Describe biological theories

Question 1

What are the 4 types of biological theories of criminality?

Answer 1

physiological
genetic
brain injuries/disorders
biochemical

Question 2

What type of theory is Lombroso’s ‘born criminal’ theory?

Answer 2

physiological

Question 3

What did Lombroso say about a criminal’s physical features?

Answer 3

criminals were identifiable by their distinctive physical features (long arms, high cheek bones, acute eyesight, big jaws) that non-criminal didn’t have and different criminals have different features (thieves have flat noses and murdered have beak like noses)

Question 4

What did Lombroso mean by ‘atavism’?

Answer 4

criminals were throwbacks to primitive stages of evolution and therefore couldn’t control his impulses and had high sensitivity to pain (tattoos)

Question 5

What did Sheldon’s somatotype theory suggest?

Answer 5

body types can be linked to criminality and those body types had a certain personality

Question 6

What were the 3 body types that Sheldon discovered?

Answer 6

endomorphs- rounded, no muscles, wide hips and were sociable people

ectomorphs- thin, no fat or muscle and were self-conscious, emotionally restrained people

mesomorphs- muscular, strong and were sensation-seeking, dominant people who like physical activity

Question 7

Which body types was the most likely to be a criminal?

Answer 7

mesomorphs since they’d be attractive to the risk-taking

Question 8

What are the 3 genetic theories?

Answer 8

twin studies, Jacob’s XYY study and adoption studies

Question 9

How come both of the monozygotic twins are most likely to become criminals?

Answer 9

they share the exact same DNA, gene and came from the exact same egg

Question 10

What did Christiansen’s study on twin studies find?

Answer 10

he studied 3586 pairs of Denmark twins

found a 52% concordance rate for MZ twins (if one had a conviction, 52% likely the other did too)

found 22% concordance rate of dizygotic twins

Question 11

What was the genetic theory of criminality?

Answer 11

the adopted child has same genes as bio parents but same environment as adoptive parents so if the child’s behaviour is same as bio it suggests there’s a genetic explanation

Question 12

What evidence can be used to support adoption studies?

Answer 12

Mednick study on 14,000 adopted sons in Denmark found sons who’s bio parent had a record than there was a 20% concordance ate they would too . 15% with adoptive parents