The genesis of the Lombroso ́s theory and its influence on the criminal lawsince the XIX century until our days

Abstract

The aim of the present work is to analyze Lombroso’s criminal anthropology, one of the most notorious examples of the biological reductionism of evolutionist basis from the XIX century. Its main assumption is that there is a variety of criminals, the born criminals, who are cavemen that coexistin civilized societies. With this differ ence settled, they could be distinguished by the presence of some morphological stigmata of their ataviccondition, constituting the criminal type. If it is true that, time ago, this theory fell into desuse its influence on the criminal law survives in thelaws that allow suspended sentences. In order to fulfil our aim, we will split this writing in two main sections. In the first one we will treat theinfluences on the Lombroso ́s theory of the evolution and recapitulation (I). In the second part (II), we will treat the influence of Lombroso’s theoryupon the criminal law of the XIX century until our days.