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  • Essay / The role of biology in predetermining criminal activity

    In this assignment I will discuss the above question, give an in-depth description of Cesare Lombroso and the theorists, produce a paragraph explaining the theories biological. Today I will also do the following: Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Describe and analyze the concepts and principles underlying major criminological perspectives. Identify and examine the contested nature of these discourses Formulate arguments regarding the appropriateness of certain approaches Apply the conventions of academic arguments to a range of academic activities After completing all of the above points in my work, I will finally conclude all findings and arguments leaving a conclusion at the end. END. A biological interpretation of formal deviance was first proposed by the Italian School of Criminology, a school of thought originating in Italy in the mid-19th century. The school was headed by criminologist doctor Cesare Lombroso, who claimed that criminality was a biological trait present in some human beings. The term Lombroso used to describe the appearance of organisms resembling ancestral life forms is an atavism. The idea of ​​atavism linked an individual's appearance to their biological propensity to deviate from social norms. Enrico Ferri took this idea further, saying that anyone convicted of a crime should be detained for as long as possible. In Ferri's thinking, if individuals committed crimes because of their biological makeup, what purpose was there in deterrence or rehabilitation? Garofalo is perhaps best known for his efforts to formulate a "natural" definition of crime. According to him, those who violate universal human laws are themselves “unnatural.” Penology: Processes designed and adopted to punish and prevent crime. Atavism: Reappearance of an ancestral characteristic in an organism after several generations of absence. Italian School of Criminology: The Italian School of Criminology was founded in the late 19th century by Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909) and two of his Italian disciples, Enrico Ferri (1856-1929) and Raffaele Garofalo (1851-1934) . A biological theory of deviance proposes that an individual deviates from social norms largely due to their biological makeup. The theory is primarily concerned with formal deviance, using biological reasons to explain criminality, although it can certainly extend to informal deviance. Positivism was first recorded by a man named Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909), whom he later called "the father of modern criminology", he is best known for his 1876 book "The Criminal Man" – English translation published in the early 1900s. His early work resulted from autopsies performed on male criminals and, later, examinations of living criminals, he made it known that he viewed criminals as throwbacks to a more primitive stage of human development – ​​atavism found in a variety of lower physiological characteristics associated with primates and biological regression involving a less civilized form of mentality and behaviors – he later linked it to such things as The Form of the head is believed to offer a guide to the personal characteristics of the individual. Lombroso said the criminal was a distinct species with a variety of mental and physical characteristics that set them apart. His work is now widely discredited. He identified three different types. of the criminal: The criminalepileptic The mad criminal The born criminal, being those who have atavistic characteristics* To these he then added three subtypes of occasional criminals Pseudo-criminals (crimes of passion or other emotions) Criminals (possibility of committing a significant crime) Habitual criminals (fall into primitive behavior) tendencies due to factors such as poverty Lombroso writes: "At the sight of this skull, I seemed to see everything at once, lit up like a vast plain under a sky flamboyant, the problem of the nature of the criminal – an atavistic being which reproduces itself in his person. the fierce instincts of primitive humanity and lower animals. “Thus were anatomically explained the enormous jaws, the protruding cheekbones, the protruding eyebrow arches, the solitary lines in the palms, the extreme size of the eye sockets, the loop-shaped or sessile ears that we find in criminals, the savages. and monkeys, insensitivity to pain, extremely acute eyesight, tattoos, excessive idleness, love of orgies and irresistible desire for evil for evil's sake, desire not only to extinguish the life of the victim, but to mutilate the corpse, to tear his flesh. , and drink his blood. "Essentially, Lombroso believed that criminality was inherited and that criminals could be identified by physical defects that confirmed them as atavistic or savage. For thousands of years up to that point, the prevailing view was that because crime was a sin against God, it should be punished in the appropriate way – “an eye for an eye,” and so on. During the Enlightenment, thinkers such as Jeremy Bentham and the Italian Cesare Beccaria decided that because we were all rational beings, the choice to commit a crime was made by weighing the costs and