Biological Explanations for Offending Behaviour

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  • Created by: gbriscoe
  • Created on: 05-04-17 21:57
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  • Biological Explanations of Offending
    • Historical Explanations
      • Atavistic Form Explanation
        • Lombroso (1876)
          • 3839 living criminals examined for facial and cranial features of an 'atavist'
          • Concluded that 40% of crimes could be accounted for by the atavistic characteristics.
        • 'Criminals are genetic throwbacks who cannot cope with the demands of civilized society so commit crimes'
        • Characteristics Strong jaw, high cheekbones, dark skin, curly hair.
      • Evaluation
        • Scientific racism
          • Many of the features that he identified were associated with people of African origin
            • At the time of the research Britain had an empire and would have colonised many of these countries.
          • Lead to epigenetics
            • DeLisi (2012)
        • Issue of causation.
          • Lombroso later added to his research adding in the factors of poor diet and poverty.
        • Poor control in research.
          • He had no control group for his research.
        • Contribution to offending
          • He brought the study of criminality into science and away from morals and 'sins'. He was also the forerunner for criminal profiling.
        • Contradictory Evidence
          • Goring (1913)
            • Compared 3000 criminals to 3000 non-criminals and found no difference. Though low IQ was common among the criminals.
        • androcentric - maternal instincts ruled out negative traits
    • Modern Explanations
      • Neural Explanations
        • Mirror Neurones
          • Keyser (2011)
            • Only when criminals were asked to empathise did their empathy reaction by mirror neurons activate.
            • This suggests that they are not completely without empathy, but may have a neural 'switch' that can be turned on and off, unlike none criminals.
        • Prefrontal Cortex
          • Raine (2000)
            • Brain scans of APD patients showed reduced activity in the prefrontal cortex.
            • 11% reduction in the volume of grey matter in the prefrontal cortex of people with APD compared to controls.
      • Genetic Explanations
        • Candidate Genes
          • Tiihonen (2014)
            • Two genes that may be associated with violent crime
              • MAOA gene - controls serotonin and dopamine in the brain and has been linked with aggressive behaviour.
              • CDH13 gene - that has been linked to substance abuse and Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)
            • 900 Finnish offenders were tested. If they had both genes present then they were 13x more likely to have a history of violent behaviour.
            • This research is currently in its 'infancy' and has yet to be replicated.
        • Twin Studies
          • Lange (1930)
            • Studied 13 MZ and 17 DZ where one of the twins had served time in prison
              • 10 of the MZ and 2 of the DZ had a co-twin that was also in prison.
            • There was no way of scientifically testing if the participants were twins and if so what type of twin.
          • Christensen (1977)
            • Studied 87 MZ AND 147 DZ
              • Concordance rates:      33% in MZ 12% in DZ
          • Raine (1993)
            • 52% concordance rates
        • Diathesis Stress Model
          • Criminal behaviour may be through a combination of genetic predisposition and a biological or psychological trigger
          • Mednick (1984)
            • Study of 13,000 Danish adoptees
              • When biological parents had convictions 20% of the children offended
              • When neither adoptive or biological had convictions 13.5% of the children offended.
              • When biological and adoptive parents had convictions 24.5% of the children offended
      • Evaluation
        • This research is currently in its 'infancy' and has yet to be replicated.
        • Biological Reductionism - reduces offending down to a genetic and neural level may to be too simplistic.
        • Biological Determinism - the discovery of a criminal gene raises ethical questions of what to do with people that have that gene.
          • Mobley defense application
          • Free Will?
        • Problems with twin studies:  they are small samples. The early studies were poorly controlled. Their shared environments may produce a high concordance rate
        • Problems with adoption studies: Late adoption and contact with the biological parents may be confounding variables.

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