Cesare Lombroso

Cesare Lombroso (1835 to 1909), born Ezechia Marco Lombroso, was an Italian criminologist, physician, phrenologist and eugenicist, and the founder of the Italian school of criminology. He is considered the founder of modern criminology because he changed Western notions of individual responsibility. Lombroso rejected the established classical school, which held that crime was a characteristic trait of human nature. Drawing on concepts from physiognomy, degeneration theory, psychiatry and Social Darwinism, his theory of anthropological criminology essentially stated that criminality was inherited, and that someone born criminal could be identified by physical, congenital defects, which confirmed the criminal as savage or atavistic.