Theories of criminality

Question 1

Sigmund Freud’s Psychodynamic theory

Answer 1

Freud believed that the best way to understand behaviour is to examine early childhood experiences and that criminality was linked to guilt. He suggested that our mind was made up of three levels; the conscious level, the subconscious level, and the unconscious level.
It is the unconscious level Freud believed that criminality derived from, where our fears, violent motives, immortal urges, and selfish needs originate from.

Question 2

What are the three parts of the unconscious mind?

Answer 2

The Id - our basic needs and the most primitive part of our personality
The ego - practical and realistic part and is less primitive than the id.
The superego - what people think of as a our conscious due to its concern with social rules and morals that tell us what is right and wrong.

Freud believed that a healthy personality has a balance between all three personalities but if an individual is id dominant then it leads to criminality. Freud believed that every child is at first id dominant but needs a stable home environment in order to make the transition.

Question 3

Bowlby’s psychodynamic approach

Answer 3

Bowlby believed that attachment is key to human’s survival and that we attached to our primary caregiver, usually our mum, so we can make sure we get food, shelter and care.

Question 4

Maternal Deprevation

Answer 4

Bowlby believed that attachment had to happen within the first year of an infant’s’ life known as the critical period. However it could happen within the first three years of an infant’s life. But if an attachment is broken for a week or longer during those three years it is called Maternal Deprivation.
Bowlby believed that the effects; extreme clingingness, depression or aggression could lead to criminality

Question 5

Bowlby’s supporting research

Answer 5

Bowlby studied a group of 44 juvenile thieves who attended a child guidance clinic and compared them to a control group of 44 adolescents. He found that 39% of the thieves had experienced complete seperation from their mothers for six or more months during the first five years of their lives. Compared with the 5% of the control group. Bowlby concluded that there is a correlation between maternal deprivation in infancy and criminal behaviour in adolescence.

Question 6

Skinner’s Operant conditioning

Answer 6

Skinner believed that crime comes from learning experience. He theorised that if someone committed a crime and received a reward or what he called ‘reinforcement’ then it increases the likelihood of them recommitting that crime. But if that person receives a punishment for committing that crime in decreases the likelihood of them recommitting.

Question 7

Skinner: Supporting Research

Answer 7

Skinner put a rat in a cage and the rat accidently pushed a lever that caused food to be dispensed. the rat learnt that was how he was how he was going to get food after accidentally pressing it a couple more times and started to associate the lever with food.

Question 8

Bandura’s social learning theory

Answer 8

Bandura believed that children learn through the processes of observational learning which involves modelling, imitating, identification and the consequences or lack of which is observed and guides future behaviour.

Question 9

Bandura’s supporting research: Bobo Doll study

Answer 9

Bandura used a Bobo doll to test his theory and have a child watch an adult beat the doll aggressively. When alone he found that the child would imitate and repeat these aggressive acts towards the doll. As well as that he found that children are more likely to imitate same sex adults.

Question 10

Eysenck’s Personality theory

Answer 10

During the 1940s Eysenck was working at a psychiatric hospital where his job was to make an initial assessment of each patient before their mental disorder was diagnosed. To do this he carried out a questionnaire on 700 soldiers who were being treated for neurotic disorder. From this he identified the three personality; extraversion/introversion, neuroticism/stability and psychoticism was added later

Question 11

Extraversion

Answer 11

Outgoing, sociable, and active. The individual wants excitement and may become easily bored.
This links to arousal. If there is low arousal then there is a need to seek stimulation from external sources.

Question 12

Neurocitism

Answer 12

Emotional instability associated with anxiety, fear, depression, and envy.
Links to activation threshold for fight or flight response. If a person has low threshold for activation they quickly react to minor stressors.

Question 13

Psychoticism

Answer 13

An individual who lacks empathy and is aggressive, impersonal and cold.
Links to hormones particularly testosterone. Where sexual aggression can take place.

Question 14

Atavistic form

Answer 14

Lombroso argued that a ‘born criminal’ could be determined by physical appearance as criminality was heritable and had primitive features that were ‘throwbacks’ from the early stages of human development. To solidify this he studied 4,400 criminals and found common physical traits among them.

Question 15

What are some atavistic features?

Answer 15

large ears
forward projection of the jaw
high cheekbones
sloping forward forehead

Question 16

Atavistic supporting research (2016)

Answer 16

An experiment was carried out in China to see if a computer could identify criminals based on their faces. They trained an algorithm using more than 1,500 photos hundreds of them being convicts. It said that the algorithm was able to correctly identify criminals 89% of the time

Question 17

Somatotypes

Answer 17

William Sheldon believed that criminal behaviour is linked to a person’s physical form. After examining photos of 4,000 men from several perspectives he concluded that there were three fundamental body types

Question 18

What were the body types?

