The Apparent Causes of Crime - Term Paper Example

Table of Contents Introduction: 2 Theories of Crime: 2 Relevancy of theories to crime: 4 Literature Review on Biology and Crime 4 Earliest positivists: 6 Experimental results in understanding Biological influences on crime: 8 References: 12 Introduction: Crime, as seen one among several forms of deviance, is a type of anomic behavior; some others characterize it as a more conscious response to social conditions, to stress, to the breakdown in law enforcement or social order, and to the labeling of certain behavior as deviant. Crime rates are driven by different factors in each society. So obviously, reasons for the criminal nature have become main research area of criminology to prevent crimes in the society. To understand the apparent causes of crime, several theories and approaches have been proposed by various scholars and researchers. Theories of Crime: In order to find a rational explanation of crime, a large number of theories have been propounded. Various factors such as evil spirit, sin, disease, heredity, economic maladjustments etc., have been put forward either singly or together to explain criminality. 1. Devil or Demon or Evil Spirit theory: Emphasizes on super natural factors. 2. Free-will theory: Beccaria, the founder of modern criminology denounced the earlier religious fallacies and myths to explain crime. He laid greater emphasis on mental phenomenon of the individual and attributed crime to the free will of the individual. This doctrine implied the notion of causation in terms of the free choice to commit crime by a rational man seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. 3. Biological Theory: Lombroso believes that criminals were different physically from normal persons and possessed few physical characteristics of inferior animal world. 4. Ferri believes that crime is the synthetic product of three main factors (i) Physical or geographical (2) Anthropological and (iii) Psychological or social. He emphasized that criminal behavior is an outcome of a variety of factors having their combined effect on the individual. 5. Labeling Theory: Group of modern criminologists believe: I. No person is inherently criminal. ii. Persons become criminal through social definition of their conduct. iii. All persons at one time or another confirm to or deviate from the law. iv. Getting caught begins the labeling process. v. Persons defined as criminal will in turn, cultivate criminal self-definitions and vi. They will eventually see out and associate with others who are similarly defined and develop a criminal subculture. 6. Criminality is XYY Syndrome: Socio-biologists and geneticists studied chromo somatic pattern of criminals and linked it with criminal behavior. X and Y are sex chromosomes persons inherit from their parents. Male infants are typed with XY while female infants with XX pattern. Y chromosome is aggressive and X is passive. However the unusual XYY chromosome pattern leads to aggression and criminality. 7. Ecological theory: These theories found /focus on interrelations between crime and the physical (crowed housing) and the social environment (poverty, unemployment, disease) in urban areas. 8. Socio-economic Theory: According to this poverty leads to crime. 9. Concept of Ethnocentrism: Certain actions and patterns of behavior is prohibited within the group but allowed outside the group. Relevancy of theories to crime: There is no one royal way to lay out the sociology of crime: some have classified its component theories by their supposed political leanings (liberal, conservative and radical, for instance); some by their attentiveness or inattentiveness to gender; some by their alleged foundational assumptions about the character of the social world (classical, positivist, ‘social constructionist’ and the like); some by their chronology; some by the great men and women who propounded them; and others by schools of thought. Crime, after all, is centrally bound up with the state’s attempts to impose its will through law; with the meanings of those attempts to law-breaker, law-enforcer, observer and victim; and with concomitant patterns of order and disorder. Criminologists differ about the weights and meanings that should be attached to those attributes: some, and control theorists in particular, would wish to be what called ‘correctionalist’, that is, to use knowledge about crime to suppress it. Literature Review on Biology and Crime The linking of biology and crime has its roots in Europe. Reid (1957) wrote “in the year 1843 a Spanish physician Soler was the first to mention the concept of the born criminal” (p. 772). It was also Europe where phrenology, the study of the external shape of the head, was first popularized (Vold, Bernard, & Snipes, 1998). The publication of Darwin’s The Origin of theSpecies (1859) and the Descent of Man (1871) were also influential in this era. Once the ideas became accepted, Cesare Lombroso, a doctor in the Italian Army in the 19th century and the so-called father of criminology, began studying army personnel from the Southern portions of Italy where, in addition to being considered inferior beings, the citizens were thought to be “lazy, incapable, criminal, and barbaric” (Vold et al., 1998, pp. 42–43). In Lombroso’s first major work, The Criminal Man (1876), he made clear the importance of race in explaining crime. He mentioned that some tribes in parts of India and Italy had high crime due to “ethnical causes” (Lombroso, 1876/1911, p. 140). He added that “the frequency of homicide in Calabria, Sicily, and Sardinia is fundamentally due to African and Oriental elements” (p. 140). Lombroso took on the task of explaining criminality among women, he again saw race as being an important