ABSTRACT
Criminology is interdisciplinary – drawing on insights from diverse fields ranging from economics and sociology to biology and psychology. Some of the first perspectives on why people engage in criminal, or antisocial, behaviour were biological in nature – placing the 'blame' on the human mind and body. One of the earliest theories of crime was based on physiognomy, which began with the assumption that physical characteristics – especially facial features – could reveal a person's temperament. Similar to physiognomy, German physician Franz Joseph Gall believed that physical differences of the skull – bumps, indentations and shape – could be linked to personality traits, characteristics and abilities. In colonial times in America, people attributed antisocial behaviour to demonic possession and sin. Benjamin Rush turned this idea on its head, and investigated crime as a natural phenomenon rather than sin. In 1835, James Cowles Prichard's A Treatise on Insanity standardized the psychiatric term 'moral insanity'.
