Cesare Lombroso, a high-minded 19th century Italian physician, is remembered for his series of skull measurements purporting to show that criminals have smaller brains than law-abiding citizens. Few criminology textbooks go to print without elaborate coverage of Lombroso's folly, a reminder to students that nurture, not nature, is responsible for criminal behavior. Now, however, two prominent Harvard professors, James Q. Wilson and Richard Herrnstein, argue that Lombroso was on the right track: no one is born a criminal, but many are born with "constitutional factors" that predispose them to serious crime. "There is mounting evidence," the professors write in their new book Crime and Human Nature (Simon & Schuster; $22.95), "that on the average, offenders differ from nonoffenders in physique, intelligence and personality."
Though fair-minded and often generous to its intellectual opponents, the book is obviously an effort to discredit the reigning view that crime is largely, or entirely, the by-product of poverty, racism, broken families and other social disturbances. By focusing narrowly on environmental conditions that help breed crime, the authors write, criminologists overlook traits that many offenders seem to share. Criminals tend to be young males who are muscular rather than thin, and who have lower-than-average IQs and impulsive, "now"-oriented personalities, which make planning or even thinking about the future difficult. While these factors do not cause crime, they say, "the evidence leaves no doubt" that constitutional traits correlate with criminal behavior.
Wilson is a professor of government and author of Thinking About Crime (1975). Herrnstein, a psychologist, has been a controversial figure since his 1971 article in the Atlantic stressing the role of genetic factors in producing differences in IQ scores. The two professors have jointly taught a course on crime at Harvard since 1977. Says Wilson: "There is overwhelming evidence first that crime runs in families and second that early childhood precursors of crime seem clear." One study of adoptions in Denmark from 1924 to 1947 found that chronically criminal biological parents were three times as likely to produce a chronically criminal son as were biological parents with no such convictions. Other research indicates that serious offenders are far + more hyperactive and difficult as children than non-offenders. The authors believe these high-risk children should be identified and given early help. They write: "The abnormal need for stimulation that impels a child toward hyperactivity may later express itself in a tendency toward psychopathy and its consequences, such as criminal behavior."
Many of the book's assertions are open to debate, but the most likely to draw heavy fire are the freewheeling ruminations on body types and IQs. The authors cite studies showing that criminals tend to be more mesomorphic (muscular) and less ectomorphic (linear) than the general population. The authors think this finding points to a link between body type, temperament and crime. Other studies indicate that muscularity is associated with an extroverted, high-energy, domineering temperament, while an inhibited, restrained person who is likely to internalize the rules of society and steer clear of crime tends to be thin.