explanations of crime
biological approach to explaining crime
atavistic approach
The atavistic form was created by Lombroso. It sees offenders as a primitive sub species, biologically different to non-criminals and lacking in evolutionary development which leads to them having difficulty adjusting to society’s norms.
Offending behaviour is rooted in genealogy
Offenders are distinguishable by atavistic characteristics (predominantly facial and cranial features)
Cranial atavistic markers:
Narrow, sloping brow
Strong, prominent jaw
High cheekbones
Facial asymmetry
Other features:
Dark skin, existence of extra toes/fingers/nipples
Insensitivity to pain, use of criminal slang, tattoo, unemployed
Murderers: bloodshot eyes, curly hair, long ears
Sexual deviants: glinting eyes, swollen and fleshy lips, projecting ears
Fraudsters: thin and reedy lips
Lombroso examined facial and cranial features of 383 dead Italian convicts and 3839 living ones. Concluded 40% of criminal acts could be accounted for by atavistic characteristics
evaluations
Advantages
Lombroso shifted thinking in criminology from a moral discourse to being more scientific, leading to the start of profiling (thinking about criminal’s characteristics), major contributions to criminology
Disadvantages
Ethnocentric — only Italians used
Deterministic — saying criminality is decided at birth/part of nature
Limited explanation — doesn’t explain all criminality
Social sensitivity — Delisi criticised it for having racist undertones, like saying typical African characteristics are characteristics of criminals and eugenicist idea that there are lesser people and genetically superior people
Unscientific — criteria is subjective
Gender bias — men, limited application
No control group = can’t be certain characteristics are unique or could be found in a similar number in any population, less valid and scientific
genetic explanation of crime
Evidence from twin studies
Lange — 13 MZ and 17 DZ where 1 served time in prison
10/13 MZ had twin who was also in prison
2/17 DZ
Raine — found 52% concordance rate for MZ compared to 21% DZ
Brunner et al — DNA of men who claimed to be born criminals, shared a gene that led to abnormally low levels of MAOA
Tiihonen et al — 900 Finnish offenders, gene abnormalities
MAOA linked to aggression
CDH13 linked to substance abuse and ADHD
Had this combination = 13x more likely to have history of violent behaviour
Christiansen — 3,500 twins, 35% for MZ and 13% for DZ
MAOA creates an enzyme which ‘mops up’ leftover neurotransmitters such as dopamine and adrenaline, it’s functioning determines how much enzymes we produce and NTS broken down. Dysfunction causes less enzymes which makes the messages sent to brain stronger and more aggressive/less inhibited. Paired with difficult upbringing = criminality
evaluations
Limited explanation — concordance rates only = influence, not cause, so can’t really explain most behaviour
Deterministic — genetic predisposition MAOA and CDH13, doesn’t acknowledge free will of person
Bias — Tiihonen only used Finnish ppts so can’t be generalised to other population
Research support — Crowe found adopted children with bio parent with crim. record 50% risk of criminal record, adopted whose mother didn’t have a criminal record only had 5% risk
Lange poor control (MZ/DZ wasn’t based on DNA but guessing) — lack validity. Twin studies small samples and are unique so may not represent population, and same environment
Mechick study 13,000+ Danish adoptees, when neither bio/adopt parents had conviction. 13% when parents did, 20% when both did 24%. Petty offences
Brunner syndrome — mutation of MAOA gene made male family members aggressive
Environmental triggers — physical (sleep deprivation, pollution), social environment (lack of social support, abusive, poverty)
neural explanation
region of the brain
Harmon — 8.5% have had a brain injury in the US, in prison the rate is 60%
Raine et al — prefrontal cortex involved in emotion and moral behaviour, found 11% reduction in grey matter volume of people with APD compared to controls
Raine — limbic system are subcortical structures linked to emotion and motivation, murderers found not guilty by reasons of insanity compared to match controls had abnormal asymmetries
mirror neurons
Keysers — less active mirror neurons (allow us to empathise with feelings of others by mirroring neural responses) reduces empathy
NTS
Serotonin — impulsive, aggression
Noradrenaline — aggression, high activation for fight or flight. low levels can’t detect threats
psychological explanations for offending behaviour
eysenck’s theory of criminal personality
Introversion — inward-turning, preferring solitary activities and quiet environments. they find social interaction draining and recharge energy by spending time alone
Extroversion — outgoing, sociable, enjoy the company of others. they gain energy from social interaction and seek out stimulation and excitement
High neuroticism — instability negative emotions like anxiety, anger and depression, more reactive to stress and difficulty regulating emotions
High psychoticism — impulsive, aggressive and lack empathy, anti-social
Eysenck theories that criminal behaviour originates from specific personality traits.
