Biological explanations Flashcards
What is atavistic form?
Lombroso- A biological approach to offending behaviour that attributes criminal activity to the fact that offenders are genetic throwbacks or a primitive subspecies, ill-suited to conforming to the rules of modern society.
Such individuals are distinguishable by particular facial and cranial characteristics.
What did Lombroso argue about the historical approach to offending behaviour?
That offenders are seen as lacking evolutionary development, their savage and untamed nature meant that they would find it impossible to adjust to the demands of civilised society and would turn to crime.
Lombroso saw offending behaviour as a natural tendency, rooted in the genes of those who engage in it. He also offending behaviour as innate and therefore an offender was not to blame for their behaviour.
What are offender types in the historical approach to offending behaviour?
Lombroso characterised particular types of offender in terms of their physical and facial characteristics.
Murderers were described as having bloodshot eyes, curly hair and long ears.
Sexual deviants had glinted eyes, swollen, fleshy lips and projecting ears.
Describe Lombroso’s research into the historical approach.
He examined facial and cranial features of Italian convicts, both living and dead, and concluded that there was an atavistic form.
He examined 383 dead convicts and 3839 living ones, and concluded that 40% of criminals acts are committed by people with atavistic characteristics.
Strength of Lombrosos research into the historical approach.
It changed the face of the study of crime.
Lombroso has been hailed the ‘father of modern criminology’
He is also a credited as shifting the emphasis in crime research away from a moralistic disclosure towards a more scientific position.
His theory in many ways heralded the beginning of offender profiling.
This suggests that he made a major contribution to the science of criminology.
Limitation of the historical approach.
Evidence contradicts the link between atavism and crime.
Goring- set out to establish wether there was anything physically atypical about offenders.
After conducting a comparison between 3000 offenders and 3000 non-offenders he concluded that there was no evidence that offenders are a distinct group with unusual facial and cranial characteristics.
Limitation of lombroso’s research.
His investigations were poorly controlled.
Lombroso failed to control important variables unlike Goring- Such as comparing his offenders to non-offenders.
This could have led to confounding variables affecting the results.
Hay and Forrest’s research demonstrated links between crime and social conditions such as poverty and poor educational outcomes.
This suggests that Lombroso’s research does not meet the modern scientific standards.
What are genetic explanations for offending behaviour?
Suggests that offenders have inherited a gene, or combination of genes that predispose them to commit crime.
Explain twin studies and adoption studies in the biological explanations for offending behaviour.
Karl Christiasen studied over 3500 twin pairs in Denmark and found concordance rates for offending behaviour of 35% in MZ twins and 13% for DZ twins.
The offending behaviour was checked against Danish police records. This data indicates that it is not just the behaviour that might be inherited but the underlying predisposing traits.
Describe Raymond Crowe’s research into twin and adoption studies.
He found that adopted children whose biological mother had a criminal record had a 50% risk of having a criminal record by the age of 18, whereas adopted children whose mother did not have a criminal record only had a 5% risk.
Explain candidate genes as a genetic explanation of offending behaviour.
Tiihonen conducted a genetic analysis of 800 Finnish offenders and suggested that MAOA and CDH13 may be associated with violent crime.
The MAOA gene regulates serotonin in the brain and has been linked to aggressive behaviour and the CHD13 gene had been linked to substance abuse and ADHD.
This analysis found that about 5-10% of all sever violent crime in Finland is attributable to the MAOA and CHD1 genotypes.
What is the Diathesis- stress model?
A tendency towards offending behaviour may come about through the combination of genetic predisposition and biological or physiological trigger.
What are neural explanations to offending behaviour?
Evidence suggests that there may be neural differences in the brains of offenders and non-offenders. e.g. APD
Explain Raine’s research into neural explanations of offending behaviour.
He conducted may studies of the APD brains and found that antisocial personalities is linked to reduced activity in the prefrontal cortex. - This regulates emotional behaviour.
Raine found that an 11% reduction in the volume of grey matter in the prefrontal cortex of people with APD compared to controls.
Explain mirror neurones in neural explanations of offending behaviour.
Keyers found that only when offenders were asked to empathise did their empathy reaction activate, which is controlled by mirror neurones in the brain.
This suggests that ADP individuals are not totally without empathy, but may have a neural switch that can be turned off, unlike the normal brains which has empathy permanently turned on.
