Biological Approaches

  • Recognize that there is both social and environmental factors that influence behaviour

  • These factors interact with biological predispositions, shaping individual responses and adaptations.


NATURE AND NURTURE

  • Early criminogenic theories, which assumed biology to be the single cause of crime, have fallen out of favour.

  • Although we may be born a certain way, changes in diet and lifestyle (nurture) can influence our destiny (despite our genetic programming).

  • This perspective highlights the importance of recognizing the dynamic interplay between genetic factors and environmental influences in understanding behavior.


PHRENOLOGY

  • Shape of someone’s head determined someone’s behaviour

  • Franz Joseph Gall – theory of phrenology or craniology

  • Represented a shift away from theological perspectives prevalent at the time and move toward scientific understanding


DEVELOPMENT OF BIOLOGICAL TRAIT

  • Emphasized the belief that specific brain areas are linked to particular functions and personality traits, suggesting that by examining the skull's shape, one could infer individual characteristics and tendencies.

  • Biological explanation first became popular in the 19th century with the introduction of positivism

  • Cesare Lombroso – “born criminals” and identification of primitive atavistic anomalies

  • Raffaele Garofalo also believe that physical traits indicated a criminal nature – for e.g., a lower degree of sensibility to physical pain

  • Lead to biological potivisim


BODY TYPES

  • William Sheldon - 1940 - body types (endomorph,mesomorph, ectomorph)

    are associated with different characteristics

Ex: “somatotype 117—Walking Sticks—Fragile stretched-out creatures with the utmost surface exposure in proportion to mass … This extremely rare somatotype (incidence 2 per 10,000), with his extreme predominance of surface over mass, seems caught in a predicament of biological overexposure, and for such an organism the ordinary circumstances of social life may amount to chronic overstimulation. Hebephrenic psychopathy may be one natural response to such a situation. The 117 is more common in the mental hospitals than in the general population, and his diagnosis is usually hebephrenic schizophrenia…


SCIENTIFIC RACISM

  • Sheldon’s theories have been criticized for contributing to the concept of scientific racism, which attempts to correlate physical characteristics with intelligence and social behaviors. This notion has been widely discredited and refuted, as it oversimplifies human diversity and promotes harmful stereotypes


EUGENICS

  • Sexual sterilization of people in Alberta and BC based on biological determinism


TWIN STUDIES

  • Monozygotic (MZ) (identical) and dizygotic (DZ) (fraternal) twins (if reared together) share 100% of their social environment.

  • MZ twins share 100% of the 1% of DNA that explains variation in characteristics, whereas DZ twins share 50% of the 1% of DNA that explains variation in characteristics.

  • Concordance: the degree which related pairs exhibited a particular trait, behaviour, or characteristic

  • Higher rates for mz twins than dz


ADOPTION STUDIES

  • Attempt to address differences in earlier twin studies

  • Compare traits, behaviours, or characteristics of twins who were daopted by non-family members with those of their biological parents

  • Higher levels of similarity in traits between adopted children and their biological parents indicate the influence of genetics on those characteristics

  • Adoption studies help distinguish environmental influences from genetic predispositions by analyzing the traits shared between adopted children and their biological families


ALCOHOL USE DISORDER, GENETICS, AND ENVIRONMENT

  • Environments play a large role

  • Research indicates that offenders with alcohol use disorder are more likely to commit violent offences; other offenders are more likely to commit property offences.


PRENATAL AND NEONATAL FACTORS

  • Being brought up in poverty is often thought tot be one of the causes of future criminality

  • Children whose mothers consumer alcohol may develop fetal alcohol spectrum disorder

  • Brain injuries suffered during or after childbirth can lead to lifelong behavioural problems.


BRAIN INJURIES

  • Any damage to the brain may lead to a change in behaviour

  • Many studies using imaging techniques have shown differences in brain function and structure between non-criminals and a variety of offender populations


BIOCHEMICAL CONDITIONS AND CRIME

Vitamin Deficiency: can result in physical, mental, and behavioural problems including lower intelligence


Hypoglycemia: a deficiency of sugar that influences antisocial behaviour

  • Symptoms include irratibility, anxiety, depression, crying, fatigue, insomnia, mood swimngs, temper outbursts, headaches, and confusion


Hormonal Issues: abnormal levels of male sex hormones (androgens produce aggressive behaviour

  • Testostrone is the most abundant androgen


Allergies: exessive reactions of the body to foreign substances

  • There is a connection between allergies and hyperemotionality, depression, aggressiveness, and violence


Environmental Contaminants: copper, cadminum, mercury, and inorganix gases such as chlorine and nitrigen dioxide in the ecosystem have been linked to emotional and behavioural disorders, severe illness, and death

  • Food dyes and artificial colours and flavours have been linked to hostile, impulsive, and antisocial behaviour in youths


NEUROPHYSIOLOGY AND CRIME

1968 - Charles Whitman killed his wife, his mother, and 14 others and wounded 24 people while barricated in a building with a high-powered rifle

  • An autopsy revealed he had a malignant brain tumour

  • He had received psychiatric help because he has experienced urges to kill


Epigenetics: the study of the modification of gene expression over time, based on life conditions

  • Effects on the brain can be transgenerational because environmental strains affect the developing brain


NEUROTRANSMITTERS

  • Research suggests that genetic predisposition for violence related to brain chemistry and functionality of neurotransmitters

  • Communication between nerve cells is conducted by chemical messengers, released by one nerve cell and received and acted upon by another


SEROTONIN AND DOPAMINE

  • Serotonin is a behavioural inhibitor that plays a role in agressive impulsive behaviour

  • Individuals with low serotonin levels are less able to cope with stress, more prone to be impulsive, more likely to suffer from anti-social personality disorder

  • Dopamine creates pleasurable sensations

  • Higher than normal levels of dopamine can cause increased aggression


SOCIOBIOLOGY

  • The systematic study of the biological basis of all social behaviour

  • People controlled by the innate need to survive

  • Biology, environment, and learning are interdependent factors

  • Biological predispositions developed during earlier stages of human evolution colour contemporary criminal activity


Critisims to Sociobiology

  • Fails to convey significance of culture, social learning, and individual experiences

  • No credible evidence of genetically based tendencies

  • Labeling and stigmatization of powerless minorities

  • No basis for the application to humans of findings from animal studies


POLICY IMPLICATIONS OF BIOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS

Biological theories of crime causation present unique challenges to policy makers


Sole dependence on the biological theores of crime may lead to:

  • abortion of defective fetuses

  • capital punishment instead of rehabilitation

  • sterilization