contributor to crime. In his view, “Negro” women and “Red Indian” women were seen as manly looking, which contributed to their criminality (Lombroso, 1876/1911). Early sociologists, such as Charles Henderson of the University of Chicago, Made a note that the primary factor of crime in African race is racial inheritance, physical and mental inferiority, barbarism and slave ancestry and culture. (Henderson, 1901, p. 247). Though Henderson also discussed the importance of sociological factors, he clearly prioritized the role of genetic inheritance. In a short but influential work, Race and Crime (1943), Dutch criminologist Willem Bonger provided a different perspective on the topic: Criminality is not a characteristic. It is neither a physical quality such as the possession of blue eyes, nor the spiritual one such as musicality. No one comes into the world with “criminality,” in the way in which one is born with a certain color of eyes, and so forth. Crime is something completely different. (p. 27) While the biological perspective lay dormant for a while, in 1985, James Q. Wilson and Richard Herrnstein resurrected it with their publication of Crime and Human Nature. The work has been generally seen as taking an approach similar to the work of Lombroso, Hooton, and other early biological theorists (Lilly, Cullen, & Ball, 2001). "It is obviously impossible for criminality to be inherited as such, for crime is defined by acts of legislature and these vary independently of the biological inheritance of the violators of the law" (Sutherland & Cressey 1924) Earliest positivists: Some of the earliest positivists were convinced that criminal behavior was a result of genetic abnormality.  Lombroso: advanced notion of atavism, which stated criminals represented a savage, earlier form of humankind.  Hoorten (1939): Claimed to have found important biological differences in criminals and noncriminals. Burglars have: short heads, blond hair, and nonprotruding jaws. Robbers have: long wavy hair, short ears, and broad faces. Sheldon (1949) : His Somatic Typology listed three major somatatypes (or body types). Endomorphs : Obese, soft, and rounded people. Fun loving and sociable Mesomorphs : muscular, athletic people. Assertive, vigorous, and bold. Ectomorph : Tall, thin, and well developed brain. Introverted, sensitive, and nervous Sheldon thought that mesomorphs were most likely to become criminals. Despite the apparent ridiculousness of the above two theories, more recent research has replicated this perceived link between physique and criminal behavior. Olweus (1995): Examined the factors that turn elementary school boys into bullies. Olweus’ prototypical bully: Physically Stronger, Hotheaded Temperament Genetics and Criminal Behavior Twin Studies: Researchers examine both fraternal and identical twins and examine concordance rate for criminal activity. Concordance Rate: The % of pairs of twins sharing the same behavior. Dizygotic Twins: Fraternal Twins Monozygotic Twins: Identical Twins Discordant Monozygotic Twins: Identical Twins who were raised apart. DiLalla and Gorresman (1990): did a metanalysis of 4 decades of twin research into criminality Concluded the average concordance rate for fraternal twins was 22% and for identical twins, 51%. Influence of heredity is higher for property crime than it is for violent crime. (Cloninger & Gottesman, 1987) Adoption Study of Cloninger et al (1982): Examining children whose biological parents were criminals, Crime rate for children was 4 times greater if bio. Parents were criminals, 2 times greater if adopted parents were criminals (12% and 6%, respectively) Experimental results in understanding Biological influences on crime: Many earlier studies and researchers have focused on biological causes, believing that a biological basis of criminality exists and that an understanding and knowledge of biology will be useful in predicting and preventing criminal behavior. In the 1960s it was proposed that males with an extra Y chromosome were predisposed to violent criminal behavior; the work done by Borgaonkar DS found no support for this hypothesis. Now a days genetical and the biochemical approaches are receiving widespread publicity. The studies conducted by Christiansen KO, Cloninger CR, Rowe DC on family and twin adoption studies on a biological basis for antisocial behavior shows no strong evidence for strong violent crimes. A meta-analysis of the literature found only a "low-moderate correlation" between heredity and crime in the study done by Walters GD. And a review published by Carey G. concludes "Together, the data do not suggest a strong role for heredity in violence. For about 25 years researchers have reported correlations between low cerebrospinal fluid concentration of 5-hydroxy-indoleacetic acid, a metabolite of the neurotransmitter serotonin, and violent and criminal behavior. Although more than 100 studies have been published on this topic, later studies cannot be regarded as confirming the results of earlier ones. The behavior characteristically associated with low concentrations of the metabolite has shifted from depression to general aggressive behavior to impulsive aggressive behavior, (Van Praag HM.). But the study conducted by Kidd KK, have used more refined definitions than earlier ones, and do not replicate the earlier ones. Even if an association was established between low 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid concentrations in cerebrospinal fluid and some well-defined violent or criminal behavior, causation is not proved. Within the past year Brunner and colleagues have reported an association between a point mutation in the structural gene for monoamine oxidase A in a large Dutch family and aggressive criminal behavior among