High levels of:
Extraversion — stimulation and excitement leads to risk taking
Neuroticism — reactive to stress and uncontrollable impulses leads to aggression
Psychoticism — aggression, impulsivity and lack of empathy of empathy leads to criminal behaviour
Are more likely to engage in criminal behaviour
Eysenck argued personality traits have a strong biological basis as inherited by genetics:
Arousal level: extraverts have lower levels of arousal so they seek stimulation and introverts have higher levels so they avoid it excessively
ANS: neurotics have an overactive ANS so they react more strongly to stress which can increase impulsivity and aggression
Limbic system linked to neuroticism — heightened activity in amygdala in response to threatening/negative stimuli
Overactive amydgala and reduced prefrontal cortex activity
Individuals with these personality traits are less easily conditioned by norms and values so have difficulty learning to control impulses and conform to societal expectations
Diathesis stress model:
Diathesis — bio predisposition to certain personality traits
Stress — environmental factors like poor socialisation, negative peer influences and exposure to violence
Eysenck’s theory suggests individuals w/ certain biological dispositions are more vulnerable to developing criminal behaviour if they are exposed to adverse environmental factors
Evaluations:
Farrington et al — young criminal offenders rated highly for psychoticism but not extraversion or neuroticism. They used brain scan EEG to measure some of the biological features Eysenck discussed, and found little evidence to support the theory
Eysenck and Eysenck — 2070 male prisoners scores on EPQ compared with 2422 male controls, prisoners recorded higher on avg. results in the three dimensions
EPQ is problematic and unscientific but testable
Deterministic
Less reductionist than other theories as includes conditioning
Male and western ppts used
Oversimplification
Nomothetic
psychodynamic approach
Behaviour is caused by:
Unconscious factors beyond our control
Events in childhood
Relationships with our family members
If your superego is weakened or underdeveloped (through failure to identify with same sex parent in phallic stage), then individual have little control over anti-social behaviour = act in ways that gratify id:
Weak/underdeveloped — failure to internalise moral principles
Deviant — developed morals but childish and immoral
Over harsh — strict parent may make us crippled by guilt and anxiety whenever we act and punish ourselves and come to enjoy it
maternal deprivation
Bowlby’s maternal deprivation theory is part of the psychodynamic approach because it deals with the unconscious mind and childhood
Ability to form meaningful adult relationships dependent on child forming continuous, warm attachment with mother, ‘monotropic’ and used to build IWM
If attachment didn’t form in critical period, irreversible damage is done, ‘affectionless psychopathy’ with lack of guilt, empathy, responsibility and intelligence —> more likely to offend
44 juvenile thieves, interviewed (low validity) them, found 14 were affectionless psychopaths, 12 out of 14 had been separated in critical period
Evaluations:
Criticised as sexist for focusing on Oedipus w/ Electra as an afterthought
Females less moral because males fear castration for moral transgressions, females only fear losing mother’s love
However, most criminals are male, outnumber in prisons in the world
Little evidence. Many children grow up w/o same sex parent, most not criminal. Factor (family influence), e.g individuals w/ delinquent parents
Idea of over harsh superego and wanting to punish seems inaccurate because most criminals don’t want to be caught
Bowlby — support (44 thieves), limited explanation (ignores the role of father in attachment), deterministic (‘irreversible’ damage)
differential association theory
Sutherland explains criminal behaviour is acquired through associations within intimate groups. The likelihood of criminality increases when exposed to favourable, definitions of it
Positives: understanding delinquency due to susceptibility
Criticisms: overemphasis on socialisation and neglects individual factors like personal agency or predisposition
9 principles:
Criminal behaviour is learned
Learning occurs through social interactions
Learning happens in intimate personal groups
Techniques and rationalisations are learnt
Definitions of the law are learned
Excess of favourable definitions lead to delinquency
Differential association vary
Learning involves all learning mechanisms
Criminal behaviour is not explained by needs and values
Sutherland wanted to explore why 2 people w/ identical conditions (e.g genes, social class) might become criminals when other might not.
