Born Criminal
Definition
Lombroso's term (reo nato) for an offender whose criminality is innate and identifiable through physical stigmata rather than produced by choice or circumstance.
Related terms
- Atavism
- Lombroso's concept that born criminals were evolutionary throwbacks to a more primitive human type, identifiable by physical stigmata. The concept is scientifically...
- Criminal Anthropology
- The 19th century study of offenders through physical measurement, comparing skull shape, facial features, and body form across criminal and non-criminal populations.
- Criminal Sociology
- Ferri's term for a criminology that weighs physical, anthropological, and social factors together, giving social conditions equal standing with biology.
- Natural Crime
- Garofalo's category of conduct that offends the universal moral sentiments of pity and probity, regardless of whether a given penal code happens...
- Substitutes for Punishment
- Ferri's proposed measures (sostitutivi penali), such as economic and administrative reforms, intended to remove the social conditions that produce crime instead of...