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http://crj.sagepub.comCriminology and Criminal Justice DOI: 10.1177/1748895807075565 2007; 7; 117 Criminology and Criminal JusticePaul Rock Caesare Lombroso as a signal criminologist http://crj.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/7/2/117 The online version of this article can be found at: Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com On behalf of: British Society of Criminology can be found at:Criminology and Criminal Justice Additional services and information for http://crj.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Email Alerts: http://crj.sagepub.com/subscriptions Subscriptions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navReprints: http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.navPermissions: http://crj.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/7/2/117 Citations at SAGE Publications on December 16, 2009 http://crj.sagepub.comDownloaded from and the British Society of Criminology.www.sagepublications.comISSN 1748Ð8958; Vol: 7(2): 117Ð133 PAUL ROCK Criminology, a discussion that was triggered by a celebration ofNicole RafterÕs and Mary GibsonÕs new translation of CaesareLombrosoÕs Criminal Woman, the Prostitute, and the Normal Womanhand, yet so retained, on the other, by invoking the familiar ideaan insurgent feminist criminology. Key Wordscriminal woman¥ feminist criminology¥ LombrosoIn stock phrases that pepper, say, the pages of the world-ened penal reformer. 117-134 CRJ-075565.qxd 28/3/07 10:51 AM Page 117 at SAGE Publications on December 16, 2009 http://crj.sagepub.com Downloaded from was W.D. Morrison, the author of Womantroversialist than a social scientist and was accused, sometimes justifiably, ofThere was S.A. Strahan, a doctor and lawyer, a physician at thealityÕ, criminal insanity, suicide and morphine habituation. There was themental disease at Edinburgh University. There was Sir John Lubbock, laterLord Avebury, a Vice-Chancellor of the University of London, Member ofParliament for the university, a polymathThe pauper, the criminal and the lunatic were alike É in being stragglersin duration and must depend on the amelioration of his character.The TimesAbove all, there was Henry Maudsley, the co-founder of the eponymousing alienist of his generationÕ, who wrote about homicidal insanity, insanityand criminal responsibility, and other themes in the first stirrings of crimin-ology (see, for instance, Maudsley, 1888). Havelock Ellis, a Licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries, was one of the two Vice-Presidents of theLombrosoÕs proponents were thus a mix of the self-taught and people ofinsecure sciencesÑpsychiatry, psychology,sexology, criminology ((Clouston, Criminology & Criminal Justice 7(2)118 117-134 CRJ-075565.qxd 28/3/07 10:51 AM Page 118 at SAGE Publications on December 16, 2009 http://crj.sagepub.com Downloaded from The TimesTransactions of the, and Society, founded in 1901 with 65 members, failedThe inaugural address of its first president, Sir William Collins, remarked nothave been fascinated by its scientific and social interest, and have seen perhapsthat there was no single school of criminal anthropology, and no Ôreal typeÕ ofThe Timesraise funds for a Ôsuitable memorialÕ to Lombroso in Verona, a letter citingHavelock Ellis, W.D. Morrison and members of the Medico-Legal Society asLombrosoÕs Ôviews were not accepted in their entirety by scientists, yet he dida great lifeÕs work, and his writings on crime and criminals have had a world-however, and despite LombrosoÕs defenders, those RockÑCaesare Lombroso as a signal criminologist119 117-134 CRJ-075565.qxd 28/3/07 10:51 AM Page 119 at SAGE Publications on December 16, 2009 http://crj.sagepub.com Downloaded from icy.of doctrines of moral responsibility.what was tantamount to a death sentence for criminal anthropology, andThe TimesStated broadly, the conclusions arrived at are that the criminal type, markedThe TimesWomanof British criminology.underpinning the evolution of womenÕs prisons in the United Kingdom. Prisongovernors dismissed it or did not allude to it (see Size, 1957; Kelley, 1967).commissioned Charles GoringÕs distinguished prison inspector, sometime deputy governor of the prisons atChatham, Millbank and Wormwood Scrubs, and of Du Cane,Windsor MagazineProfessor LombrosoÕs