Comparison of Competing Ideologies: Adolphe Quetelet and Cesar Lombroso - Essay Example

Comparison of Competing Ideologies: Adolphe Quetelet and Cesaré Lombroso Cesaré Lombroso is an Italian criminologist and physician who founded the Italian school of positivist criminology. He rejected the classical school of thought of criminology. He was against their tenets which were fronted by the classical school of thought. Lombroso rejected the ideology that was dominant with the classical school that, criminalist tendencies were traits of human nature. He used concepts drawn from a wide variety of fields including physiognomy, early eugenics, social Darwinism and psychiatry. Lombroso’s positivist ideologies were founded on the view that criminal behavior was an inherited trait and that someone born as a criminal could be identified with physical defects that made criminals to be savage (Newburn, 2009). Adolphe Quetelet was an Italian prisons doctor whose contributions to biological positivism were great. He was one of the influential figures in criminology who contributed to the positivist school of thought by making use of extended statistical techniques. He established the relationship between crime and social factors by the use of statistical analysis. He found out that there was a relationship between crime, gender, and age. He further found out that crime had a significant relationship to social factors such as education, climate, alcohol consumption and poverty (Stones, 2008). Adolphe Quetelet ideologies According to Adolphe Quetelet, the most curious facts that we learn from the statistics of courts show the ways in which crimes repeat themselves constantly. The constancy is in terms of frequency, and how the crimes provoke the same types of punishments. This statistic made Adolphe Quetelet to come up with the view that Crimes can be foretold beforehand. This because, society contains the germs of all the possible crimes that will be committed and the society promotes the conditions under which crime develops. He was of the view that the society prepares the ground for criminal activities to thrive (Hayward, Maruna, & Mooney, 2010). However, Quetelet theorized that there is a possibility for the society to improve people and modify institutions and all other influences of behavior to deal with crime. He theorized that, as long as the cause of crime is unchanged the same effects are expected. He took an approach that was scientific in studying crime. This was coupled with the use of empirical evidence to come up with the view that physiological traits were indicative of someone’s atavistic criminal tendencies. The physiological traits he examined were for instance, measurement of one’s cheek bones, hairline and the cleft palate (Hayward, Maruna & Mooney, 2010). He was of the view that criminal behavior was a product of biological make up. Therefore he concluded that criminals should not be blamed for their actions because, the factors that make them criminals were beyond their control. On the relationship between crime and social factors, Quetelet found out that densely populated areas were prone to crime that sparsely populated areas. He further theorized that, poverty, low levels of education and belonging to some subcultures predisposes individuals to crime. He came up with this view after collecting data and undertaking statistical analysis to gain a deep insight between crime and social factors (Gottfried & Hirsch, 1990). Cesare Lombroso ideologies Cesare Lombroso was an Italian criminologist. He theorized that, crime was attributed to specific nature and that criminals could be found easily. This due to the fact that, essential types of criminals exist. He believed that, certain inferiority forms are associated with criminal activities. He theorized that certain races were prone to crime more than other races. For instance, he theorized that black people were of an inferior race and were prone to crime that non- black people. Lombroso’s view was based on autopsies that he carried out on criminals, which released a number of significant physiologies between primitive races and apes. The physiologies were similar to the characteristics of a born criminal as he found out before. Cesare Lombroso opposed the classical school of thought way of criminological thinking. He tended to look at crime scientifically and sought to find the biological reasons for people to commit crimes. Cesare Lombroso was of the view that, individuals who committed crimes don’t do so out of their free will. His ideological perception was that, crime was a deterministic phenomenon and challenged that people do no choose to commit crimes. He hypothesized that people who get involved in crime are different characteristically to those who abide by the law (Putwain & Sammons, 2002). Cesare Lombroso contributed to the eugenics school of thought which is a biological based theory, which asserted that criminality is individualistic. This implies that a crime is committed by people as individuals as opposed to people in groups. Cesare Lombroso believed that certain idiosyncrasies that were either physical or physiological are shared by individuals who have a criminal nature in them (Putwain & Sammons, 2002). He was of the perception that individuals who are not criminals do not posses such physical and physiological characteristics. Cesare Lombroso’s ideology was grounded on the thought that people with darker skins or large ears were believed to posses criminal tendencies and were prone to crime. His argument was that there was an in born criminality in some people who shared certain physical physiological characteristics. He also believed that criminal behaviour is associated with the size of the brain. Furthermore he argued that someone’s IQ level can determine heir criminality. He backed this claim by giving out an example why people of Asian origin are the brightest people in the world. The similarities between Quetelet and Lombroso’s ideologies arises from the fact that, they both believed that criminals posses certain traits that differentiate them from non- criminals. They believed that criminals had features that made their committing crimes uncontrollable. They believed that crimes are committed by people, whose biological make up was structured towards criminalist tendencies. The two scholars came up with these thoughts after analyzing data scientifically. Although their conclusions are similar, the way in which they came up with findings was different. Quetelet came out with his findings after analyzing data from courts. While Lombroso came up with the findings after undertaking autopsies (Messerschmitt, 2009). Both scholars advocated for the application of the social contract theory to solving issues of crime through punishments (Gottfred & Hirschi, 1990). They established that individuals could be bound to the society by having a situation in which they comply with the society’s social arrangements. Both scholars in their works called for fair and just punishment for crimes. They believed as much as people were criminals due to the biological make up, Crime could be deterred by having swift and severe punishment. They both believed this had an effect of controlling criminal behaviour. Lombroso reasoning and Adolphe Quetelet’s reasoning on women criminality exists across two parallel points of view. Lombroso view or rather his brand of biological criminality draws a big influence into the way he portrayed female criminality. Contrary to Quetelet, Lombroso explained that women who had criminal tendencies were biologically dysfunctional. This view is contrary to Adolphe Quetelet view on women deviants (Messerschmitt, 2009). Lombroso believed that women criminal’s hard biological features similar to the features exhibited by men. He believed that women deviants lacked maternal instincts that are paramount for femininity. Lombroso shared his ideological thought with Quetelet by theorizing that women criminal’s like their male counterparts exhibited atavistic characteristics. Lombroso views further are contrasted to Quetelet’s view on the issue of why women lack the capacity to be deviant in comparison to men. Lombroso believed women lacked the capacity to be deviant because they were inferior to men and were more childlike. In addition, women were incapable of deviant acts because they were weak. Furthermore Lombroso believed that women were less evolved than men. This made women to be closely related to primitive beings. Lombroso further argues that such primitivity could not allow women to degenerate into criminal propensity. References Gottfred, M., & Hirschi, T., 1990. Crime. California: Stanford University Press. Hayward, K., Maruna, S., & Mooney, J. E., 2010. Fifty Key Thinkers in Criminology. London: Routledge. Messerschmidt, W. J., 2009. Masculinities and crime: critique and reconceptualization of theory. London: Rowman & Littlefield. Newburn, T., 2009. Key readings in criminology. Cullompton: Willan. Putwain, D., & Sammons, A., 2002. Psychology and crime. London: Routledge. Stones, R., 2008. Key Sociological thinkers. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Read More