Criminology - biological theories of crime

Physical + Genetic

Lombroso

• Examined 4000 deceased prisoners skulls + 400 facial structures of prisoners

• Atavism - atavistic form theory

• People with tattoos more likely criminal - high pain threshold

• Examples: pointy nose = murderers / flat nose = thieves

Strengths of Lombroso theory

• gave scientific credibility to criminology for the first time

• His work appears to be backed up by

  Goring (1913) who found lower rates of intelligence in convicts- suggesting they might be less evolved

• Responsible for newer theories based on scientific evidence (reliability)

Weaknesses of Lombroso theory

• Lacks accuracy, not all criminals have atavistic features

• Only 40% of criminals he looked at had atavistic features

• His theory could be criticised for supporting eugenics

Sheldon

• Studied 200 young men - over 10 years

• Somatotypes = body type + personality

• Endomorph - round, lack of muscle, wide hips/ less likely

• Ectomorph - thin, lack fat + muscle / less likely

• Mesomorph - muscular, strong limbs, shoulders / most likely to be criminal

Strengths of Sheldon’s theory

• Glueck and Glueck - supported him and found that 60% of offenders in their study were mesomorphs

• Most serious delinquents in sheldon's sample were the ones with the most extremely mesomorphic body types

• Had a control group of 200 college students to compare criminals to.

Weaknesses of Sheldon's theory

• Sheldon does not account for endomorphs and ectomorphs who do not commit crime, OR mesoprohs that commit crimes other than violence

• Body types can change over time

• Mesomorphs can be treated differently

  because of how they look, they might be labelled leading to self-fulfilling prophecy

Jacob's XYY syndrome

• Extra y chromosome - Supermale syndrome

• Traits of XYY = tall, lower IQ, aggression, increased impulsivity

• Sample size of 315 men - 9 had XYY ( mental hospital - Scotland )

• Explains violent crimes / ignores technological crime + anything planned

• E.g John Wayne Gacy

Strengths of Jacob's XYY syndrome

• Gotz- found similar in their study

• 9/315 people in prison with XYY

• Adler et al. Said possible

  that aggressive and violent behaviour is partly determined by genetic factor

Weakness of Jacob's XYY syndrome

• Focusing too heavily on genetics ignores the environmental impact

• So many crimes committed by XY men

• Only accounts for only violent crime- other types of crime are ignored and not accounted for

Christiansen - twin studies

• Twin studies

• Studied over 3500 twin pairs

• Male monozygotic twins = 35% concordance of crime

• Male dizygotic twins = 13%

• Mono more likely both criminal

• E.g Kray twins - gangsters in London 60s both committed crimes

Hutchings and Mednick

• Twin studies

• High concordance rates between criminal behaviour in adopted boys and their birth parents

• 20% risk of criminality if birth parent had committed crime