theory of a special [female] criminal typeÕ (1896: 444).womenÕs prisons make sparse reference to it.the prison (Rock, 1996). To the contrary. What little science there was chieflydedicated himself to refuting criminal anthropology, and of the more general Criminology & Criminal Justice 7(2)120 117-134 CRJ-075565.qxd 28/3/07 10:51 AM Page 120 at SAGE Publications on December 16, 2009 http://crj.sagepub.com Downloaded from who were best placed to validate or dismiss LombrosoÕs ideas in the Uniteds ideas in the Unitedof close clinical observationÕ (1939: 4). Doctors in the making came to medi-cine largely ill-educated in formal science (there was little enough sciencetaught and few enough science masters in the public schools (Cardwell, 1972:113, 115)) and they were inducted into what was a substantially empirical dis-cipline that was Ôheavily clinical, dictated by the demands of bread-and-butterprivate practice; pure research independent of healing [being] somewhat sus-pect and attract[ing] scant state supportÕ (Porter, 1997: 336). They would havelearned about the ÔAnatomy of Man & Animals, & Physiology, Medicine &Surgery: A little Mental Philosophy, Logic and AstronomyÕ., Logic and AstronomyÕ.and theoretical character to the whole ÉÕ (in Jacyna, 1995: 148Ð9).Such was the larger frame of medical reasoning in late Victorian Britain,theorizing of criminal anthropology. Quite apart from the debates centredsible that another form of dissonance was in play, more aesthetic, symbolicThe Criminal WomanItalian criminal anthropology there could have been little sympathy, fit oraffinity. Theories, said Kenny, which had beennot find equally rapid acceptance in the countries of Teutonic speech É in RockÑCaesare Lombroso as a signal criminologist121 117-134 CRJ-075565.qxd 28/3/07 10:52 AM Page 121 at SAGE Publications on December 16, 2009 http://crj.sagepub.com Downloaded from wrote in orotund style about extravagances of nature, monsters (Rafter,How else could one account for the wording of StrahanÕs obser-vation that: ÔIn the criminal, we find small, over-large and ill-shapen heads,the imperfect, knotty, knurly, worm-eaten, half-rotten fruit of the humanraceÕ? (in Rafter, 1997: 212); or of MaudsleyÕs claim that criminals are Ôawith badly-formed angular heads; are stupid, sullen, deficient in vital energy,(in Rafter, 2005: 17)?LombrosoÕs own grandiose preamble to the first English edition of Criminal Womanthe morning of a gloomy day in December, I found in the skull of a brigandselves the heirs of a tradition of plain Anglo-Saxon and who preferred alurid, ÔfancifulÕ (Thompson, 1896: 271) and barbarous, and LombrosoÕsexecutioner, Charles Goring, could not conceal his contempt:Note how, following the custom of ancient astrologers, the time of day, knows nothing of them. Newton must work by other laws than VictorHugoÕs. Criminology & Criminal Justice 7(2)122 117-134 CRJ-075565.qxd 28/3/07 10:52 AM Page 122 at SAGE Publications on December 16, 2009 http://crj.sagepub.com Downloaded from LombrosoÕs was not the way to write science. He wrote in the overblownagain, was melodramatic, alien, confused and disorderly. The report of hisThe Timesnificent tangle of brilliance and nonsenseÕ (in Gartner, 2004).Rational thought with its quest for dispassion, order, control and principlesremain recognizable in the late twentieth century. Monsters and hybrids Éand social acceptability. Aberrations in language, body, and imagery incar-It is almost as if LombrosoÕs exaggerated and unrestrained descriptions fusion masquerading to-day under the scientific name of criminology.monsters as itself a monstrous theory. The Times RockÑCaesare Lombroso as a signal criminologist123 117-134 CRJ-075565.qxd 28/3/07 10:52 AM Page 123 at SAGE Publications on December 16, 2009 http://crj.sagepub.com Downloaded from now lingers on in the writings of evolutionary psychology, socio-biology anddevelopmental criminology (see Rafter, forthcoming and, for examples ofthose writings, Mealey, 1995 and Pitchfor1920s, after LombrosoÕs death,Womenof all their work is like so much of its kind in England at the time, a form ofIt is certainly the case that there were few enough studies of women in and(1950), W.I. Thomas (1924) and Cowie et al. (1968) seemed to stand out, andWomen,operated in 1977 (1977a), as her supervisorÕs (Taylor et al., 1973), had operated four