AC2.1 and AC3.2 Describe and Evaluate Biological Theories of Criminality

Question 1

What’s Lombroso’s theory?

Answer 1

People are born criminal and can be identified based on their physical characteristics. Assumes that criminal behaviour is heritable.

Question 2

Lombroso - Facial features of criminals

Answer 2

Murderers - bloodshot eyes, aquiline (beak-like) nose and curly hair.
Sex offenders - thick lips and projecting ears.
Thieves - flattened nose.

Question 3

Lombroso - Physical features of criminals

Answer 3

• Solitary lines in the palms.
• Excessively long arms.
• Tattoos.
• Extremely acute eyesight.

Question 4

Lombroso - Psychological characteristics of criminals

Answer 4

• Insensible to pain.
• Love of orgies.
• Irresistible craving for pain.

Question 5

Lombroso - Atavism

Answer 5

Criminals are throwbacks to primitive stage of evolution. They were pre-social, unable to control their impulses and had reduced sensitivity to pain.
40% of criminal acts could be accounted for the atavistic characteristics.

Question 6

Lombroso - Study

Answer 6

He examined the facial and cranial features of 383 dead prisoners and 3839 living prisoners.
Criminals= large jaws, long arms, aquiline nose.

Question 7

Lombroso - Criminaloid

Answer 7

Criminals whose criminality was caused by environmental factors (such as the opportunity to steal), rather than the biology.

Question 8

Lombroso - Females

Answer 8

Females’ natural passivity withheld them from breaking the law, as they lacked the intelligence and initiative to become criminal.
Women who commit crimes had different physical characteristics, such as excessive body hair.

Question 9

Lombroso - Strengths

Answer 9

• Examined facial and cranial features of 383 dead prisoners and 3839 living ones. Supports theory because he used a large number of people, both dead and alive, and the higher the number of people the more accurate the results will be.
• Lombroso’s work lead the beginning of offender profiling, which is a set of investigative techniques used by the police to try to identify perpetrators of serious crimes.
• In a study from the university of China ID photos of 1856 Chinese men, half of whom had previous convictions were entered into an AI programme. Programme correctively identified 83% of the real criminals. Wrongly flagged innocent men only 6% of the time. Strong link between criminal behaviour and facial features.

Question 10

Lombroso - Weaknesses

Answer 10

• Never made comparisons to non-criminals. Never established whether the features identified as criminal only appear in the criminal population. Goring (1913) used a control group of non-criminals and found no significant differences between criminals and non-criminals.
• Not everyone with atavistic features is a criminal, and not all criminals have them. This shows his theory is oversimplified.
• Lombroso only measured prisoners, criminals who got caught. The fact that they’ve been caught may set them apart from those who were too clever to be put in jail. They could be middle-class people involved in white collar crime and so only criminals from a certain class.

Question 11

What’s Sheldon’s theory?

Answer 11

Somatotype is related to criminality.

Question 12

Sheldon - Somatotype

Answer 12

The discredited idea that human body shape and physique type are associated with personality traits.

Question 13

Sheldon - Endomorph

Answer 13

Rounded soft body - sociable, relaxed, outgoing.

Question 14

Sheldon - Ectomorph

Answer 14

Thin, fragile, lean and lack muscle - quiet, fragile, introverted and thoughtful.

Question 15

Sheldon - Mesomorph

Answer 15

Muscular, and broad shoulders - active, assertive and adventurous.

Question 16

Sheldon - Which somatotype is most and least associated with crime?

Answer 16

Mesomorphic and ectomorphic.

Question 17

Sheldon - Why mesomorphs are more likely to be criminals?

Answer 17

Muscular appearance can be intimidating, which makes it more likely that the mesomorph will commit crimes.
Mesomorphs are more likely to be aggressive and engage in adventurous activities that involve risk-taking.

Question 18

Sheldon - Study

Answer 18

Used photographs of college students and delinquents rated on a scale of 1-7 in terms of their resemblance to mesomorphs. The results showed that the delinquent had a higher average mesomorphy rating than the college students (4.6 vs 3.8).

