The Geneaology of Criminology

Here is an interesting article I stumbled upon when I was reading the Economist:

http://www.economist.com/node/18925759

This article discusses how one’s facial features can trigger two very different actions: The first is one’s propensity towards lying. The second is whether or not a male’s level of attractiveness could induce more orgasms from their female partners.

The results of the article were both surprising and expected, in my opinion. In regards to one’s tendency to lie, the researchers discovered that the wider one’s face is in comparison to its length, the more likely they are to lie about their intentions. The researchers (Dr Haselhuhn and Dr Wong) linked this facial feature to a male’s level of aggressiveness. Apparently, many studies have shown that the wider a male’s face is in relation to its length, the more aggressive they act in a given situation. The two researches then went on to see if there was any correlation between this facial feature and a tendency to lie…which there was!

I was somewhat stunned to notice that Cesare Lombroso’s name did not once appear in this article, especially since he is considered to be one of the founders of modern day criminology, with respects to links between criminal behavior and one’s  physical anomalie.

I decided to post this article because I feel like in the past decade or so, there has been a growing emphasis on how one’s environment can influence their behavior, especially in terms of crime. When Giuliani was mayor of New York, he was hailed for his work on cleaning up Times Square, the general NYC subways and drastically reducing the crime rate. One theory that he was apparently fond of was the “broken window” theory. This theory posits that the more degenerated one’s environment is, the more likely someone is to add to the level of decrepitness. On the other hand, if someone’s environment was very pristine, they were much less likely to make it messy. This theory was applied to the NYC subways to clean out the graffiti, which it claims to have successfully done.

I think its good to still revert back to older theories on criminology and to not get caught in any ideological dogma, with respects to broken window theory. My view may be naive, but I believe that there isn’t one universal solution to crime. Rather, there are probably various solutions for a problem, many of which have not been tried and tested yet. But its a start to at least test and scrutinize theories, like this Economist article claims the researchers did.

-Nikhil

Hi Guys.. I found this article when reading alittle bit about Lombroso and I think it may have some kind of merrit, although it may be kind of minimum. The article is called Criminal Facial Features. It talks about Lombroso and his beliefs that criminals share similar physical attributes, (those of which resemble the more primitive stages of human development) and whether or not something like this is worth considering.

Living in 2011, we are taught that it is wrong to “judge a book by its cover” and that its discriminatory, but lets explore if there is even a reason why we even do it in the first place… In the article there is a short passage discussing that in 2005, there was data that suggests that “better looking people” are less likely to be involved in crime. Well, if “better looking people” are the lesser of the criminal population, then is it wrong imagine that the greater may all share similar attributes that society may recognize & consider “ugly”?  I know in life I’ve noticed the popular crowd in school, all who which seem to be good-looking, and seem to have become successful over the years. But what about those who were considered “ugly”? For example, imagine a group of kids in school who may have not been born with ideal genes, who dont have many friends, who lack confidence and who subsequently may lack ambition to go out and work hard. It may be easier for people of this nature who lack self confidence to fall into a life of crime, to do things that others may regard as anti-social. It would be foolish and naive to say that ones looks are sheerly a determinant of whether or not they will be a criminal in life, but hey who says we cant explore if there may be a correlation between the two?

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