Recent Tendencies in Criminological Research in Germany

WX THAT CAUSES crime? Who are the criminals? Much, if not most, of the criminological research of the past twenty years, both in the United States and on the Continent, centers in these two related questions. No matter how extreme the points of view or methods of research, there is general agreement that without knowledge of the etiological factors underlying specific criminal behavior control over it remains ineffective. American students have approached this problem from the psychological and sociological points of view. The major research in this country, for reasons which need not now be discussed, has been in the hands of the psychologists and sociologists. The Continental research, on the other hand, has been directed chiefly by physicians and psychiatrists, and hence emphasis has been placed upon the physical or structural side of behavior, on hereditary-biological causation. This paper deals with several techniques and methods which have been recently developed on the Continent. The general movement employing these methods is known as the crimino-biological approach. Since Bavaria has made the most extensive and most critical use of such technique, its crimino-biological work is selected for emphasis in the discussion which follows.' Before entering into a description of the work in Bavaria, it is desirable to relate it to the general tradition of Lombroso, which

Criminology · Political science · Sociology · Psychology · Psychopathy, Forensic Psychiatry, Sexual Offending

• Somatotyping, Antimodernism, and the Production of Criminological Knowledge

  Open Access•Nicole Rafter•Criminology•2007

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