Criminalistic Junk Science

Cesare Lombroso

In the late nineteenth-century, Italian psychiatrist Cesare Lombroso advanced the idea of the "born criminal" based loosely on the work of naturalist Charles Darwin. Lombroso believed the criminal could be distinguished by "abnormalities" in the skull, face, and body. He compiled a list of criminal traits including receding hairline, forehead wrinkles, bumpy face, broad noses, fleshy lips, sloping shoulders, elongated arms, and pointed fingers.

In the Gilded Age of Queen Victoria, the belief there was a "face of evil" was an easy one in the era of Jack the Ripper. In the first half of the twentieth-century, this theory was strongly reinforced in American popular culture through radio mysteries, crime cinema, dime novels, and pulp-fiction detective magazines. This folklore reinforced the idea that criminals are easily identified because they look different from other people--loosely defined as "us".

Rather than scientific, these ideas broke along racial and ethnic lines. In nineteenth-century America, religion was also considered a prejudicial factor in determining guilt. It was generally believed by Anglo-Saxon Protestants--who made up the social and power elite--that Catholic and Jewish immigrants bore a greater responsibility for crime in cities like Boston and New York than law-abiding American folk. In Germany, the Nazis made great use of the pseudo-science of Social Darwinism against European Jews, which they documented to their shame in the last century.

In the early twentieth century, two new forms of pseudoscience gained popularity in law enforcement circles, the polygraph test--also known as a "lie detector" test--and the intravenous injection of truth serum. The polygraph machine measures and records several physiological indices such as blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and skin conductivity. The belief is that deceptive answers will record a different response that true responses. 

Sodium pentothal was invented in 1934 intended to be a pain killer, but it was found to relax subjects who would answer questions put to them in an unguarded and uninhibited fashion while under the influence of the sedative. During World War II, the drug was widely used as an anti-anxiety drug by psychiatrists for battle fatigue.

Polygraph printout.

Polygraph tests measure arousal and are inherently subjective. They can be affected by anxiety disorders and other factors. In 2002, the National Research Council noted "There is no specific physiological reaction associated with lying. The mechanisms associated with lying are unknown making it difficult to identify factors that separate liars from truth tellers." The National Academy of Sciences stated that polygraph tests "are simply unreliable, unscientific, biased, and inadmissible in the United States court system."

The belief that lie detectors are a useful forensic tool is generally discredited, but the myth is keep alive in the popular culture through fiction and film. Polygraph tests today are the subject of comedy as in Meet the Parents 3 where Robert De Niro straps a vintage polygraph machine to Ben Stiller for comic effect.

The idea of truth serum also has been the mainstay of pulp-fiction and true crime magazines. Its conceptual originator was Dr. Robert House in 1915. He gave the drug scopolamine to women during childbirth and noticed that they would speak spontaneously and respond to any questions put to them while under the influence. 

Sodium pentothal was invented in 1934 by Ernest H. Volwiler and Donalie L. Tabern as a sedative or painkiller, but it soon became what the public regarded as truth serum. Side effects included short-term memory loss, headache, nausea, agitation, drowsiness, and up to a three day hangover.

In 1963, the United States Supreme Court ruled that "barbiturate confessions" produced under the influence of truth serum were unconstitutionally coerced and therefore inadmissible. Truth serum results are not accepted by Western legal systems and legal experts as genuine investigative tools.

There is no drug proven to cause consistent or predictable enhancement of truth-telling. Studies have found that subjects questioned under the influence of truth serum are suggestible and their memories are subject to reconstruction and fabrication. Another problem is what the subject perceives as truth cannot be differentiated from unbiased, factual truth.

Unlike fingerprint and DNA science, Social Darwinism, polygraph tests, and truth serum are considered junk science and have no place in modern investigative forensics.

Chameleon Charm and Serial Killers

In the late nineteenth century, Italian psychiatrist Cesare Lombroso was credited with the theory that some types of people are closer to our primitive ancestors than others. Dr. Lombroso utilized the work of anthropologist Pierre-Paul Broca which relied on facial measurements and anomalies of the skull, face, and body to determine who was--or was not--a criminal type.

Lombroso based his theory of the born criminal--who was a throwback to earlier hedonistic races--on hundreds of post-mortem examinations of criminals. He compiled a list of criminal traits which included receding hairline, forehead wrinkles, bumpy face, broad noses, fleshy lips, sloping shoulders, long arms, and pointed fingers. This condition was named atavism and was strongly associated with Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species--published in 1859. The belief that there was a face of evil was an easy one for society to accept in the Gilded Age of Queen Victoria.

In the twentieth century, this theory was strongly reinforced in the popular culture through cinema, novels, radio mystery shows, and television crime dramas. Of course, some common criminals undoubtedly conform to the stereotype of the dumb hoodlum by virtue of their less than average intelligence and their need to follow a charismatic leader, popularly known as the Boss or the brains of the outfit. This folklore gives rise to the idea that criminals--psychopaths among them--are easily identified because they look different from normal people.

Rather than scientific, these ideas broke along racial and ethnic lines, and in nineteenth century America, religion was also a prejudicial factor in determining guilt. It was believed that Catholics and Jews bore a greater responsibility for crime, in cities like Boston and New York, than the hard working Protestant folk. The Nazis made great use of this type of junk science against European Jews, which they proudly documented for the world to see in the last century.

Serial killers are cut from different cloth than common criminals. Psychologists have done extensive studies on this unique category of murderer. Their studies have discovered that they tend to be above average in intelligence and some are gifted. These are people who often have a belief that their intellect exempts them from the rules and regulations that were devised to keep less intelligent people in line--an attitude of entitlement develops. Their intelligence allows serial killers to tidy up evidence, dispose of the body, and return to their normal façade of life until the urge falls upon them to strike again.

Understanding the construction of the mind simply by looking at physical traits doesn’t work. Serial killers often look normal and blend into the background, so their behavior often requires sophisticated psychological profiling before they are caught. Regrettably, profiling only becomes more accurate as the body count rises, sometimes not even then.

Everything about serial killers is frightening. But the most disturbing thing of all is that they look just like the rest of us. These people are often superficially described as charming or engaging.

John Norman Collins

Even after the outrages of serial killers have been discovered, many people are dumbstruck despite the evidence that a normal looking person could be responsible for such carnage. It is part of the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde quality of their personality disorder that enables serial killers to deceive people so easily. They are natural actors because deception and manipulation are second nature to them.

The true beginnings of modern crime fighting:

http://fornology.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-vidocq-society-private-crime.html