FORENSICS - Biological explanation of offending behaviour
- Created by: EmilyEther
- Created on: 26-11-18 12:40
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- Biological explanation of offending behaviour
- Atavistic form
- Cesare Lombroso - 1876 - said in book that offenders possessed similar characteristics to lower primates - could explain their criminality
- created 4 more editions of this books
- Turvey (2011) - identifies 18 different characteristics that make up the atavistic type
- basic assumption: innate psychological make-up of the person causes them to be a criminal
- Empirical evidence
- Lombroso based theory on his post-mortem exams and study the faces of living criminals
- he made precise measurements of skulls and other psych characteristics (anthropometry)
- he examined 50,000 bodies
- in particular study 383 convicted Italian criminals - 21% had just one atavistic trait, 43% had at least 5
- Lombroso based theory on his post-mortem exams and study the faces of living criminals
- Environmental influences
- Lombroso realised it was probably not just one characteristic
- inherited atavistic form interacted with a persons physical and social environment
- in a later book, he distinguished between 3 types of criminals:
- born criminals - atavistic type; 'throwbacks' identifiable from their physical characteristics
- insane criminals - suffering from mental illness
- criminaloids - large general class of offenders, mental characteristics predisposed them to criminal behaviour (certain physical / social environments)
- Lombroso realised it was probably not just one characteristic
- Valla - 36 college students rating photos for criminality (additional group rates attractiveness). Criminals averaged 4.5 vs. 8.85 for non-criminals. No gender diff, but women rated rapists lower than non-crims on average, men did not.
- suggests facial characteristics may be linked to criminality
- epigenetic (tough environment may be linked to features)
- may just be their facial expression
- some link to personality - largely genetic
- less attractive children will be treated differently
- reactive gene environment interaction eg aggressive features -> hostile reaction from others
- wrong perception on how to treat people
- reactive gene environment interaction eg aggressive features -> hostile reaction from others
- Cesare Lombroso - 1876 - said in book that offenders possessed similar characteristics to lower primates - could explain their criminality
- Somatotypes
- criminal types based on body types ('soma')
- proposed by Kretschmer (1921) based on studies from 4,000 criminals
- leptosome or asthenic - tall and thin; petty criminals
- athletic - tall and muscular; crimes of violence
- pyknic - short and fat; deception and sometimes violence
- dysplatic or mixed - more than one type; crimes against morality (prostitution)
- Evaluation of Lombroso
- brought science to crime
- sample sizes - didn't use women, didn't have a non-criminal control group, people with mental health problems included - not necessarily criminals
- somatotypes based on scrutiny not fact
- Sheldon (1949) - 200 young adults, difference in delinquents and non-dels in terms of body type (dels = mesomorph)
- Genetic
- investigating the genetic connection:
- twin studies
- Coccaro (1997) - almost 50% of the variance in aggression could be explained by genes
- comparing concordance rate (% of matching) between MZ and DZ twins
- may have had different upbringing - MZ twins treated same = similar behaviour
- Brunner - study of aggressive dutch family - missing MAOA gene. Gene regulates neurotransmitters leading in particular to low levels of serotonin (linked to aggressive behaviour)
- since then, 'weak' variant of the MAOA gene has been linked to violent offenders, BUT 40-50% of population had that gene
- Brunner research suggests diathesis stress model - genetic vulnerability
- Caspi (2002) - used data from longitudinal Dunedin study that followed 1,000 people when they were babies in 1970s. Caspi assessed anti-social behaviour at age 26, found 12% of those men with low MAOA gene had experienced maltreatment when they were young but were responsible for 44% of violent crimes
- CDH 13 gene - codes for a membrane protein, but associated with ADHD and other impulsive control problems
- Finnish study linked CLD 13 and Cadherin to violent behaviour, but authors stated that there were probably many other genes involves
- family studies
- could be SLT
- adoption studies
- generally, adoptees show a closer correlation than adults, when they often show correlation with biological parents
- Crowe - 50% of adopted children whose biological mother had a criminal record also had a criminal record by the age of 18. Compared to 5% in the control group (adopted children without criminal parent)
- some adoptive parents may treat children differently if they know their background
- criminal mothers may have done things while they were pregnant - doing, drinking, drugs etc
- in utero differences in behaviour
- direct inspection of genome
- twin studies
- genotype - tells us our genes (code). phenotype - characteristics - dependent on environmental factors
- case of Tony Mobley
- 1991 murder of pizza store manager, sprees of armed robberies. Claimed he should avoid death penalty bc he was 'genetically predisposed' to crime
- he was economically privileged, no family history of sexual or physical abuse. Researchers found some people in family responsible for acts of violence from serious crime (murder / ****) to abuse and alcoholism
- 1991 murder of pizza store manager, sprees of armed robberies. Claimed he should avoid death penalty bc he was 'genetically predisposed' to crime
- Evaluation (A03)
- some adoption studies only show marginal increase for genes over environment
- fail to account for non-violent crimes eg. online fraud / theft. MAOA gene = aggression
- unlikely that criminality is inherited. Could be meditated via. personality traits, addiction, problems with stress response
- problems for legal system if deterministic viewpoint taken
- investigating the genetic connection:
- Atavistic form
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