Biological explanations : Genetic and Neural

Question 1

What does the neural explanation focus on?

Answer 1

Aims to explain criminal behaviour in terms of the brain and the nervous system. This includes the structure of the brain and neurotransmitters

Question 2

How does the neural explanation explain offending behaviour ?

Answer 2

• Irregularities in neurotransmitters has been linked to offending e.g low serotonin leading to impulsivity and aggression
• Raine - in those with APD there’s a decrease in volume of grey matter of the frontal lobe and reduced activity in the pre-frontal cortex which controls emotional behaviour
• Raine - Lower EEG arousal at age of 15 linked to later offending
• Shortened version of the MAOA gene may alter level of neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin causing impulsive aggression
• Mirror neurons

Question 3

What is APD and how is it characterised ?

Answer 3

APD is anti-social personality disorder and its characterised by having a lack of emotions and a lack of empathy for the feelings of others. This leads to crime as they don’t feel the guilt of the damage they have caused to others.

This may be caused by a mirror system not functioning correctly so mirror neurone do not fire as they should leading to the lack of empathy.

However - Keysers recently found that those with APD could empathise with others but they did so more sporadically. This is because they had the ability to empathise with others when they were asked to as this may activate the mirror neuron empathy reaction.

Question 4

How does the genetic explanation explain offending ?

Answer 4

• People may inherit a gene that makes them pre disposed to criminal behaviour
• Genes that are associated with criminality are the MAOA gene and the CDH13 gene which play a role in impulsive aggression which can lead to crime
• Based on evidence looking at twin, family and adoption studies by comparing concordance rates to look at the genetic basis of offending behaviour
• Also considers the diathesis stress model

Question 5

What are the assumptions of the genetic explanation to offending ?

Answer 5

• Criminal behaviour can be inherited
• Investigation of a person’s genetic material, brain or body will reveal criminal tendencies
• Stressors in the environment can trigger criminal behaviour but the individual is already pre-disposed to crime

Question 6

What are the candidate genes that increase your chance of offending and how do they do that ?

Answer 6

MAOA gene -
this regulates dopamine and serotonin However, a shorter version of this gene may alter the levels of these neurotransmitters and lead to impulsive aggression and therefore, increasing the chance that they will commit a crime

CDH13 gene -
linked to substance abuse

Question 7

Strengths of the genetic explanation to offending behaviour

Answer 7

P - Supporting evidence - adoption studies
E - Crowe - adoptees with a biological criminal mother have a 50% chance of having a criminal record by the time they’re 18 as opposed to the control group which was 5%
E - Shows that those with primary relatives who are criminals have a higher chance of offending even if they aren’t brought up around them supporting the idea that they may have inherited a criminal gene, giving them a predisposition
L - Therefore, this increases the credibility of the genetic explanation of offending as adoption studies found higher concordance rates of those with criminal relatives as opposed to those without suggesting there’s a genetic basis.

Question 8

Strength of the neural explanation to explaining offending behaviour

Answer 8

P - Supporting evidence
E - Kandel and Freed - Found people with frontal lobe damage tended to show impulsive behaviour, emotional instability and the inability to learn from their own mistakes
E - This supports as it is showing how damage to the brains structure can lead to these qualities which are likely to increase the chances of offending and also links to Raine’s study as he also suggested that impaired frontal lobes increases the risk of criminality due to the impulsivity of them
L - Therefore, this increases the credibility of the neural explanation of offending as it shows how damage to your brain structure can cause you to become impulsive and emotionally imbalanced which can increase the likelihood that you will commit a crime

Question 9

Limitations of the genetic explanation to offending behaviour

Answer 9

P - Biological determinism
E - It is suggesting that if you have a candidate gene or any neurochemical imbalances etc that you are going to offend and the individual cannot choose whether they want to or not as its down to their biological functions.
E - This causes conflict with the criminal justice system as it is suggesting that they can’t be held accountable for their actions as they had no free will in whether or not the offended but rather their biological makeup made them do it.
L - Therefore, this is a weakness as it is biologically deterministic and suggests no one has free will when committing crimes which causes issues around the type of punishment that they may receive

P - Purely correlational
E - This is because cause and effect cannot be established as we don’t know for certain if a certain gene of imbalance of neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin are actually causing the individual to offend or the MAOA gene causing impulsive behaviour which leads to criminal behaviour.
E - All evidence to support is correlational based and the concordance rates to support them often tend to be quite low suggesting there are other factors that play a role in whether an individual offends
L - Therefore, it’s a weakness because all research support is correlational and cause and effect cannot be established.