Crime and the Anthropologist (From Advances in Forensic Psychology and Psychiatry, V 1, P 147-170, 1984, by Robert W Rieber, ed. - See NCJ-100229)

• NCJ Number: 100233
• Author(s): R K Merton; A Montagu
• Date Published: 1984
• Length: 24 pages
• Sale Source: Ablex Publishing Corporation
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Reprinted from American Anthropologist, V 42, N 3 (July-September 1940).

Annotation

Earnest Hooten's effort to present empirical evidence of a biological basis for criminality extrapolates far beyond the assembled data.

Abstract

Hooten compares the biolgocal characteristics of a sample of inmates to those of a noncriminal sample. He concludes that the distinguishing biological characteristics of the criminal sample are necessarily related to their criminal behavior and are therefore ''inferior' organic qualities. His linking of particular biological characteristics to specific criminal behaviors is tenuous, and alternative explanations of the behavior are hardly considered. Hooten neglects a systematic examination of social, economic, and cultural differences between the samples. Hooten's collection of exhaustive biological data to the neglect of sociocultural data displays a preconception about what data are relevant to the explanation of criminality. The frequent implication that sociological and biological interpretations of criminality are mutually exclusive is misleading. The research also fails to relate a criminal's biology to the particulars of the offenses committed. 22 references and tabular data.