Inherited criminality

Question 1

What’s the definition of predispostion?

Answer 1

A greater likelihood that something will happen.

Question 2

What’s the definition of monozygotic twins?

Answer 2

Identical twins.
Twins from one zygote.

Question 3

What’s the definition of dizygotic twins?

Answer 3

Non-identical twins.
Twins from two zygotes.

Question 4

What’s the definition of concordance rates?

Answer 4

A measure of genetic similarity.
In a sample of twin pairs, one twin of each pair has a disorder.
The number of times their other twin also shows the disorder determines the concordance rate.

Question 5

What did Brunner (1993) analyse?

Answer 5

DNA of 5 male members of a Dutch family with a history of violent crime.
Found they all had a gene that leads to abnormally low levels of MAOA.

Question 6

What is MAOA?

Answer 6

Monoamine oxidase A.
An enzyme that, among other things, regulates levels of serotonin in the brain.

Question 7

What did Tiihonen (2015) find?

Answer 7

Studied 900 violent offenders.
Found evidence of low activity from the CDH13 gene as well as low MAOA activity.
They concluded that up to 10% of violent crime in Finland may be due to abnormalities in these two genes.

Question 8

What’s the definition of epigenetics?

Answer 8

Refers to the material in each cell of the body that acts like a set of “switches” to turn genes on or off.

Question 9

What’s diathesis-stress?

Answer 9

Current thinking in terms of epigenetics proposes an interplay where genes are “switched” on or off by epigenomes which in turn have been affected by environmental factors.

Question 10

What did Caspi et al (2002) study and find?

Answer 10

Used data from the longitudinal Dunedin study that has followed about 1,000 people from when they were babies in the 1970s.
Caspi et al assessed antisocial behaviour at age 26.
Found that 12% of those men with the low MAOA gene had experienced maltreatment but were responsible for 44% of violent convictions.

Question 11

What did Raine find?

Answer 11

Carried out a meta-analysis - murderers, psychopaths and violent criminals have lowered activity in the prefrontal cortex. Associated with impulsiveness and loss of control.

Question 12

What did Seo et al suggest?

Answer 12

Low levels of serotonin predispose individuals to impulsive violent behaviour, partly because serotonin inhibits the prefrontal cortex.

Question 13

What did Raymond Crowe (1972) find?

Answer 13

Adopted children who had a biological parent with a criminal record had a 38% greater risk of having a criminal record by the age of 18 whereas adopted children whose mother didn’t have a criminal record only had a 6% risk.

Question 14

What are the key points for the explaining non-violent crimes evaluation point?

Answer 14

Most of the genetic (and neural) research on criminal behaviour relates to the association between criminal and violent or aggressive behaviour.
Biological explanations may just account for certain kinds of crimes such as those involving violence and also psychopathy - a psychopath is a person who lacks empathy with what other people feel.
They’re therefore more likely to commit crimes.

Question 15

What does Lynn Findlay (2011) suggest?

Answer 15

Crime is not a “natural” category - it doesn’t exist apart from how we choose to define it.
People have created the category of criminal behaviour and it includes many different types of crime.
Makes it difficult to argue that such a behaviour can be explained in terms of genetics and its interaction with the environment.

Question 16

What are the key points for the problems with determinist explanations evaluation point?

Answer 16

Genetic explanations are presented as if the genes a person is born with determines later behaviour.
The law asks the question about whether the cause of behaviour is outside a person’s control.
It’s harder for some individuals to avoid criminal violence - and this may be due to both their biology and the environment they grew up in.
Therefore a determinist view of criminal behaviour can’t be totally ruled out.

Question 17

What did Tiihonen et al (2015) suggest?

Answer 17

Those with the defective gene were 13 times more likely to have a history repeated violent behaviour, but this means that not everyone with the gene had become a criminal.

Question 18

What are the key points for the “Brain differences: cause or effect?” evaluation point?

Answer 18

In order for genes to cause criminal behaviour, they must be linked to a physical or psychological effect.
One possibility is differences in the brains of criminals.