Answer 18

Endomorphic (fat and soft) - tend to be social and relaxed

Ectomorphic (thin and fragile) - are introverted and restrained

Mesomorphic (muscular and hard) - are more aggressive and adventurous

Question 19

What did Sheldon discover?

Answer 19

Through his study he found that many criminals prone to committing violence and aggressive acts were mesomorphic and least likely to be ectomorphic.

Question 20

Somatotype supporting research

Answer 20

Sheldon and Glueck conducted a longitudinal research into juvenile delinquency using control groups. In their research they found support that mesomorphs are more likely to commit crimes:
Among the juvenile they studied, mesomorphic somatotypes were disproportionately represented by a ratio of nearly two to one as compared with non-delinquent criminals.
In 1956 Glueck concluded that participants in delinquency may be facilitated by having a mesomorphic body (60% of juveniles.)

Question 21

Brain structure/injury

Answer 21

several studies have suggested that damage to the prefrontal cortex of the brain or a genetically inherited tumour may cause individuals to have an altered behaviour pattern making them more immature and having an increased loss of self control as well as having an inability to modify their behaviour.

Question 22

Brain injury case study: Jim Fallon

Answer 22

He studied a series of brains and not knowing who they belonged to started to point out brains that had less activity in their temporal lobe, their limbic system and frontal lobe. He was then told that the brains belonged to criminals who had all received brain injuries.

Question 23

Diet/neurochemistry

Answer 23

The brain can be influenced by diet for example food additives, pollution or hypoglycaemia. Some people show that low levels of serotonin are linked with higher aggression.
This has been proven by Scerbo and Raine in 1993 where they conducted a meta-analysis on 19 studies into antisocial adults and children. They found low levels of serotonin in all of these individuals

Question 24

Diet/Neurochemical case study: Horace Williams

Answer 24

He was an american bodybuilder who beat a man to death after he took 2,000 times the recommended dosage of steriods.
This is a direct affect on the brain’s neurochemistry
This behaviour and mood could have caused Horace Williams to commit a violent and aggressive crime due to steroids increasing testosterone produced in the body. This extra testosterone can be linked to an increased amount of aggression being a factor in male-typical behaviour.

Question 25

Twin Studies

Answer 25

The study was conducted on both identical twins (monozygotic) who share 100% of their DNA and twins from two separate eggs (dizygotic) who share 50% of their DNA to test whether criminality is caused by genetics or environmental influences.

Question 26

Twin studies case study: Kray Twins

Answer 26

Ronnie and Reggie were identical twins meaning they share 100% of their DNA. They were notorious gangsters who committed several acts of violence which proves that there is a high concordance rate for criminality in identical twins. This is backed with the knowledge of their older brother Charlie who was also a criminal, further proving that criminality is genetically caused.

Question 27

Adoption studies

Answer 27

This study was based on explaining criminal behaviour in comparison with both the criminal’s biological parents and adoptive parents. If the child is more similar to their biological parents than their adoptive parents, with whom they share the same environment, a genetic reasoning is suggested. However if the child is more similar to their adoptive parents then an environmental reasoning is preferred.

Question 28

Adoption Studies: Supporting Research

Answer 28

In 1975 Hutchings and Mednick studied 14,000 adopted boys in Denmark and found that boys were more likely to have a criminal record if their biological parents had one
This suggested there is a direct link between genetics and criminality

Question 29

XYY Syndrome

Answer 29

This is a genetic condition that causes some men to possess another Y chromosome and it occurs randomly at the time of conception and found 1 in a 1000 men.

Question 30

XYY Syndrome characteristics

Answer 30

Taller than siblings
Severe acne
lower intelligence compared to siblings
Behavioural and emotional difficulties
May be physically active

Question 31

XYY syndrome cast study: John Wayne Gacy

Answer 31

John Wayne Gacy was a serial killer and rapist who murdered 33 men. And it was found that he possessed all of the characteristics to be classified as an XYY male; he was taller than his siblings, due to his work he was physically active, he had behavioural and emotional difficulties that caused him to lash out and kill his victims, and it was hinted he had lower intelligence after he failed his driving test a number of times.

