There have been theories put forward to suggest that a persons physical characteristics can determine how he/she behaves. The earliest theories were in the eighteenth century, Lavater study on physiognomy this suggests that you can tell persons character by their facial characteristics. Some of these finding still exist in modern day prejudices / old wives tales i.e. 'he's got shifty eyes.' Or his eyes are too close together'

Later the study of phrenology also looked at the development of people's heads. Gall, did an extensive study of the brain and how the brain worked. He developed the theory that the lumps on the skull were where in some people certain areas of the brain were disproportionate and this caused the lumps. His study identified 26 functions of the brain and those relevant to criminology were destructiveness, secretiveness, acquisitiveness and combativeness.

Lombroso an Italian doctor, while examining the skull of a criminal

Physical type theory may be accurate in identifying groups of body shapes and the links with types of personalities but this cannot account for criminal activity alone or all people with this body type would behave in the same way so there must other things which affect the criminals behaviour.

Hooton then tested Goring's theory and researched a large number of prisoners with a much smaller number of non-criminals. He selected people for the research based on their physical characteristics. He found that some feature were found more commonly in criminals than in others these were; low foreheads, sloping shoulders, thin lips and tattoos.

Taking body types alone is not an objective way of assessing criminal behaviour but combined with other theories it may give a greater knowledge about offenders.

Again this theory is limited to examining a group of males already in institutions and not compared to people in the community with similar chromosome abnormality. If an extra Y chromosome leads to more aggressive behaviour does it also affect men in other ways physical looks and could people be responding to this. Could this group of men be being penalised more frequently by the courts that other groups.

3) Ectomorphs are physically thin and frail and are more introverted in their personality.

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1837
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)