The American Criminal.

The author's monumental statistical survey of criminals

First edition, first printing. The American anthropologist Earnest Albert Hooton (1887-1954) is best known for his anthropometric studies in criminology in the 1930s, which followed in the tradition established by Cesare Lombroso and the so-called Positivist School in criminology in Italy during the 1870s. "In 1927 Hooton began a massive project that he intended to be the final proof that the biological theory of crime was correct, holding that deviant behaviour is due to diminished mental abilities. He measured the physical characteristics of 13,873 criminals and compared them with a control sample of 3,203 noncriminals in order to make clear any differences between the two adult-male groups The results of his study were then stratified into two separate works for publication: the massive log of statistical results known as The American Criminal and the more readable Crime and the Man, which was meant for consumption by the general public" (The International Encyclopaedia of Primatology, I, p. 591). Hooton's hopes that these works would bring him to greater prominence did not come to fruition, and the present work is the only published volume of a planned three-volume series; the sequential volumes were abandoned due to high production costs and poor sales.