NCJ Number
139708
Journal
Criminology Volume: 30 Issue: 4 Dated: (November 1992) Pages: 525-545
Date Published
1992
Length
21 pages
Annotation
An examination of American criminal anthropology can be used as an avenue for current American criminologists to better understand the origins of three persistent problems in the field, namely criminology's difficulties in establishing a clear-cut disciplinary identity, defining its methods, and distinguishing its role as a knowledge enterprise from its contributions to crime control.
Abstract
The first section of this article defines key terms -- including criminal anthropology, professionalization of criminology, and positivism -- and outlines the procedures used in the study. This discussion covers the production and substance of criminal anthropology in the period spanning 1881, when the first book on the topic appeared, and 1911, when leading theorists began to favor the defective delinquency theory. The author summarizes the substance of U.S. criminal anthropology and analyzes its theorists' inability to separate positivist methods from content. The author concludes that early criminal anthropologists were less concerned with the knowledge value of their research than with its usefulness in promoting eugenic solutions to crime. 14 notes and 51 references