years before, on thebecome ÒleadingÓ works by defaultÕ (1977b: 89). Lombroso, in particular,Criminal Womanand social role, patriarchy and political economy, Lombroso typified womenSarah Franklin, Professor of Social Studies of Biomedicine at the LondonSchool of Economics, and a former student of Carol Smart, observed thatÔprobably Smart was right to use a broad sword to split open the issue of Òthewoman criminalÓ, and powerful retheorisations such as hers often ÒworkÓbecause they have effectively consolidated a position that was Òwaiting to Criminology & Criminal Justice 7(2)124 117-134 CRJ-075565.qxd 28/3/07 10:52 AM Page 124 at SAGE Publications on December 16, 2009 http://crj.sagepub.com Downloaded from sition, and it was a result that SmartÕs contentions were frozen in time,Women, Crime andinterrogated sceptically. They are the origins of feminist criminology.Few, if anyone, have disputed that polemic, list and chronology, althoughlogical and near-sociological studies of female offendingThe Criminal Womanarticle on the Lombrosian myth in criminology. And there is the secondmight actually have been intended from time to time to cover women. Lynas to sex, I have attempted to avoid as much as possible the use of the termLombrosoÕs errors were so egregious that he became for didactic purposesthe Erich von Stroheim of feminist criminology, the man they loved to hate,[The] theme in feminist criminology has been, crudely, that traditional crim-inology is the theory, Holloway [Prison]Ñespecially its psychiatric wingÑthepractice. An additionally cohesive force is added by feminist criminologyÕsemphasis on the monotonous repetition of criminologyÕs view of the femaleoffender, a few basic themes reiterated from the opening shots fired in 1895by Lombroso and FerreroÕs The Female Offender É To invoke this rhetoric RockÑCaesare Lombroso as a signal criminologist125 117-134 CRJ-075565.qxd 28/3/07 10:52 AM Page 125 at SAGE Publications on December 16, 2009 http://crj.sagepub.com Downloaded from Feminist insurgency worked to effect in the world of criminology, and women1ÔLombrosoÕs distinctive merit lay, not in his scientific study of the criminal,2See, for instance, encyclopedia.com:See, for instance, encyclopedia.com:by other criminologists, Lombroso is still credited with turning attentionfrom the legalistic study of crime to the scientific study of the criminal.Lombroso advocated humane treatment of criminals and limitations onthe use of the death penalty.Wikipedia.orgitem; www.creativequotations.com; columbia encyclopedia3David Horn, for example, said that Ôcriminal anthropology has been limitedto a supporting role in a cautionary tale about deviant or spurious scienceÕThe Timeshumanism of the Victorian age. He belonged to the last generation in which5ÔJ.J.Õ said that psychology Ôis still somewhat in the position of the young6He wrote that:To say that there is a criminal nature which is degenerate is one thing, atrue thing; but to go on to say that all criminals are degenerate and bearthing. I do not see for myself why crime should necessarily be degeneracy.7Lucia Zedner remarked that: ÔEven at the height of LombrosoÕs influence Criminology & Criminal Justice 7(2)126 117-134 CRJ-075565.qxd 28/3/07 10:52 AM Page 126 at SAGE Publications on December 16, 2009 http://crj.sagepub.com Downloaded from The Timesnew school are probably known to few persons in this country, lawyers and9It seems to have been different in the United States. Rafter said that: ÔBeset10See the editorsÕ introduction to Lombroso (2004: 12).11His ideas were angrily contested in conferences of criminal anthropologistsin Paris in 1889 and in Brussels in 1892. By 1893, it could be confidentlythat Ôthe position of Lombroso É is no longer defensible.There is absolutely no fixed correlation between anatomical structure and12An otherwise laudatory article in The Timesof 11 September 1889 remarkedof the criminal anthropologists that:If their conclusions are paradoxical, some of their premises are truismsÉ the work of investigation is only in its infancy É Such are the chiefprinciples and methods of the new school. We are more impressed by theuniformity of the method employed than that of the results obtained byit. In fact, the latter are strikingly conflicting. What one observer declares13Goring, it will be recalled, had concluded that Lombroso worked:not by methods of disinterested investigation, but, rather, by a leap of14I am grateful to Nicole Rafter for this point.15See Rose (1958: 53). Lombrosianism was, he said, Ôan approach alien to16Thus the Chairman of the Prison Commissioners for Scotland chaired a sit-The Times17See Bill ForsytheÕs entry on Edmund Du Cane, the chairman of the convictpublished by Oxford University Press, 2004. When DuCane listed the causes of crime in an address to the 1872 Internationallike. See Pears (1912: 336). Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Bryce, Du CaneÕs successor,also disowned Lombroso in his Chairman of the Prison Commission between 1942 and 1960, made no ref-18For a reprise of the events leading to that study, see Lombroso-Ferrero RockÑCaesare Lombroso as a signal criminologist127 117-134 CRJ-075565.qxd 28/3/07 10:52 AM Page 127 at SAGE Publications on December 16, 2009 http://crj.sagepub.com Downloaded from 19The historian of British prison medicine, Joe Sim, questioned Ôthe conven-tional account of the history of criminology which put the Italian positivistCaesare Lombroso at the centre stage of the disciplineÕs development ÉLombrosoÕs theories É were greeted with scepticism by the British medicalestablishmentÕ (1990: 130). There were exceptions, one being Dr Bruce20Thus CarlenÕs WomenÕs Imprisonment21See Pailthorpe (1932), Epps (1951) and Woodside (1961). For one pris-onerÕs experience of procedures on reception, see Lonsdale (1943).22See ÔThe Methods and Aims of Medical EducationÕ, 23The recollection of William Westcott, 1843Ð1925, a medical practitioner,24I am grateful to Bob Scott for this idea.25Report of the meeting of the British AssociationÑpaper on InstinctiveCriminality. The Times26From a speech made at the Congress of Criminal Anthropology, Turin,27Porter observed that: ÔThe cultural conventions of early modern times werethe body, beautiful or ugly, noble or base, sacred or profane, clean or dirty,28The new school of criminologists treated the criminal as the complex prod-The Times29Summing up his life in an editorial, The Times Time has separated the mass of crudities, exaggerations, clever but inaccur-ate guesses, superficial reasoning about atavism and heredity, plausibledeductions from DARWINÕS teaching, and much else, erroneous, sensa-tional, and ephemeral, from the elements of truth in [his] books É Oneweakness of LombrosoÕs somewhat visionary speculations is that physicalconformation may go for little É [reference to] facts which LOMBROSO,with unwearied, if uncritical, industry had collected.The Times30Thus Hobhouse and Brockway said with conviction in 1922, a mere threeview. Most of those with experience of prison populations denied it Criminology & Criminal Justice 7(2)128 117-134 CRJ-075565.qxd 28/3/07 10:52 AM Page 128 at SAGE Publications on December 16, 2009 http://crj.sagepub.com Downloaded from publication of Dr. GoringÕs ÒThe English ConvictÓ.31He was unchallenged for 25 years, said Hermann Mannheim (1965: 227).The Times, 20 November 1926, reported a lecture delivered at the LSE onthe previous day by Cyril Burt in which he had said Ôinquiries into the causesof delinquency showed that we could no longer assume with Lombroso thatthe habitual criminal inherited a propensity to crime which could never beThe Criminal Womanstudy, Ôthe best-known example of this trend and the only one generally34To be sure, there strands in LombrosoÕs work that might lead one toCriminal Woman, the Prostitute, and the NormalWomanis such a jumble of inconsistent assertions about race, gender,35In conversation.36See, for instance, Mayhew (1862); Cressey (1932); Reckless (1933);Ward and Kassebaum (1966). the neglected work of Mayhew, see37It is an issue revealed starkly in what was a seminal book of the then blos-soming sociology of deviance, MatzaÕs deviant throughout the bulk of his text as ÔheÕ. Yet when he gave threechose womenÕs names for his characters. Where there is the obliteration of RockÑCaesare Lombroso as a signal criminologist129 117-134 CRJ-075565.qxd 28/3/07 10:52 AM Page 129 at SAGE Publications on December 16, 2009 http://crj.sagepub.com Downloaded from Brown, B. (1986) ÔWomen and Crime: The Dark Figures of CriminologyÕ,Buckingham: Open University Press.. New York: Free Press of Glencoe.Carlen, P. (1983) WomenÕs ImprisonmentClouston, T. (1894) ÔThe Developmental Aspects of Criminal AnthropologyÕ,Collins, W. (1902, 1903 and 1904) ÔInaugural AddressÕ, Transactions of theCowie, J., V. Cowie and E. Slater (1968) Cressey, P. (1932) The Taxi-Dance Hall. