Criminological Theory Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Criminological Theory - Assignment Example Many theorists have contributed by presenting theories linking crime to the fields of biology, psychology and sociology. The basic tenets of the biological, psychological, and sociological perspectives for explaining crime will be identified and discussed here. In the 19th century, Cesare Lombroso gave biological description of crime. Lombroso gave significance to criminals instead of crime (Beccalossi, 2010). Lombroso attached ape like characteristics to criminals. According to his theory, criminals were born criminals and contained facial and bodily features alike to apes. The criminals were considered to have big jawbones, high cheekbones, longer arms, larger ears, extra hand fingers and toe fingers, and much more (Gibson, 2002). According to Lombroso, criminals were â€Å"vain, vindictive, lazy, dominated by a thirst for blood, and delighting in orgies† (Beccalossi, 2010, p. 564). Lombroso criminal personalities were savage and contained animalistic physical features. He connected criminality as something that one obtained by birth. He gave specific consideration towards genetically characterized appearances of people and rejected any social happening linked with criminality of criminals (Gibson, 2002). After Lombroso, Charles Goring presented his theory of genetic criminology, but unlike Lombroso, he did not specified bodily features of criminals. According to Goring, criminals showed criminal behavior because of having low IQ (Rafter, 2008). Goring also explained criminals as having deviated towards criminality by birth. William Sheldon, another biological theorist, described different bodily appearances as descriptive of criminal associations. Humans, according to Sheldon, were to be divided in three types of bodies were ectomorphs, endomorphs and mesomorphs (Rafter, 2008). Out of these three types, only mesomorphs were the one who were deviated towards crime. They had intimidating appearances like muscular bodies and strong figures