Crime - what makes a criminal

Question 1

biological explanation of crime

Answer 1

crime is a result of genetics, brain structure, biochemistry, hormones and evolutionary drive.

Question 2

what parts of the brain are linked to crime

Answer 2

pre - frontal cortex, temporal lobe, corpus collosum and amygdala

Question 3

behaviourists explanation of crime

Answer 3

people learn crime from poor parenting when parents dont adequately socialise their children into society

Question 4

cognitive explanation of crime

Answer 4

criminals have distorted thinking patterns of which there are 52

Question 5

psychodynamic explanation of crime

Answer 5

an overactive ID and under active superego, leads people to act on impulse

Question 6

describe the findings of Mednick

Answer 6

an adoption study to find out if crime is linked to genetics. the sample was adopted danish men. he compared their criminal records to their biological and adoptive parents. Mednick found that those whose bio parents were twice as likely to become criminals.

Question 7

describe the findings of Brunner

Answer 7

Brunner syndrome is a disorder characterised by intellectual disability, impulsive and aggressive behaviour associated with deficient function of the monoamine oxidase A enzyme

Question 8

describe the case of Charles Whitman

Answer 8

Charles is a former US marine, who killed 16 people. he was found to have an astrocytoma brain tumour in the region of the amygdala. he had left letters saying he could not rationally pinpoint any specific reason for doing this

Question 9

describe lombrosso’s idea of criminality

Answer 9

a criminal mind was inherited and could be identified by physical features and defects. he also claimed the born criminal had a liking for tattoos, cruel and wicked games and their own language was through a primeval slang

Question 10

describe the study by eron

Answer 10

measured the level of violence in TV programmes watched by 7-8 year olds and their aggressiveness and found a positive correlation. as teenagers there was an even stronger correlation in boys but not girls.

Question 11

describe the study by jahoda

Answer 11

investigated the aggression of children of the Ashanti people. male children are given names dependent on the day of the week they are born on. ‘monday’ boys are more calm but ‘wednesday’ are more aggressive, as 22% of violent offences were commited by boys with a wednesday name and only 7% with monday. suggesting cultural expectation may have influenced the children.

Question 12

describe sutherlands theory into crime

Answer 12

the differential association theory - criminal behaviour is learnt through communication and social interaction in small intimate groups.

Question 13

aim of Raine et al

Answer 13

to build on previous research testing if, serious violent individuals pleading NGRI have relatively localised brain dysfunction in areas linked to crime e.g. pre-frontal cortex and corpus callosum + if serious violent individual pleading NGRI show no dysfunction in other brain areas which have not been linked to crime e.g. cerebellum

Question 14

method + design of Raine et al

Answer 14

quasi experiment + matched participant

Question 15

sample of Raine et al

Answer 15

41 pps (39M, 2F) charged with either murder or manslaughter
6 - schizophrenia
23 - head injury
3 - psychoactive drug abuse
2 - epilepsy
3 - learning disability
2- personality disorder

Question 16

control group of Raine et al

Answer 16

41 pps (39M, 2F)
matched by age and gender.
the 6 murders with schizophrenia were matched with 6 non-murders with schizophrenia. the remaining 35 pps had no history of psychiatric illness

Question 17

procedure of Raine et al

Answer 17

1.all offenders were in custody and kept medication free for two weeks.
2. 10 mins before FDG tracer, pps had a trial at the CPT task
3. 30 secs before FDG tracer, pps started the actual CPT task.
3. 32 mins after tracer was injected pps had a PET scan

Question 17

results of Raine et al

Answer 17

1.murders had reduced activity in some areas e.g. prefrontal cortex and corpus collosum
2. abnormal asymmetry, reduced activity in the left and greater in the right, in areas linked to violence e.g. amygdala and hippocampus
3. no difference in some areas, linked to mental illness but not violence e.g. cerebellum

Question 19

conclusions of Raine et al

Answer 19

murders pleading NGRI had a significant difference in the metabolism of glucose in a number of brain areas compared to non- murders