Are Criminals Born or Made - Essay Example

Are Criminals Born or Made It has always been a difficult question to find an answer whether a criminal is born or is made out of circumstances. Thecrimes have begun at the start of human civilisation. Crimes and the relative punishments have been found to be an integral part of the human living when the societal form of human life was formed. However it is difficult to precisely identify a definite date from which the crimes became a serious problem for the society. But no specific solution has been found to tackle this problem. People have attempted to find different solutions like inventing sophisticated technical devices, working out various social development programmes, making psychological researches which aim at preventing the crimes. In spite of the efforts in this direction crimes continue to exist and it can be concluded that the crimes will continue to exist and this problem can not be solved. In order to solve this problem it becomes necessary that the cause of the crimes or the reason why people commit crimes need to be analysed. Traditionally crime has been considered as associated with two domains by the specialists. The domains are the nature or the environment of the individuals including the family and the peers of the individuals. However it must be noted that these specialists belong to different fields of science as the complexity and dynamics of crime extends to different areas which are difficult to comprehend. When reference is made to the science of criminology automatically reference is made to different branches of science such as psychology, genetics, sociology etc. The main purpose of criminology is to deal with crimes and criminals and solve this social problem. As mentioned earlier the main approaches to deal with the problem of crimes and their resolution are the natural approach and the environmental approach. The environmental approach deals with the circumstances that made an individual to commit a crime and it does not consider the heredity or family background of the criminal. Whereas the natural approach is sure that the nature of the criminal, his or her genes, and heredity are the main reasons that make him/her to commit the crimes. The latest developments in genetics have been fairly successful in substantiating the environmental causes for people committing crimes and this has put away the theories about the heredity and genes being responsible for the crimes which need to be proved scientifically. The theories relating to the presupposition of the heredity and genes are ambiguous and are to be established with a scientific base before they can be taken into account. On the other hand the followers of the environmental approach also can not deny the fact that the heredity and genetic causes play an important role in shaping the character of a person. They also contribute to the committing of the crime by the individuals. It is important that environment in which a person is born and brought up is considered while studying the crimes, as such environmental factors do have a large influence on the formation of the personality of the individual and the shaping of his or her characters. Though this new approach is relatively young and new it is becoming more and more popular and deserves to be analysed thoroughly before any conclusion can be drawn from the approach. According to Wilson and Herrnstein (1985) "criminology is the study of delinquency and crime with the goal of developing a body of knowledge including all the dynamics that surround crime and criminals to assist in their understanding of the phenomenon". Thus the focus of the science of criminology is to evolve a deep understanding of crime, the reasons why people commit crimes and also the nature of the people who commit crimes namely the criminals. It is a fact that it would be difficult to understand the crimes as a social phenomenon in general and all the details of the crime in particular as it affects the society, unless the causes which make the people commit the crimes. The question of whether the criminals are born or made has become an integral part of the science of criminology as soon as it started getting it transformed in to a serious science. There are various schools of though which deal with this issue of identifying whether a criminal is born or is made. The 'Positivist School' was the fist such school to deal with the issue of criminology. The school was founded by Lombrosso a renowned criminal anthropologist. He is considered as the father of criminology. He was of the opinion that people are born criminals and only their inherent nature forces them to commit crimes. The views of Lombrosso on the study of criminology are purely deterministic. This is the reason Lombrosso "viewed criminals as being a more primitive form of human, influenced much by Charles Darwin's writings on evolution" (Williams and McShane 1993). Lombrosso believed that the criminals possessing an innate predisposition to criminality are distinct from the 'normal' people and they should be considered as a special species. Lombrosso regarded these people as presenting themselves in a middle position between the modern cultured citizens and the primitive uncivilized people. The other view is that "crime is largely or entirely the by-product of poverty, racism, broken families and other social disturbances" (John Leo). These are certain environmental conditions that help breed crime and are independent of the heredity or genes of the people committing the crimes. It may be the case that committing crime is definitely not a thing which someone is born with but because of certain situations or circumstances the life throws at a person, the tendency to commit crime develops. Issues like child abuse, unemployment and other unbearable environment in which one grows up makes a criminal than the inherent characters. For instance Children who have been abused are most likely to be made as criminals since they grow up with enormous amount of hatred which they do not know how to live with. The study published by 'Science' suggests that criminals are made but some people provide better materials for such making than others because of their inborn characters (Ronald Bailey, 2002). The results of the study show that apart from the genetic absolution, the environment in which the people grow also matters in deciding the criminality in the minds of the individuals. The study reveals that the balance of brain chemicals can be modified by childhood maltreatment and can also be tempered by social institutions. The criminals are punished not out of vengeance for the crimes committed by them. The punishments are also meant to deter others from committing crimes. By punishments the social institutions try to alter the brain chemicals and hence most of the social institutions aim to maximise the prosocial brain chemicals in the criminals so that they are prevented from involving themselves in engaging in doing further crimes. Even though the social institutions can not altogether prevent the crimes from happening they can to some extent isolate the criminals and rehabilitate their moral behaviour. Latest developments in the science focus on arriving at a solution to the issue of crimes and criminals and also finding an answer as to whether the criminals are made or born. The new approach is that it is neither the environment nor the heredity and the genes completely which determine the criminal character of the individuals and is something in between. It is a combination of both the environmental factors and the natural explanation of the formation of criminality in individuals. "This theory is based on the idea that both genes or heredity and a person's environment interact and influence the development of personality and the main traits of character resulting, in some cases, in the development of a person with antisocial or even criminal behavior" (Lloyd Johns, 2006). References: John Leo 'Are Criminals Born Not Made' Time Magazine Online Lloyd Johns (2006) 'Are Criminals Born or Made' Article Alley Ronald Bailey (2002) 'Born to Be Wild' Reasononline Wilson, J.Q. & Herrnstein, R.J. (1985) 'Crime and Human Nature' New York: Simon & Schuster Williams, F. P & McShane, M. D. (1993) 'Criminology Theory: Selected Classic Readings' Cincinnati: Anderson Read More