biological explanations: neural

Question 1

what do neural explanations suggest?

Answer 1

• there may be neural differences in the brains of offenders and non-offenders
• behavour (and its disorders) can be explained in terms of (dys)functions of the brain and nervous system
• includes brain sturctures such as the PFC and neurotransmitters such as serotnin and dopamine

Question 2

neural explanations and antisocial personality disorder (APD)

Answer 2

• much of evidence in this area involves individuals diagnosed with this condition
• associated with reduced emotional responses, a lack of empathy for the ffelings of others
• conditions that characterises many convicted offenders

Question 3

prefrontal cortex and APD (raine et al. 2000)

Answer 3

• conducted many studies of the APD brain
• reported that there are several dozen brain-imaging studies demonstrating that individuals with antisocial personalities have reduced activity in the PFC
• part of brain that regulates emotional behaviour
• found an 11% reduction in the volume of grey matter in the PFC of people with APD compared to controls

Question 4

what does recent research suggest about offenders with APD?

Answer 4

they can experience empathy but they do so more sporadically

Question 5

mirror neurones (keysers 2011)

Answer 5

• empathy reaction (controlled by mirror neurons in the brain) was only activated when offenders were asked to empathise (with a person depicted on film experiencing pain)
• this suggests that APD individuals are not completely without empathy, but may have a neural ‘switch’ that can be turned on and off, unlike the ‘normal’ brain which has the empathy switch permanently on

Question 6

evaluation: support for link between crime and frontal lobe (kandel and freed 1989)

Answer 6

• reviewed evidence of frontal lobe damage (including PFC) and antisocial behaviour
• people with such damage tended to show impulsive behaviour, emotional instability and an inability to learn from their mistakes
• frontal lobe is associated with planning behaviour
• this supports the idea that brain damage may be a causal factor in offending behaviour

Question 7

evaluation: link between neural diffferences and APD may be complex

Answer 7

• farrington et al. (2006) studied a group of men who scored high of APD
• these individuals had experienced various risk factors during childhood, such as being raised by a convicted parents and being physically neglected
• these early childhood experiences caused APD and some neural differences associated with it, such as reduced activity in the frontal lobe due to trauma (rauch et al. 2006)

Question 8

evaluation: biological determinism and the justice system

Answer 8

• biological approach suggests that a person should not be held responsible for their crime
• however, our justice system is based on the notion that we all have responsibility for our actions
• only in extreme circumstances (eg. mental disorder) is an individual judged to lack responsibility
• the identification of possible biological precursors to crime complicates this principle