ABSTRACT
The first part of J. B. Thomson’s influential article on “The psychology of criminals” was extracted in Chapter 17, where I used it to illustrate degenerationist thinking. Thompson’s work incorporated earlier ideas about moral insanity, human evolution, and the deteriorated condition of the underclass to propose that criminals are a breed apart from honest men and women. His analyses came close to those put forth a few years later by Lombroso and other criminal anthropologists who spoke of a born criminal, an evolutionary laggard backward in body, mind, and morals.
