Criminal Man, According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso

Criminal Man, According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso

It will, perhaps, be of interest to American readers of this book, in which the ideas of the Modern Penal School, set forth in my work, Criminal Man, have been so pithily summed up by my daughter, to learn how the first outlines of this science arose in my mind and gradually took shape in a definite workhow, that is, combated by some, the object of almost fanatical adherence on the part of others, especially in America, where tradition has little hold, the Modern Penal School came into being. On consulting my memory and the documents relating to my studies on this subject, I find that its two fundamental ideasthat, for instance, which[Pg xii] claims as an essential point the study not of crime in the abstract, but of the criminal himself, in order adequately to deal with the evil effects of his wrong-doing, and that which classifies the congenital criminal as an anomaly, partly pathological and partly atavistic, a revival of the primitive savagedid not suggest themselves to me instantaneously under the spell of a single deep impression, but were the offspring of a series of impressions. The slow and almost unconscious association of these first vague ideas resulted in a new system which, influenced by its origin, has preserved in all its subsequent developments the traces of doubt and indecision, the marks of the travail which attended its birth. The first idea came to me in 1864, when, as an army doctor, I beguiled my ample leisure with a series of studies on the Italian soldier. From the very beginning I was struck by a characteristic that distinguished the honest soldier from his vicious comrade: the extent to which the latter was tattooed and the indecency of the designs that covered his body. This idea, however, bore no fruit. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 29895
Author: Lombroso, Gina
Release Date: Sep 3, 2009
Format: eBook
Language: English