THE CRIMINAL APPROACH - AETIOLOGY

Question 1

What are the biological causes of crime?

Answer 1

traumatic brain injury, the amygdala, XYY syndrome and MAOA gene, personality, neurotransmitters

Question 2

How can TBI cause crime?

Answer 2

Specifically damage to the key areas of the brain - the limbic system/amygdala and the prefrontal cortex
Amygdala damage could mean a lack of emotion where you don’t fear the consequences or guilt, prefrontal cortex damage means less inhibition and control of emotions
Williams surveyed 196 prisoners and found that 60% had some form of TBI
90% of murders are committed by men and 90% of people in prison are men
Men are more likely to get a brain injury from sports, fights and road accidents

Question 3

How can damage to the amygdala cause crime?

Answer 3

Linked to our emotional memory and processing of emotion
Psychopaths have less neural activity in the amygdala when doing moral tasks

Question 4

What studies support that damage to the amygdala can lead to crime?

Answer 4

Pardini et al found that psychopaths have a smaller amygdala, implicating the amygdala with a lack of emotion, aggression and violence
Glenn et al looked at the neural connections of the amygdala and found that there was reduced levels of activity in the amygdala of psychopaths showing that psychopaths don’t involve emotions when making moral decisions
Urbach-Wiethe syndrome is where the amygdala atrophises (withers, weakens) and those with the syndrome made less emotional connections to the gory parts of a film compared to those without the syndrome

Question 5

What is XYY syndrome and the MAOA gene and how can it lead to crime?

Answer 5

1/1000 have it and it’s where men are born with an extra Y chromosome
Features include lower IQ, worse concentration spans, more rigid and pessimistic thinking and unusually tall
Worse at covering up their crimes and tend to be more noticeable
However, can’t necessarily conclude that having XYY syndrome actually causes crime, and they tend to have higher testosterone levels which could be what is causing the aggression

Question 6

What studies support that XYY syndrome and the MAOA gene can lead to crime?

Answer 6

Stockholm et al suggests that even when there is a link between XYY syndrome and criminality, it tends to come from unfavourable living conditions (social factors not genes)
Alice Theilgaard notes that although there is a marginally higher rate of XYY men in the prison population than in the general population, it is only very small and therefore can’t be the only reason for criminal behaviour amongst men
However brunner studied a Dutch family of males who all had a genetic mutation with the MAOA gene, and they were all extremely violent

Question 7

What did Capsi et al find?

Answer 7

studied a cohort of people whose lives had been monitored from 3-26
Research found that over 80% of those with the MAOA gene living in a happy environment will not be violent and aggressive
80% of those with the MAOA fene living in a hostile environment ended up being aggressive
Showing that the risk factor is more to do with the environment and less to do with the genes

Question 8

What is personality, according to Eysenck?

Answer 8

Developed a theory of personality that is biologically determined, which argued that there are two dimensions: extrovert—introvert, neurotic—stable (psychotic—normal)
This refers to how even-tempered, calm, easy-going, anxious, depressed, envious or volatile a person is

Question 9

What happens when someone is an extrovert or introvert?

Answer 9

There is a part of the brain called the mid brain, which contains the ARAS (ascending reticular activation system)
Extroverts have an ARAS which attenuates (turns down) incoming stimulus, whereas introverts don’t, and this is why they get bored more quickly

Question 10

What happens when someone is neurotic or stable?

Answer 10

The neurotic—stable dimension is controlled by the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system
People who are neurotic have a more sensitive and reactive ANS than those who are more stable, making them more volatile and emotional

Question 11

How can personality lead to crime?

Answer 11

Maintained that the 3 characteristics of psychoticism, extroversion and neuroticism could explain criminality (PEN personality)

Question 12

What studies evaluate personality as a cause of crime?

Answer 12

Boduszek et al found high levels of E for recidivist inmates
However Farrington et al looked at criminals and found low E scores but high N and P scores
These studies found different results showing that the explanation lacks predictive validity and this makes it difficult to pinpoint which aspect of personality is responsible for crime
Bartol et al looked at 398 inmates at a maximum security prison and a control group of 187 males who were matched for age,ethnicity, SES and employment record
All offenders had lower levels of extroversion than the control group, showing that eysenck’s theory lacks predictive validity

Question 13

What are strengths of personality as a cause of crime?

Answer 13

It takes into account nature and nurture, meaning its a more holistic explanation of human behaviouR

Question 14

How can dopamine lead to crime?

Answer 14

Dopamine is linked to aggression, which could be due to getting a sense of reward after being aggression
Lavine noted that people who took amphetamines had higher levels of aggression, which increases dopamine in the brain therefore this supports that dopamine is linked to aggression

Question 15

How can serotonin lead to crime?

Answer 15

Serotonin is linked to mood and decision making, it is known that when in a worse mood, worse decisions are made
Valzelli looked at the serotonin turnover and found that in male rats, lower serotonin turnover leads to aggression
This explains the sex differences in crime
Most suicide is done in spring, and serotonin turnover is lowest in spring
Virkunnen found that people with a history of violence and people with a history of domestic violence (abuser) had low serotonin levels

Question 16

How can testosterone lead to crime?