Differential association — if someone spent more time associating and learning from criminals than the other, they have a differential level of association
Learning criminal techniques like safe-cracking, disabling and stealing a car, breaking a window etc. backed by positive reinforcement if you do it well and don’t get caught
Learning criminal values like being pro-crime or thinking crime is to get by, disliking police etc.
This is why people go to prison innocent or with minor offences but come out hardened criminals because they associated with other criminals
Evaluations:
Reductionist — only reason for crime is due to association
Deterministic — associating with criminals = MUST commit crime
Application — juvenile criminals
Research support — Farringdon et al
Contribution to criminology and understanding crime
Unscientific — hard to test levels of differential association
cognitive explanation
level of moral reasoning
Kohlberg suggested individuals of lower moral development are more likely to commit crime, tend to not consider effect of actions on society
We learn morality over time, higher levels are good people but lower levels make poor decisions as they lack the ability to make better ones explains why some criminals think their actions weren’t wrong, they don’t have the capacity to understand why they were
Cognitive stages progressed through as a result of bio maturity and taught them in socialisation — holistic theory, but fundamentally the ‘cognitive level’ were are at determines if we will be criminals
Maladaptive thought processes as underpinning criminal behaviour
Level 1 (preconventional morality):
Punishment — we obey to avoid punishment
Commit crimes because they think they can get away with it, don’t think rules should be followed for others or the greater good. No real concept of what right is so can’t ask or reason if something is right. Events in childhood — couldn’t develop moral compass due to being raised poorly by abusive parents or not taught right from wrong
Reward — we obey rules to be rewarded
This is all about what there is to gain form behaviour if potential gains are good then crime is more likely
Level 2 (conventional morality):
Good boy/girl — we obey rules so that others like us
If closest people are criminals, crime more likely to occur
Law + order — we obey rules to maintain order
Obedience to the law. Less likely to commit crime
Level 3 (pre-conventional morality):
Social contract — rules can be a little flexible, for the greater good
Someone at this stage adheres to the law but may commit a crime in certain circumstances, where they feel the law should not apply
Ethical principle stage — we have our own ethics + moral principles which can vary over time and situation
Individual has own moral code and may commit crime if they feel the law is unjust
Evaluations:
Palmer + Hollin — moral dilemmas to male + female offenders and non-offenders found non-offenders showed higher moral reasoning. 13-22 years
Palmer — review of research. Concluded it may be the development or moral reasoning is strongly influenced by children’s early socialisations experiences
Application — rehab, interventions to incoporate moral reasoning
Moral dilemma replicable with modification — reliability
Moral reasoning not always translate into behaviour, can claim to think something and it not be true = lack validity
Not everyone can be slotted neatly, some overlap or operate at different levels under circumstances, can regress or leap levels
Gilligan — gender/beta bias based on make perspectives ‘morality of justice’ not female ‘morality of care’, morality evolves w/ growing sense of self, not a maturational stage during development
Culture bias — individual reason rather than some developments via group process, didn’t apply to collectivist cultures
cognitive distortions
Cognitive distortion is an error in information processing aka faulty thinking. Inability to process information rationally explains how we commit crimes.
Hostile attribution — mis-process other’s actions and emotions as hostile when they might not be. Looking at someone looking at you ‘they’ve got a problem with me’
Schoenberg + Justye — 55 offenders emotionally ambigious facial expressions compared to control group, more likely to see hostile
Minimisation — attempt to downpla behaviour as not that serious. More likely to do it because you don’t think it’s a big deal/minimised it. Burglars — ‘doing their job’, ‘supporting their family’ etc.
Evaluations:
There is research support. Palmer and Hollin (210 female, 122 male non-offenders and 126 offenders), offenders classsified at the preconventional level, likely due to lack of reolplaying in childhood
Practical application, CBT ‘face up’ to their actions, reduces denial and minimisation which correlated with a reduced risk of reoffending. External validity
Support for hostile attribution and minimisation — Schoenberg and Justice, Barbaree found ½ of rapists denied committing a crime at al and 40% minimised harm. Increased validity