Question 32

Emile Durkheim: Functionalism

Answer 32

Functionalists see society like a body, each institution is represented by an organ. If one of these fails then society fails.
Durkheim believes that crime is inevitable because not all people will conform to the collective norms of society and some individuals will therefore deviate from them. When they do society punishes them to reinforce the existing norms and values in society. However, some deviations can contribute positively to society

Question 33

Merton’s Strain theory: Functionalism

Answer 33

Merton builds on Durkheim’s idea of Anomie. However he sees anomie as a permanent feature in society rather than a temporary occurrence. He believes that individuals need two things to be successful; cultural goals and the means to achieve them. Society is encouraged to have the ‘American Dream’; a car, house and nuclear family however not everyone has the means to obtain these cultural goals. This causes moral strain

Question 34

Labelling theory

Answer 34

This theory states that no act is deviant or criminal in itself but becomes so when we create rules and apply them to others. Howard Becker argues that crime is a subjective concept and that agents of social control such as police and judges label certain acts as criminal or deviant. This is done through Aaron Cicourel’s typifications that police use to label certain acts as deviant and criminal based on a person’s race, ethnicity, gender, or social class and would therefore be punished accordingly.

Question 35

Marxism

Answer 35

Marxists believe that crime occurs in the working class as a result of unfavourable conditions and that everything in society is designed by the ruling class to brainwash the subject class and keep them oppressed. This oppression leads to working class people being driver further into poverty which causes them to turn to crime for survival.
This causes inequality that leads to feeling of frustration resulting in non-utilitarian crimes such as vandalism. However the crime among the bourgeoisie is ignored due to the dog eat dog corporate world.

Question 36

Right Realism

Answer 36

Realists argue that crime is a real problem not just a social construction created by control agencies. They believe crime needs to be tackled especially as they argue that there has been a significant increase in crime rates.

Question 37

Left Realism

Answer 37

Left realists see society as an unequal capitalistic one being a cause of crime. They believe crime is caused by relative deprivation, subculture, and marginalisation.

Question 38

Functionalism

Answer 38

Some individuals are poorly socialised and likely to deviate. As a result of anomie they turn to crime and deviance in order to gain the things that they have been prevented from achieving. This results in atrophy where social solidarity breaks down, resulting in more crime. For example of an individual does not make enough money to feed their children, they steal food from a supermarket.

Question 39

Labelling theory supporting research

Answer 39

Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) gave elementary children an IQ test. They informed the teachers which children were going to be ‘average’ and which were going to be ‘bloomers’. The results showed that the Bloomers IQ score had risen significantly higher than the average students, even though these students were chosen at random.
This proves that given a label, an individual can instill a self-fulfilling prophecy that leads them to embody their label.

Question 40

Marxism case study: London Riots

Answer 40

An example of the marxism oppression is the London Riots. This occurs when people’s general frustration seized the streets in mainly poor areas as a consequence of the death of a young black man at the hands of a police officer

Question 41

Durkhiem’s four functions of crime

Answer 41

1. Boundary maintenance - reinforces society’s shared rules and values. They use of each case as a morality play to show people how not to act and reinforce social solidarity.
2. Social change - where certain crimes become seen no longer crimes and therefore society pushes for change.
3. Safety valve - certain crimes act as a stress reliever
4. Warning light - an excessive amount of certain crimes can act as a warning that an institution of society is dysfunctional in some way

Question 42

The five ways to respond to Mortal Strain

Answer 42

1. conformity - conform and accept the situation - keep believing we can achieve success through hard work
2. Inoculation - criminal behaviour to gain material success such as making money through scams
3. Ritualistic - where the sight of goal is lost. Such as ending up in a dead end job
4. Retreatists - drop out of conventional society such as becoming drug addicts.
5. Rebels - set alternative opposing goals to society such as alternative societies like hippies.

Question 43

left wing views: Marginalisation

Answer 43

The social exclusion from society of individuals who lack the power or resources to fully participate in it. Marginalised groups lack clear goals and organisation to represent their interests making them voiceless and further pushed out of society.

Question 44

left wing views: Subculture

Answer 44

Cohen argues that certain groups experience status frustration more than others. Some may therefore turn to crime as a response to relative deprivation. Discrimination or less access to education may prevent people from reaching higher paid jobs or opportunities leading them to commit crime in order to achieve the desired consumer goods.

Question 45

left wing views: Relative Deprivation

Answer 45

Media and advertising raise people’s desires for material possessions and highlight disparities between what you want and what you can afford.

Question 46

Right wing views: Biological Differences

Answer 46

Wilsone Hernstein stated that some biological characteristics like certain hormones and personality traits can make some people more predisposed to committing a crime than others by increasing aggression, impulsivity, and risk taking.

Question 47

Right wing views: Inadequate Socialisation

Answer 47

Charles Murray states that everyone is tempted to commit a crime but it’s the social constraints that often prevent people from doing so. He states that the underclass cause crime due to failing to socialise children properly

Question 48

Right wing views: Rational Choice

Answer 48

Robert Clark put forward his theory that everyone has the power of free will and reason. Based on these factors, everyone has the choice to commit based on rational calculation; if the reward outweighs the cost then a crime is more likely to be committed.