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The Weimar

The Weimar years, then, saw the development of a new science, criminal-biology, that could easily be used in the next period to further the eugenic goals of the Nazi state. Related to other sciences and scientific subspecialities--old-fashioned criminal anthropology; the new amalgam of genetics, eugenics, and anthropology; psychiatry; body typing; genealogical investigations; and twin studies--criminal-biology was distinguished above all by its scientism or unquestioning acceptance of (indeed, enthusiasm for) what scientists identified as true knowledge. Weimar criminology was not a monolith, as Wetzell (2006; also see Cantor, 1936) cautions, for it developed on a number of fronts and through research programs that sometimes produced contradictory results. But the general thrust was toward confirming criminality as a biological condition, identifying a core group of incurables ('habituals', 'incorrigibles', 'psychopaths'), and demonstrating the heritability of criminality. Weimar criminology differed from the criminal-biology of the Third Reich in degree, not kind: It was less racist, and its eugenics themes were relatively muted. But, as Wachsmann explains

31.10.2008. u 00:38 | 0 Komentara | Print | # | ^

Antisocial people

To locate sets of twins in which at least one of the pair had been imprisoned, Lange had turned for help to the Bavarian Ministry of Justice, an institution with a program of biological research that, like Kretchmer's body type investigations, furthered the biologisation of criminality in the Weimar years. In 1924, the Justice Ministry in the south German state of Bavaria established a Criminal-Biological Service to collect data--anthropometric, medical, moral, and psychiatric--on prisoners, their families, and their associates (Cantor, 1936; Liang, 2006). The goal was to identify 'incorrigibles' so that they could be sent to preventive detention. Based on the assumption that morality is rooted in biology, the Bavarian criminal-biological research seemed to prove that assumption, a proof that in turn reinforced hereditarian notions and the acceptance of eugenic solutions. Eventually including files on over 100,000 people, the program identified a motley group of incorrigibles including ordinary criminals, communists, homosexuals, psychopaths, recidivists and sex offenders (Liang, 2006) who constituted an apparently dysgenic nucleus of antisocial people.

31.10.2008. u 00:38 | 0 Komentara | Print | # | ^