Cesare Lombroso, an Italian physician turned criminal anthropologist, published The Criminal Man in 1876 (available online HERE) asserting that thieves and prostitutes didn’t turn to crime in response to shitty life circumstances or bad choices, but because they had an inherited predisposition.  Lombroso believed that criminals were evolutionarily stunted –and pretty much doomed. He also claimed that these folks could be identified by physical characteristics like asymmetrical faces, dark hair, and more—theories that sadly  justified and perpetuated racial and gender stereotypes still felt today (a complicated topic that deserves its own post/ conversation another time).  

Twenty years later and across the ocean, Thomas Byrnes, Superintendent of the New York Police Department, shared and expanded Lombroso’s theories , believing certain criminal types shared unique characteristics. Byrnes observed that  

• The foot is a wonderful indicator of character. Honest men put their heel down squarely and walk along in confidently but not aggressively. Criminals generally put their heels down cautiously and round out their step to the toes.
• The thieving hand almost always larger in proportion than that of the honest man.
• Those that bite their nails show a vicious or criminal tendency, whether developed or not.

Huh.

Cesare Lombroso also applied his theories to women and clearly hated them though I have yet to learn why. Interestingly, his distain seems to semi-absolve women of their criminal behavior. Per Lombroso in his book The Criminal Woman, the Prostitute and the Normal Woman (I can’t find a free online version right now but will post later if I run across one)

Women have something close to what might be called an instinct for lying. Caught at something unexpectedly, they start concocting a lie (though some do this better than others). … This is so organic that they are unaware of it, and they are never able to be entirely sincere. Unconsciously, all are a little false.

That women lie habitually is confirmed by the common custom of refusing to accept, or accept much of, women’s testimony. This custom grew out of not only primitive man’s disdain for women’s weakness but also his experience with her untruthfulness. Women’s incapacity for criminal responsibility was recognized in the laws of ancient Greece and Rome and in the codes of many German peoples. Even today the Ottoman Code (article 355) provides that the deposition of a man should be worth that of two women. And in many languages the words oath and testimony as the same root as testicle.

Well isn’t that special? And all too familiar today. I’ll save more on Lombroso for another day.