benefits. If the costs were high and came with harsh penalties, it would deter all but the most determined criminals. It was an interesting philosophy, but critics pointed out its flaws: not everyone is rational, and some crimes, especially violent ones, are purely emotional. , they said. Lombroso and his fellow criminal anthropologists also challenged these ideas and were the first to advocate the study of crime and criminals from a scientific perspective. Lombroso notably supported its use in criminal investigations and one of his assistants, Salvatore Ottolenghi, founded the first forensic science school in Rome in 1903. Well, not all criminals are born with the qualities of earlier humans, Lombroso argued. There is the crime of passion, which women tend to fall into more than men, and the crime of opportunity, which Lombroso curiously associates with epilepsy. “According to him,” Albrecht writes, “epilepsy is nothing more than a very tense normal function of the nerves, so that some epileptics seem to be simply very tense impulsive natures.” Lombroso believed that epileptics, with their impulsive actions, were natural. criminals. There is also the usual criminal without the brain defects of the born criminal. “But because of neglected education,” writes Albrecht, “he does not acquire the strength to overcome the child's natural defects, perhaps developing them until habit makes him a criminal ." Interestingly enough, for all of Lombroso's horrible predestination-style theories, it actually comes close to what we think of today as the driving factors of crime. While much debate still rages about what drives people to engage in a life of crime, it seems clear that both genetic and environmental factors are at work. Men, for example, may be more prone to aggression, but that does notdoesn't mean all men are like my crazy uncle, who probably spent 90% of his waking hours fighting. In addition to socioeconomic status and education, your education, as Lombroso rightly noted, probably also plays a role. But a less than ideal education, of course, does not necessarily make you a criminal. Enrico Ferri (1856-1929), he continued Lombroso's work by becoming the author of the influential book "The Positive School of Criminology", he particularly emphasized the importance of social and environmental factors in the explanation crime, as well as the development of ideas of crime prevention, he rejected the common notion of free will (in classicism, Ferri 1917: 54*), he then asserted that "in order to be a criminal , it is rather necessary for the individual to find himself permanently or transiently in such personal, physical and moral conditions, and to live in such an environment, which become for him a chain of causes and effects, external and internal, which disposes him to crime. »* book, Criminal SociologyGarofalo is perhaps best known for his efforts to formulate a "natural" definition of crime. Classical thinkers accepted the legal definition of crime without reservation; crime is what the law says. This seemed rather arbitrary and “unscientific” to Garofalo, who wanted to anchor the definition of crime in something natural. Most significant was Garofalo's reformulation of classical notions of crime and his redefinition of crime as a violation of natural law or a human universal. A human universal is a trait, characteristic, or behavior that exists across cultures, regardless of the nuances of a given being. context. A famous example of universal is the incest taboo. Except for a very few small communities, all human cultures have a taboo against incest in one form or another. Garofalo's presentation of crime as a violation of a human universal allows criminals to be characterized as unnatural. Once criminals are characterized as inhumane or unnatural, the public has the right to view an individual convicted of a crime as completely different from the rest of society; a whole new range of sanctions is permitted, including serious social stigma. Current Biological Theories The biological explanations of the Italian school have not found resonance in American criminal justice systems. However, some traces still exist. Today, the debate over crime and biological explanations focuses more on the relationship between genetics and criminality than on the relationship between phenotypic characteristics and criminality. Because the modern emphasis is on actual genetics rather than phenotypic expressions of genes, it is more difficult to stereotype individuals with "criminal" traits or propensities. For example, walking down the street, you can tell who has a protruding jaw, but you cannot tell who has the genetic combination that increases the propensity for aggression. Although the debate has evolved, a biological explanation for deviance and criminality remains common. The elements of criminal behavior are by no means a simple equation. A small percentage of crimes are attributed to abnormality or genetics. Criminal activity can be explained in terms of learning societal norms in which an individual has erred or been influenced to develop a lifestyle that is not compatible with the laws of a given society, creating thus a conflict that could lead to a criminal offense. Another aspect however is that a small percentage of people, 2009).