Criminology 208 Chapter 3

Sarnoff Mednick

A European researcher who worked with Karl O. Christiansen to analyze thousands of twins in an effort to determine whether criminal tendencies might be inherited.

Karl O Christiansen

A European researcher who worked with Sarnoff Mednick to analyze thousands of pairs of twins in an effort to determine whether criminal tendencies might be inherited.

Patricia A. Jacobs

A british researcher who examined Scottish prisoners for chromosomal abnormalities through a relatively simple blood test known as karotyping.

Ray Jeffery

A criminologist who believes that a biologically based program of crime control and crime prevention includes biological monitoring and research.

Supermale

A male individual displaying the XYY chromosome structure.

Charles Darwin

A nineteenth-century English biologist known for his contributions to evolutionary theory.

Eugenic Criminology

A perspective holding that the root causes of criminality are passed from generation to generation in the form of "bad genes."

Italian School Criminology

A perspective of criminology developed in the late 1800s holding that criminals can be identified by physical features and are throwbacks to earlier stages of human evolution. The Italian School was largely based on studies of criminal anthropology.

Ernst Kretschmer

A professor of psychiatry who claimed that body build could be related to personality type.

William H. Sheldon

A psychologist who, like Ernst Kretschmer, believed that body build could be related to personality type; he popularized the concept of somatotyping.

Edward O. Wilson

A researcher and author who believes that behavior can be explained through a synthesis of biological and evolutionary ecology.

Henry Herbet Goddard

A researcher who conducted a study of the Kallikak family in 1912 using an acceptable scientific framework. The study indicated that criminal tendencies existed among the offspring of the union of Kallikak and a barmaid, whereas a subsequent liaison with a virtuous Quaker woman resulted in offspring that did not demonstrate criminal tendencies.

positivism

A scientific approach to the study of crime and its causation. Early positivism was built upon evolutionary principles and saw criminals as throwbacks to earlier evolutionary steps.

Arthur H. Estabrook

A sociological researcher who published a follow-up to Richard Dugdaleʻs work in 1916.

Johann Gaspar Spurzheim

A student of Franz Joseph Gall who introduced phrenology, the correlation between the shape of the human skull and human behavior, to America, where it became part of the classification method used to evaluate newly admitted prisoners.

Buck v. Bell

A supreme court case that upheld the practice of sterilization as a way to rid society of those people with criminal tendencies.

criminaloids

A term used by Cesare Lembroso to describe occasional criminals who were pulled into criminality by environmental influences.

atavism

A term used by Cesare Lombroso to suggest that criminals are physiological throwbacks to early stages of human evolution.

Sociobiology

A theoretical perspective developed by Edward O. Wilson that includes "the systematic study of the biological basis of all social behavior." It is a branch of evolutionary biology and particularly of modern population biology.

Dizygotic (DZ) twins

A twin who develops from from a separate ovum and who carries the genetic material shared by siblings.

Kallikak Family

A well-known "criminal family" studied by Henry H. Goddard.

Juke Family

A well-known "criminal family" studied by Richard Dugdale.

Cesare Lombroso

A well-known early scientific biological theorist who said that criminality is the result of primitive urges that survived the evolutionary process in modern-day human throwbacks.

Somatotyping

Classifying according to body types.

Enrico Ferri and Raffael Garofalo

Members of the Italian School of Criminology, which was founded by Cesare Lombroso

biological theories

Perspectives maintaining that the basic determinants of human behavior, including criminality, are constitutionally or physiologically based and often inherited.

Altruism

Selfless, helpful behavior

Behavioral Genetics

The Study of genetics and environmental contributions to individual variations in human behavior.

Tribalism

The attitudes and behavior that result from strong feelings of identification with oneʻs own social group.

Genetic Determinism

The belief that genes are the major determining factor in human behavior.

Sir Francis Galton

The first western scientist to systematically study heredity.

Heredity

The passing of traits from parent to child.

criminal anthropology

The scientific study of the relationship between human physical characteristics and criminality.

Eugenics

The study of implementation of heredity improvement by genetic control (i.e., selective breeding to "improve" the human race).

phrenology

The study of the shape of the head to determine anatomical correlates of human behavior.

Gene pool

The total genetic information of all individuals in a breeding population.

Monozygotic (MZ) twins

Twins who develop from the same egg and have virtually the same genetic material.

trait

a notable feature or quality of a biological entity. Traits may be classified as physical, behavioral, or psychological. Traits are passed on from generation to generation.

Richard Louis Dugdale

An American sociologist who published a study of the juke family in the late 1800s, whihc he described as criminogenic by nature.

Konrad Lorenz

An Austrian zoologist who studied instinctive behavior in animals with a focus on intraspecies aggression.

Charles Buckman Goring

An English physician around the beginning of the twentieth century who believed that the theory of atavism, the correlation of physical features with criminal behavior, is unfounded when assessed by scientific methods.

Franz Joseph Gall

An early criminological anthropologist who believed that the shape of the human skull is indicative of the personality and can be used to predict criminal behavior.

Paradigm

An example, model, theory

born criminal

An individual who is born with a genetic predilection toward criminality.

Constitutional Theories

Biological theories that explain criminality by reference to offenders body type, inheritance, genetics, or external observable physical characteristics.