Theories of crime

- Explaing criminal behaviour is complect because they tend to be incoherent of what triggered there criminal behaviour and even if they did you might not be able to trust this

- Most of the arguement is the nature vs nurture arguement as it is beleived that is either controlled by biological processes or the environment

-  It is likely that biological factors play a role in criminality as it tends to run in families

- Osborn - found that 13% of criminals have non-criminal fathers and 40% do

- The role of genes  vs genetics can be tested in adoption studiesn: Mednick et al found that children are more likely to refelect their biological criminal father rather than their non criminal adoptee one

- Retz et al found a specific gene variant that leads to criminal behaviour

- Higher testosterone level have been found in both men and women who have committed crime (Dabbs et al) 

- Bohman replicated medricks study and found that even factors such as the adoptee parents knowing the criminal history did not affect the findings

- Genes control biological processes so could affect aggression and impulse through serotonin processing

- Brunner et al describes a rare aggressive family that lacks the gene to recycle serotonin, this should not have made them anymore aggressive yet they are 

-The social learning theory of crime proposes that criminal behaviour is learned through observation and imitation and this creates motivation

-External motivation comes from direct reinforcement or vicarious reinforcement 

- Internal motivation comes from identification with high status models

- Low self esteem leads to greater imitation and therefore criminal behaviour

- Bandura demonstrated how easily children can be influenced into aggressive behaviour 

- Although they had also found  a difference between the imitation of boys and girls suggesting that there are other factors too such as gender

- They used a lab experiment: can't be generalised to real life

- Eron et al found correlation data that linked TV viewing to aggressiveness in adult criminality

- Film classifications suggest that children's exposure to aggressive models should be regulated

- Williams et al found that children's aggression doubled after the introduction of TV

-  Beliefs that an observers belief about an individual (e.g. based on stereotypes) affect the observers behaviour towards the individual and lead to the self fulfilling prophecy 

- The label "criminal" can reinforce stereotyped responses in observers and lower self esteem in the individual producing further deviant behaviour

-Johodo- Showed that  Ashanti boys lived up to their "Wednesday" name