Chapter 5: Early Positivism

Audio Links

• "Can Software That Predicts Crime Pass Constitutional Muster?"
  A computer program in the experimental stage has raised unanswered questions about whether it is appropriate for police to stop people based on computer modeling.
   
• "IQ Isn't Set in Stone, Suggests Study That Finds Big Jumps, Dips in Teens"
  A new study documents significant fluctuations in the IQs of a group of British teenagers. The findings bolster the theory that the IQ test isn't a measure of a person's "fixed" intellectual capacity but rather a gauge of acquired knowledge that progresses in fits and starts.

Author Podcast

• Author Podcast: Applying Theories

Video Clips

• Crime and Violence: The Biological Behind Murder
  Adrian Raine, criminologist and author of The Anatomy of Violence: The Biological Roots of Crime, talks about how biology-in addition to social factors-affects whether or not someone will become a violent criminal, and why men are more likely to commit homicidal crimes than women.
   
• Cesare Lombroso, Left Handedness, and the Criminal Mind
  Emory University's Nat C. Robertson Distinguished Professor Howard Kushner tells the story of late-19th/early 20th century Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso and his efforts to study the relationship between left-handedness and criminal behavior.
   
• Phrenology-Studying the Shape of the Head
  This clip is taken from a documentary on phrenology and describes the different areas of the brain that were thought to possess certain characteristics.

Websites

• Social Darwinism
  The article gives a brief view of Social Darwinism.
   
• Eugenics
  The author seeks to interrogate the implications of past practices.
   
• Sterilization
  An article from a legal journal dated from 1915 on the topic of sterilization of criminals.
   
• Phrenology
  Stanford has posted information on phrenology as a practice.
   
• Scientific Racism
  The Washington Post interrogates the modern version of Social Darwinism.