The biological explanations would be that we are born to commit the crime, stereotyping would suggest society would push people into the life of crime making suggestive remarks on someone’s facial appearances plays an adequate part. A study provided has proven to show higher percentages of criminals have unattractive features.
Goring 1913 proved against Lombroso’s theory by comparing 3,000 English convicts and 3,000 non-convicts and found no comparison to support Lombroso’s theory.
Sheldon conducted a study to find out what personality would fit which body type. He this study by showing 4,000 photos of male students and 650 personalities from this he found 3 types of body types ectomorphic being thin and fragile (delicate), endomorphic being fat and soft (fun and friendly) and mesomorphic being muscular and hard (deviant or criminal).
From this study, he found that more criminals and deviants would be a mesomorphs than ectomorphs.
Wadsworth 1979 claimed in study of British crimes, people who committed serious crimes were more of an ectomorph and tended to be late reaching puberty than non-delinquents.
Corte’s and Gatti supported Sheldon’s theory by doing a study involving 100 delinquents from this he found 57% were mesomorphic while in a group of 100 from the normal population there was only 19%.
The xyy study explains why people commit crime, it is suggested that given we have 23 chromosomes. Criminal males are born with that extra Y, Price Et Al and Jarvick Et Al tried to prove this theory as correct, So they studied prisons and special hospitals to see if the xyy theory was present. They concluded that the prisons were highly populated with the xyy chromosome, which is why price and jarvick suggested they were more inclined to commit crime. They named these supermales, if this was screened for at an early age it could be detected and prevented. However Watkin Et Al did a study, which opposed the previous theories, This involved 4591 men and testing them for the xyy theory but only 12 cases was noticed. However this does not mean they don’t commit crime or that the xyy theory doesn’t exist, Watkins suggested that it was down to other characteristics such as social and peers that are the main factors for committing crime.
