Word: lombroso
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Your article about the new book Crime and Human Nature included references to Italian Physician Cesare Lombroso [BEHAVIOR, Oct. 21]. This reminded me of a course in criminal psychology that I took in 1922, for which Lombroso's work L'Homme Criminel was a textbook. One day the professor read to us from the book certain characteristics by which born criminals could be identified, some of which were "profusion of hair on the head, sparsity of hair on the face, and lean jaws constantly in motion," whereupon one of the students called out, "You have just described my wife!" Frank...
Some of the distrust is understandable, given the tawdry history of earlier efforts to link biology and crime. A century ago, Italian physician Cesare Lombroso claimed that sloping foreheads, jutting chins and long arms were signs of born criminals. In the 1960s, scientists advanced the now discounted notion that men who carry an XYY chromosome pattern, rather than the normal XY pattern, were predisposed to becoming violent criminals...
...Cesare Lombroso, a high-minded 19th century Italian physician, is remembered for his series of skull measurements purporting to show that criminals have smaller brains than law-abiding citizens. Few criminology textbooks go to print without elaborate coverage of Lombroso's folly, a reminder to students that nurture, not nature, is responsible for criminal behavior. Now, however, two prominent Harvard professors, James Q. Wilson and Richard Herrnstein, argue that Lombroso was on the right track: no one is born a criminal, but many are born with "constitutional factors" that predispose them to serious crime. "There is mounting evidence," the professors...
...from Newport. In the English colonies along the American coast, Jewish immigrants found a freedom beyond anything they had known in Europe. On paper the colonies severely restricted religious freedom, but the restrictions were seldom enforced against Jews. In 17th century Maryland, a stiff-necked Jewish physician named Jacob Lombroso was tried for blasphemy (he had publicly denied the divinity of Christ), but though he was plainly guilty under the law, the court set the case aside. Lombroso continued to live and prosper in Maryland...
...Answers: 1) Ibrahim Hakimi, 2) John L. Lewis, 3) Cesare Lombroso...