Inferences: The data establishes that the combination of feebleminded individuals with poor environments is likely to result in criminality.

Assumptions: Goddard assumes that morality and feeblemindedness are negatively correlated, without providing any data to support that assumption.

Implications: If one were to accept Goddard's reasoning, one would assume that criminal behavior was genetic and linked to intelligence, which could have positive consequences, such as focusing prevention efforts on the most at-risk individuals.

Point-of-View: The author seems to believe that feeblemindedness contributes to criminality in a manner that goes beyond the fact that the feebleminded may be forced to resort to criminal behavior in order to survive.

Chapter 23: The American Criminal

Purpose: The purpose of the study is to determine whether or not a criminal's physical characteristics are relevant to his crimes.

Question: Are criminals physically different from non-criminals of the same ethnic origin?

Information: To investigate the question, Hooton looked at the physical characteristics of criminals and non-criminals,...

including: body weight, stature, cranial measurements, chest depth, chest breadth, nose height, ear length, and facial characteristics.
Concept: In order to understand Hooton's research, one must understand the non-subjective criteria and forms of measurement of his physical data.

Inferences: There are links between certain physical characteristics and certain types of criminal behavior.

Assumptions: The study attempts to demonstrate non-ethnically related links between physical characteristics and criminal behavior by comparing prison and non-prison populations of certain areas, and does so without investigating whether certain ethnicities are overrepresented in the prison population.

Implications: If one were to accept Hooton's reasoning, one would assume that criminality could be determined by looking at an individual, which would lead to intense profiling.

Point-of-View: The author believes that physical characteristics are linked to criminal behavior and ignore the racist implications of such a statement, which could account for differing rates of arrest, prosecution, and conviction, while not actually impacting the rate of criminal behavior.