Answer 16

High levels of testosterone are linked to aggression, mostly within puberty as this is the critical period for males
Dabbs study, Mazur, Dabbs and Hargrove

Question 17

What are the social causes of crime?

Answer 17

social learning theory, self fulfilling prophecy

Question 18

What is a self fulfilling prophecy?

Answer 18

Our actions affect other people’s beliefs about us, which result in actions towards us and therefore our beliefs about ourselves (pygmalion effect)
Our expectations based on stereotypes —> affects how we treat others (eg label) —> affects how they respond —> affects how we judge their behaviour
We internalise the label and it becomes how we see ourselves
Retrospective label: going back to someone’s past and re-interpreting it in the light of how they have been labelled
Projective label: using a label to predict what will happen to someone in the future

Question 19

What studies support self fulfilling prophecy?

Answer 19

Steele and Aronson, Rosenthal and Jacobsen, Levy and Hartocollis

Question 20

What did Steele and Aronson find?

Answer 20

studied two groups of African-American students before they took a test, one group had to identify their ethnicity before the test and the others didn’t
The group that identified their ethnicity did worse in the test despite being matched academically with the other group, the stereotypes associated with their ethnicity resulted in a self-fulfilling prophecy

Question 21

What did Rosenthal and Jacobsen find?

Answer 21

told primary school teachers that some of their new stens were ‘bloomers’ and so they labelled them as high achieving and treated them accordingly
At the end of the academic year, the teacher rated the academic performance of all the children and submitted their test scores - the ‘bloomers’ achieved highly although the students were randomly allocated to a group
The teacher labelled the child as gifted, treated them differently which resulted in them internalising the positie label and lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy

Question 22

What did Levy and Hartocollis find?

Answer 22

looked at two psychiatric wards, one had all female staff and the other had female and male staff
There were 13 violent incidents on the mixed ward and 0 on the other ward
The patients on the all female ward could’ve perceived that they weren’t as violent as no male staff, resulting in a self-fulfilling prophecy

Question 23

What are criticisms of the self fulfilling prophecy as an explanation of crime?

Answer 23

It doesn’t apply to people who purposely reject a label give to them
Negative labels can have more of a powerful effect on those with low self esteem as more likely to focus on the judgement of others
Self-fulfilling prophecy is not necessary for crime, as a lot of people who aren’t labelled commit crime who those who are labelled don’t
Not sufficient enough as an explanation as just being labelled doesn’t lead to delinquency
Difficult to establish a cause and affect relationship between self-fulfilling prophecy and crime

Question 24

What is social learning theory and how can it lead to crime?

Answer 24

Vicarious reinforcement: see role models get rewarded for behaviour so imitate the behaviour to get the same reward
A lot of those who model and commit crime are males, which could explain the gender differences in crime
Eliciting effect: someone copies the criminal behaviour but puts their own spin on it
Eg if seen behaviour in a video game, then imitate it slightly differently
Inhibiting effect: where see someone get punished for behaviour so don’t do it
Disinhibiting effect: could see someone get away with committing a crime so then imitate the behaviour as believe there is no punishment
External motivation: if the criminal act has been observed and copied successfully then provides beneficial outcomes
Self-reinforcement: refers to self-motivational factors associated with criminal behaviour, a behaviour is more motivation if it satisfies some internal need
70-80% of movies contain some act of violence

Question 25

What studies support the role of social learning theory in crime?

Answer 25

Eron, Eron and Huesman, Bandura

Question 26

What did Eron find?

Answer 26

estimated that by the end of primary school, a child is likely to have seen 8000 murders, and more than 100,000 other acts of violence on TV and videos

Question 27

What did Eron and Huesman find?

Answer 27

found that the more television violence boys had watched by the age of 8, the more likely they were to have been convicted of violent crimes at 30

Question 28

What did Bandura find?

Answer 28

Bandura 1961 - explains why more men commit crime as there is more male violence and aggression within the media, and children are more likel to imitate the behaviour of a significant role model
Bandura 1963 - don’t need direct exposure to the role model in order to imitate behaviour, showing how antisocial behaviour can be copied from the media
Bandura 1965 - in the media aggression and violence is glamourised and don’t see the punishment and consequences of it, meaning there could be the disinhibiting effect

Question 29

What is the evaluation of social learning theory as a cause of crime?

Answer 29

Lower classes tend to be the ones watching TV (popular culture), instead of TV causing crime it could be their class (eg lack of opportunity, poverty etc)
Often in TV, the bad guy is caught and punished which is an example of vicarious reinforcement
BBC news - UK Peace Index - a study of the levels of violence and murder
Found that per 100,000 people, only 1 was murdered (fallen from 1.99)
Levels of violence have fallen yet TV has become more popular which means social learning theory doesn’t have predictive validity
17% of people in the UK think they’ll be the victim of violent crime, when it’s actually less than 4%