If from antiquity opinions were formulated that connected physics with the moral side of man, based on the inseparable sequence of body/soul, and if, over the centuries, these opinions were accompanied by superstitious perceptions until scientific theories, the criminological anthropology of recent years, based on the findings of this long journey, gave the criminal man, whose form equally occupied science and the arts.
In the late 19th century, the Italian doctor and anthropologist Cesare Lombroso became the main exponent of the search for the innate criminal, and with his works - especially with The Criminal Man (L'Uomo delinquente, 1876) - he substantially influenced the evolution of criminology.
Based on his studies on the behavior of plants and mainly animals, on the manifestations of criminal heredity (central concept of his theories), on the crimes of the wild, on the delinquency of childhood, on the effects of the environment and on the results of education and criminal punishment, Lombroso argued that anatomical characteristics and mental properties are directly related and that the criminal impulses of the soul usually correspond to an abnormal physical condition.
Identifying the "innate criminal" with the morally insane, he considered the latter as a victim of atavism (of Darwinian origin in Lombroso) and as incurable; therefore, he attributed reduced responsibility for his actions.
Modern science has questioned and often rejected many of Lombroso's conclusions. It was judged that the relationship between physical and moral condition does not constitute an inviolable law and that, although the degenerate often manifests criminal behavior, degeneration and crime are not causally linked. The myth of the unified and specific category of the "born criminal" was refuted, while it was emphasized how dangerous the confusion can be, even for specialists, between the predisposition of the criminal to act and the predisposition of the public to "recognize" in a crime an "idiosyncratic criminal". However, the Italian doctor gave new impetus to criminology and decisively influenced its course for many decades. Moreover, neolombrosism, with its biological direction and philosophical foundation, is revived together with technological achievements. Crime may not be treated as a "biological category", "criminal genotypes" may not have been identified, but the ongoing - within the broader problematic of the subject - search for accumulation of criminological and genetic traces proves that the old dilemma "do biological or social structures pre-determine human behavior?" has not yet been definitively answered.