of person (Akers, 1999). While these theories have been, at least in the United States, closely linked to theories of racism, they have had a strong influence on how some perceive crime. Specifically, a person adhering to this particular policy would believe that committing crimes is the only thing that a criminal could do. Rehabilitation is based upon the idea that a person has a basic, innate human goodness that can pulled from them with the proper behavioral training and the like. In order for one to believe in policies of rehabilitation, one must believe that the criminal has the ability and the power to change. A person adhering to Lombroso’s Theory would not be apt to agree with this arrangement. Rather, they would be much more likely to think that a person who has committed serious crimes has no legitimate capacity to change his or her life or approach in the future.
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What does that mean from a policy perspective? It means that these individuals are much more likely to seek out policies of incapacitation. Within the complex of criminal punishment, one of the goals of incarceration is incapacitation. The goal is to ensure that the offender is locked away from society – or in some cases, killed – so that he or she cannot commit future crimes against individuals. Because people adhering to Lombroso’s Theory are not likely to think that society could make progress in changing a person’s ways, those theorists are likely to favor a punishment approach in which people are outright kept away from society for the safety of all people.
As for individual policies, a person believing in Lombroso’s Theory would be more likely to support the death penalty. Part of the argument against the death penalty is that it extinguishes any chance that an offender might be reformed (Hirschi, 1975). Under this particular theory, people are born criminals, and if people are born criminals, then one could expect those people to commit crimes into perpetuity. The death penalty, then, takes “born” criminals off of the streets and does not allow them to commit future crimes against average citizens or even those people who look after them in prison.
Likewise, a person believing in Lombroso’s Theory would be more likely to support harsher policies toward children in the justice system. There is a basic split in the justice system on how juveniles should be treated. Some believe that juveniles, by their very nature, should be treated carefully. They believe that juveniles have a chance to change and that their brains are not fully formed yet. Lombroso’s Theory, though, proposes the born criminal. It proposes that a person has no ability to change, and that crime as a juvenile is not a sign of foolishness, immaturity, or a lack of brain development.
Rather, according to people who buy into this theory, it is just the young criminal showing the world what he or she is. According to this theory, a juvenile offender is going to commit crimes in the future because that is simply the way he or she is programmed. While some might argue against long-term incarceration of young people, the person buying into Lombroso’s Theory is much more likely to think that it is a good idea to lock away a young person for many years on end. Rather than seeing the potential promise in a young person’s life, the person operating under this framework will be very likely to support life without the possibility of parole and many other draconian policies for juveniles within today’s justice system.
Ultimately Lombroso’s Theory has fallen out of favor in many parts of the world, especially in Europe, where the musings on crime have evolved significantly over the last few decades. Still, it is something that has an impact on the way people tend to think about crime, especially in the United States. A person believing in the “born criminal” element of this particular theory are less likely to think that the government should spend its resources on trying to rehabilitate people. This is because those people believe that rehabilitation is a waste of time and that criminals are born that way and will remain that way. With that in mind, harsher policies, including the death penalty, longer prison sentences, and a general tendency toward incapacitation are the order of the day for people who adhere to this criminal justice framework.