Question 19

Sheldon - Strengths

Answer 19

• Unlike Lombroso, Sheldon had a comparison group and so was able to show the difference between delinquents and non-delinquents.
• The most serious delinquents in Sheldon’s sample were the ones with the most extremely mesomorphic body shapes.
• Sheldon’s research was conducted by studying the front, back and side views of 4000 scantly clothed man. This is a big sample size.

Question 20

Sheldon - Weaknesses

Answer 20

• Somatotypes are not fixed. Body shape can change over time.
• People with mesomorphic build may be more likely to be labelled as troublemakers, as they fit the ‘tough guy’ stereotype. This may lead to self-fulfilling prophecy, or may attract more police attention.
• Can’t explain why endomorphs and ectomorphs commit crime. Nor considers whether mesomorphs are also more likely to commit non-violent crimes.

Question 21

Name 2 physiological theories

Answer 21

Lombroso and Sheldon

Question 22

Twin studies - 2 types of twins

Answer 22

Identical (monozygotic) twins share 100% of their DNA.
Fraternal (dizygotic) twins share 50% of their DNA.

Question 23

Twin studies

Answer 23

If crime is genetic identical (Mz) twins should have identical criminality (concordant).

Question 24

Twin studies - Study

Answer 24

Christiansen’s (1977) study in Denmark.
3,586 pairs of twins studied.
Concordance rate is low even for monozygotic twins.
Mz= if one criminal, 52% chance the other is criminal.
Dz= if one criminal, 22% chance the other is criminal.
Environment still plays a large part in criminal behaviour.

Question 25

Twin studies - Strengths

Answer 25

• Ishikawa and Raine found a higher concordance rate for Mz than Dz twins.
• Christiansen supports the view that criminality has a genetic component.

Question 26

Twin studies - Weaknesses

Answer 26

• If criminal behaviour was entirely genetic, the concordance rate for Mz twins would be 100%, which is not. This shows that there is not a criminal gene.
• Higher concordance rate in Mz twins could be due to nurture not nature. If twins are brought up in the same environment, criminality could very easily be the result of their shared upbringing and experiences.
• Theory is reductionist.

Question 27

Adoption studies

Answer 27

Adoptees share environment of adoptive parents and genes of biological parents. If genetic, criminality will match biological parents more.

Question 28

Adoption studies - Study

Answer 28

Mednick (1984)’s Adoption Study in Denmark.
1400 adopted males used in the sample.
They used criminal records and compared them with the criminal records of their biological and adoptive parents.
Only adoptive parents with criminal convictions= 14.7%
Only biological parents with criminal convictions= 20%
Both biological and adoptive parents with convictions= 24%
Strong genetic component in criminal behaviour.

Question 29

Adoption studies - Strengths

Answer 29

• Adoptees are more likely to have criminal records if their biological parents have criminal records.
• Unlike twin studies, easier to separate the role played by the environment from the genes.
• Used large sample.

Question 30

Adoption studies - Weaknesses

Answer 30

• If not immediately adopted after birth, the child has already spent some time with the biological parents and could be influences by them or the foster care environment.
• Criminal convictions are not always reliable, as some people are wrongly convicted, and some criminals are never caught.
• Study is gender biased, uses only males and cannot be generalised to women.

Question 31

XYY syndrome

Answer 31

Affects only men, when they have an extra Y chromosome.
1/1000 boys have it, it’s rare.
There’s no cure.
Might be taller than other boys, high aggression, violent, behavioural problems, increased risk of learning disabilities and delayed development of motor skills.
XYY males show higher frequency of antisocial behaviour in adolescence and adulthood.

Question 32

XYY syndrome - Study

Answer 32

Jacob et al (1956).
Found higher proportion of XYY in the prison population (15/1000) compared to the norm (10/1000).
However, only studied inmates of a secure psychiatric hospital.
Cannot establish cause and effect because the research only shows the relationship. Might be other factors contributing.

Question 33

XYY syndrome - Strengths

Answer 33

• Jacob et al (1956) found that significant number of men in prison had XYY sex chromosomes instead of the normal XY.

Question 34

XYY syndrome - Weaknesses

Answer 34

• Reductionist as it fails to take into account social and environmental factors.
• XYY can’t explain female criminals as they don’t have a Y chromosome.
• Syndrome is very rare so it can’t explain all crime.
• Low intelligence of XYY may give higher chance of being caught.