Criminal

What makes a criminal? 

Background =

Physiological explanation of criminal behaviour  

·     Lombroso - Said criminals were subspecies of humans. Identified by physiological characteristics such as physical abnormalities e.g. extra toes. 

·     Raine - Focused on prefrontal cortex. Normal populations people average heart rates tend towards extravert personality. Characterised by sensation seeking or thrill seeking behaviour. Introverts avoid situations that increase arousal or cause stress. Low levels of arousal predictor of offending behaviour. 

·     Brunner - Case study 5 males from same family in Netherlands, all committed aggressive crimes. Measured levels of serotonin. Lack of MAOA which breakdowns excess serotonin in brain. High levels of serotonin associated with aggressive behaviour. 

·     Dabbs - 11 prison inmates high levels testosterone 10 committed violent crimes. 11 inmates with lowest testosterone level 9 committed violent crimes. 

·     Evaluation - Reductionist, ignore social factors + influence why people commit crime. 

Deterministic, people cannot use their free will decide whether to commit a crime. 

Research methodological flaws, Brunner used 5 males one family cannot be generalised. Dabbs based on inmates in prison do not know whether the levels of testosterone were same as when the men committed the crime. 

Suggesting crime caused nature removes responsibility for the consequences of crime. 

Non physiological explanation of criminal behaviour 

·     Farrington - Association between convictions of males to conviction of biological parents and siblings. Suggested offending concentrated in families, transmitted from one generation to next. 

·     Differential association theory - Criminal behaviour learned during social interaction. Bandura, suggests behaviour is learnt. 

·     Kohlberg - Those who commit crime operate at an immature level of moral reasoning. Behaviour is seen as right and wrong in terms of the outcome for the individual. 

·     Evaluation - Deterministic, people cannot use free will to decide whether to commit a crime. 

Cognitive factors cannot explain all crimes many different types of crime.  

Raine =

·     Aim - Investigated the brains of murderers who pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to see whether they have brain abnormalities between the glucose metabolism patterns in their brains compared to non-murders. 

·     Research method - Quasi experiment 

·     Experimental design - Matched pairs, age gender, diagnosis of schizophrenia

·     IV - Not guilty by reason of insanity murder or non-murder. 

·     DV - Whether participant showed evidence of brain dysfunction. 

·     Sample - Experimental group 39 men + 2 women matched 41 non-murders. Mean age 34.3. Had been charged with either murder or manslaughter. 

·     Procedure - Kept medication free before brain scanning. Given a trial on the continuous performance task (CPT). Concentration task which activated the prefrontal cortex. Given FDG which is a glucose tracer, 30 seconds later given real CPT. 32 minutes later their brains were scanned 10 times. 

·     Results - Murderers with a history of head injury showed no significant difference compared to non-head injured murderers. No significant differences on performance on…