User:Aeisenstadt1/sandbox

Did you know?

... if you're smart, you might be crazy! Check out what the father of modern psychology thinks about you and your head shape.

Legacy

Self-proclaimed the founder of modern scientific psychiatry, Lombroso is purported to have coined the term "criminology". He institutionalized the science of psychiatry in universities. His graduating thesis from the University of Pavia dealt with "endemic cretinism". In the next several years, Lombroso's fascination with criminal behavior and society began, and he gained experience managing a mental institution. After a brief stint in the Italian army, Lombroso returned to the University of Pavia and became the first professor specializing in mental health. By the 1880s, his theories had reached the pinnacle of their fame, and his accolades championed them throughout the fields dedicated to examining mental illness. Lombroso differentiated himself from his predecessor and rival, Cesare Beccaria, through depicting his positivist school in opposition to Beccaria's classist one (which centered around the idea that criminal behavior is born out of free will rather than inherited physical traits). Lombroso's psychiatric theories were conglomerated and collectively called the positivist school by his followers. His school of thought was only truly abandoned in Italian universities' curriculum after World War II.

Through his various publications, Lombroso established a school of psychiatry based on biological determinism and the idea that mental illness was via genetic factors. A person's predisposition to mental illness was determinable through their appearance, as explained in the aforementioned criminal atavism segment. Lombroso's theory has been cited as possibly "the most influential doctrine" in all areas studying human behavior, and indeed, its impact extended far and wide. According to Lombroso, criminal appearance was not just based on inherited physiognomy such as nose or skull shape, but also could be judged through superficial features like tattoos on the body. In particular, Lombroso began searching for a relationship between tattoos and an agglomeration of symptoms (which are currently diagnosed as borderline personality disorder). He also believed that tattoos indicated a certain type of criminal.

Through his observations of sex workers and criminals, Lombroso hypothesized a correlation between left-handedness, criminality, and degenerate behavior. He also propagated the idea that left-handedness lead to other disabilities, by linking left-handedness with neurodegeneration and alcoholism. Lombroso's theories were likely accepted due to the pre-existing regional stigma against left-handedness, and greatly influenced the reception of left-handedness in the 21st century. His hypothesis even manifested in a new way during the 1980s and 1990s with a series of research studies grouping left-handedness with psychiatric disorders and autoimmune diseases.

Despite his stance on inherited immorality and biologically-destined criminal behavior, Lombroso believed in socialism and supposedly sympathized with stigmatization of lower socioeconomic statuses, placing him at odds with the biological determinism he espoused. His work stereotyping degenerates can even be seen as an influence behind Benito Mussolini's movement to clean the streets of Italy. Many adherents to Lombroso's positivist school stayed powerful during Mussolini's rule, because of the seamless way criminal atavism and biological determinism justified fascism. However, certain legal institutions did press back against the idea that criminal behavior is biologically determined.

Within the penal system, Lombroso's work led to new forms of punishment, where occasionally punishment varied based on the defendant's biological background. There are a few instances in which case the physiognomy of the defendant actually mattered more than witness testimony and the defendant was subjected to harsher sentences.

During the period in Italy between the 1850s and 1880s, the Italian government debated legislature for the insanity plea. Judges and lawyers backed Beccaria's classist school, tending to favor the idea that wrongdoers are breaking a societal contract out with the option to exercise free will, tying into Beccaria's classist school of social misbehavior. Lombroso and his followers argued for a criminal code, in which the criminal understood as unable to act with free will due to their biological predisposition to crime.

Since his research tied criminal behavior together with the insane, Lombroso is closely credited with the genesis of the criminal insane asylum and forensic psychiatry. His work sponsored the creation of institutions where the criminally insane would be treated for mental illness, rather than placed in jails with their saner counterparts. One example of an asylum for the criminally insane is Bridgewater State Hospital, which is located in the United States. Other examples of these institutions are Matteawan State Hospital and Danvers State Hospital. Most have closed down, but the concept is kept alive with modern correctional facilities like Cook County Jail. This facility houses the largest population of prisoners with mental illness in the United States. However, it's important to note that criminal insane asylums did exist outside of Italy while Lombroso was establishing them within the country. His influence on the asylum was at first regional, but eventually percolated to other countries who adopted some of Lombroso's measure for treating the criminally insane.

In addition to influencing criminal atavisim, Lombroso wrote a book called Genio e Follia, in which he discussed the link between genius and insanity. He believed that genius was an evolutionarily beneficial form of insanity, stemming from the same root as other mental illnesses. This hypothesis lead to his request to examine Leo Tolstoy for degenerate qualities during his attendance at the 12th International Medical Congress in Moscow in 1897. The meeting went poorly, and Tolstoy's novel, Resurrection, shows great disdain for Lombroso's methodology.

Towards the end of his life, Lombroso began to study Pellagra in rural Italy, a disease which Joseph Goldberger simultaneously was researching. He postulated that Pellagra came from a nutrition deficiet, officially proven by Goldberger. This disease also found its roots in the same poverty that caused cretinism, which Lombroso studied at the start of his medical career. Furthermore, before Lombroso's death the Italian government passed a law in 1904 standardizing treatment in mental asylums and codifying procedural admittance for mentally ill criminals. This law gave psychiatrists free reign within the criminal insane asylum, validating the field of psychiatry through giving the psychiatrists the sole authority to define and treat the causes of criminal behavior (a position which Lombroso argued for from his early teaching days to his death).