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Les Visages de la CriminalitŽ: ç la Recherche dÕUne ThŽorieScientifique du Criminel Type en Angleterre (1860Ð1914). London: Walter Scott.Man and Woman. London: Walter Scott.A Note on the Bedborough Trial. New York: Random House.Epps, P. (1951) ÔA Preliminary Survey of 300 Female Delinquents in BorstalGartner, R. (2004) ÔReview of Caesare Lombroso and G. Ferrero;Woman, the Prostitute, and the Normal Womanintroduction by Nicole Hahn Rafter and Mary GibsonÕ, SeptemberÐOctober.Society of Women. New York: Wiley.. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.The History of Medical Education in the Last HundredYears, p. 8. Pamphlet reprinted from Windsor Magazine Criminology & Criminal Justice 7(2)130 117-134 CRJ-075565.qxd 28/3/07 10:52 AM Page 130 at SAGE Publications on December 16, 2009 http://crj.sagepub.com Downloaded from Heidensohn, F. (1996) Women and Crime Heidensohn, F. (2002) ÔGender and CrimeÕ, in M. Maguire, R. Morgan and English Prisons To-DayNew York: Routledge.. London: Brown, Watson.in the Edinburgh Medical Curriculum, 1790Ð1870Õ, in V. Nutton andKelley, J. (1967) Kenny, C. (1910) ÔThe Death of LombrosoÕ, Levin, Y. and A. Lindesmith (1937) ÔEnglish Ecology and Criminology of theLindesmith, A. and Y. Levin (1937) ÔThe Lombrosian Myth in CriminologyÕ,A World of Strangers. New York: Basic Books.. London: T. Fisher Unwin.Criminal Woman, the Prostitute, and the Normal WomanDurham, NC: Duke University Press.Lombroso-Ferrero, G. (1914) ÔCharles GoringÕs ÒThe English ConvictÓ: Prison for Women. Chislehurst, Kent: Prison Medical ReformLoudon, I. (1995) ÔMedical Education and Medical ReformÕ, in V. Nutton and(Vol. 1). London: RoutledgeMaudsley, H. (1888) ÔRemarks on Crime and CriminalsÕ, Mayhew, H. (1862) (Vol. 4). London:Mealey, L. (1995) ÔThe Sociobiology of Sociopathy: An Integrated EvolutionaryMorris, P. (1965) Morrison, W.D. (1891) Morrison, W.D. (1897 [1896]) . New York: D. Appleton & Co. RockÑCaesare Lombroso as a signal criminologist131 117-134 CRJ-075565.qxd 28/3/07 10:52 AM Page 131 at SAGE Publications on December 16, 2009 http://crj.sagepub.com Downloaded from the Transactions of the International Penitentiary Congress, London, JulyThe Medical Profession in Mid-Victorian London. Berkeley,CA: University of California Press.Pitchford, I. (2001) ÔThe Origins of Violence: Is Psychopathy an Adaptation?Õ,The Criminality of Women. New York: Barnes/Perpetua.Porter, R. (1997) The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History ofPorter, R. (2001) . Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Rafter, N. (1992) ÔCriminal Anthropology in the United StatesÕ, Rafter, N. (1997) Rafter, N. (2005) ÔEvolutionary and Genetic Theories of CrimeÕ, unpublishedpaper.Rafter, N. (forthcoming) ÔCesare Lombroso and the Origins of CriminologyÕ, in. New York:Vice in ChicagoRock, P. (1996) Reconstructing a WomenÕs PrisonRose, G. (1958) ÔTrends in the Development of Criminology in BritainÕ, Scott, P. (1956) ÔHenry MaudsleyÕ, Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology, andWomen, Crime and CriminologySmart, C. (1977b) ÔCriminological Theory: Its Ideology and ImplicationsConcerning WomenÕ, Women in PrisonTaylor, I., P. Walton and J. Young (1973) Thomas, W.I. (1924) Ward, D. and G. Kassebaum (1966) WomenÕs Prison. London: Weidenfeld &Woodside, M. (1961) ÔWomen Drinkers Admitted to Holloway Prison during Criminology & Criminal Justice 7(2)132 117-134 CRJ-075565.qxd 28/3/07 10:52 AM Page 132 at SAGE Publications on December 16, 2009 http://crj.sagepub.com Downloaded from Zedner, L. (1991) Women, Crime, and Custody in Victorian England PAUL ROCK is Professor of Social Institutions at the London School ofEconomics and occasional Visiting Professor at the Department ofCriminology, University of Pennsylvania. He was educated at the LSE andNuffield College, Oxford, and has written about the history of criminological theory and development of policies for victims of crime. RockÑCaesare Lombroso as a signal criminologist133 117-134 CRJ-075565.qxd 28/3/07 10:52 AM Page 133 at SAGE Publications on December 16, 2009 http://crj.sagepub.com Downloaded from