PROBLEM OF THE CRIMINAL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17329, 28 November 1919, Page 7

PROBLEM OF THE CRIMINAL.

. BRITISH INVESTIGATION. TYPE THEORY REFUTED. 1 Times. LONDON, Nov. 26 ! The most important criminologica work ever conducted has been sum marised and published by the Prison Committee under the superinten dence of Professor Karl Pearson Professor of Eugenics at the Univer sity of London and Director of Natu ral Eugenics. ■ Three thousand convicts were col lected, measured and watched. Thi results proved that a criminal typ< does not exist. Criminals do not pos , sess abnormal physical or menta i characteristics, but belong largely to a defective class physically am mentally, but criminality is not ? morbid state akin to physica disease. 1 The report nevertheless admit; that criminality is subject to here , dity. I The conclusion of Dr. Karl Pearson is ii direct ccnfl'ct with the theory advance* by the late Professor Lombroso. Professo I Lombroso, who was an eminent Italia) I savant, claimed to have discovered i I criminal type, the " instinctive"' or " born" ' criminal, who could be recognised by cer I tain facial, physical, and moral birth I marks. This alleged discovery of th I '• born criminal" as a separate and di* I tinct genus of the human species vva ! first published by Dr. Lombroso in 1876 as the result of long continued investiga tion and examination of a number of im prisoned criminals. The traits d'stinguish ing the criminal type were defined a follows -.—Var.ous brain and cerebra anoma'ies. ; receding foreheads; masgi\i jaws and prognathous chin? ; skulls with out symmetry ; long, largo and projectinj ears; noses rectilinear; wrinkles strong!; marked, even in the young and in hot! sexes; hair abundant on the head am scanty on the cheeks and chin ; eyes feline, fixed, cold, glassy, and repellent Other peeularities attr buted to the " bori criminal" were :Great width of extcndei ' arms, extraordinary ape-like agility, left handedness as well as ;inibi-dexterism, am obtuse sense of sme'l. taste, and sometime of hearing. The publication of Dr. Lorn broso's theory was followed by a Ion; controversy. A French savant declare) that Lombroso's portraits were very > mila ! to the photographs of his friends, am ' that, save tor the dirt, the recklessness the weariness, and the misery so nf t«-i seen on it, the face of the criminal did no d'ffer from that of an honest man. |