Anomalous Females

Abstract

Cesare Lombroso and Guglielmo Ferrero, Criminal Woman, the Prostitute, and the Normal Woman, translated and with a new introduction by Nicole Hahn Rafter and Mary Gibson, Duke University Press, Durham, 2004; 304 pp., £65, ISBN 0-82233-2078 (hbk); £16.95, ISBN 0-82233-2479 (pbk). Valeria P. Babini, Il caso Murri: una storia italiana, il Mulino, Bologna, 2004; 309 pp., 21 Euro; ISBN 8815-097309. In his well-known work L'uomo delinquente (Criminal Man), first published in 1876, the criminologist Cesare Lombroso (1835–1909) introduced his theory of ‘born criminals’, according to which criminal behaviour is mostly an innate characteristic of individuals. He distinguished between ‘born’ and ‘occasional’ criminals, the first referring to someone born from the start with an inclination toward crime and with specific physical malformations, and the second to someone who became a criminal after his birth. The ‘anomalies’, as he defined the characteristics belonging only to criminals, were the result of adaptation during the evolution of the human species, enabling offenders to perform their role. He reached this conclusion by comparing the physical features and behaviour of criminals to those of people he considered ‘normal’, namely people who did not commit crime.