Anthropological criminology

Although similar to physiognomy and phrenology, the term "criminal anthropology" is generally reserved for the works of the Italian school of criminology of the late 19th century (Cesare Lombroso, Enrico Ferri, Raffaele Garofalo and Lorenzo Tenchini).

In the 19th century, Cesare Lombroso and his followers performed autopsies on criminals and declared that they had discovered similarities between the physiologies of the bodies and those of "primitive humans" such as monkeys and apes.

Most of these similarities involved receding foreheads, height, head shape, and size; Lombroso postulated the theory of the born criminal based on these physical characteristics.

Despite general rejection of Lombroso's theories, anthropological criminology still finds a place of sort in modern criminal profiling.

This was found particularly in America, with the American Eugenics Movement between 1907 and 1939, and the Anti-miscegenation laws, and also in Germany during the Third Reich where 250,000 mentally disabled Germans were killed.