many males in that family. Other single gene conditions are known to result in abnormal behavior--for example, the symptoms of Wilson disease, which result from accumulation of copper primarily in the liver and brain, can mimic those of schizophrenia. The gene for monoamine oxidase A, however, is the first instance of an altered gene being implicated in specifically criminal aggressive behaviour. As monoamine oxidase A is involved in serotonin metabolism researchers have suggested that the gene mutation that results in monoamine oxidase A deficiency is related to the low cerebrospinal fluid concentrations of 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid found in association with criminal behavior. (Brunner HG). A series of adoption studies in which the criminal history of an adopted male was compared with the criminal history of both his biological and his adoptive fathers found that genetic influences were significant in cases of property crime but not in cases of violent crime (Brennan PA, Mednick SA). The study conducted by researchers from King's College in London have found that boys who have a particular version of a gene are much more likely to go off the rails if they suffer maltreatment when young. The research suggests that the chances of anti-social behavior among boys who are maltreated as they grow up may be determined by their genetic make-up. The researchers studied a group of young men, of whom 154 had been maltreated, 33 severely. The gene in question controls activity of an enzyme called monoamine oxidase A (MAOA). They found that those who carried a version of the gene linked to low levels of MAOA production were much more likely to indulge in anti-social behavior such as violent crime. Conversely, anti-social behavior was much less likely among the group who carried a version of the gene linked to higher MAOA levels. Although the defect in the gene for monoamine oxidase A is likely to be responsible for the learning disabilities and possibly the abnormal behaviors in the Dutch family, there is little prospect that a better understanding of this condition will improve our understanding of criminality. The primary effect of the mutation is learning disability; the aggressive behavior, which does not appear in all the males with the genetic abnormality, may result from the learning disability and its attendant problems rather than directly from the altered gene. Furthermore, even if its importance in causing criminal behavior is confirmed it is unlikely to be important in more than a minute proportion of criminals. The genetic and biochemical studies discussed above found an association between a biological factor and criminal behavior. Conclusion: Though biological and psychological theories of crime and deviance are really only describing difference, they explain only the difference between supposedly ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’ human characteristics. Being able to separate biological and environmental factors is nearly impossible since they impact on each other from the day we are born. What constitutes crime or deviance is a value judgment made by humans. The behaviors might well be innate individual characteristics but they become defined as deviant through a social process. Crime is intrinsically social because it involves judgment. Decisions are made as to what constitutes deviance and what behaviors are to be considered illegal. It is obvious that there are certain types of behaviors that will be damaging to particular society and need to be controlled. Some of these behaviors seem to have a biological or psychological origin, rather than an environmental cause. The most obvious of the biological distinctions is that of the different levels/types of deviant involvement engaged in as a consequence of sex. Males seem to be far more predisposed to act in ways that all societies want to reduce because of their social harm. Isolating one variable and finding an association with criminality is a correlation but this should not be confused with a ‘cause’. If we conclude that only Biological or psychological or environmental factors cause or has no relevancy in identifying the crime, there is a danger of reductionism-reducing complex processes to simple one-cause explanations. The earlier biological theories are clearly flawed and have been used to demonstrate the weakness of such approaches. More recent research in biology and evolutionary psychology is far more rigorous in its research designs and many of the findings are disturbingly compelling. Apart from the diagnosis of the causes of deviant behavior, biological investigations have contributed significantly to the profiling and tracking of offenders. References: 1. Borgaonkar DS, Shah SA. The XYY chromosome male--or syndrome. Prog Med Genet 1974;10:135-222. [Medline] 2. Christiansen KO. A review of studies of criminality among twins. In: Mednick SA, Christiansen KO, eds. Biosocial bases of criminal behavior. New York: Gardner Press, 1977:45-88. 3. Cloninger CR, Gottesman II. Genetic and environmental factors in antisocial behavior disorders. In: Mednick SA, Moffitt TE, Stack SA, eds. The causes of crime: new biological approaches. New York: Cambridge, 1987:92-109. 4. Rowe DC. Genetic and environmental components of antisocial behavior: a study of 265 twin pairs. Criminology 1986;24:513-32. 5. Walters GD. A meta-analysis of the gene-crime relationship. Criminology 1992;30:595-613. 6. Carey G. Genetics and violence. In: Reiss AJ Jr, Miczek KA, Roth JA, eds. Understanding and preventing violence. Vol 2. Biobehavioral influences. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1994:21-58. 7. Van Praag HM. Serotonergic dysfunction and aggression control. Psychol Med 1991;21:15-9. [Medline] 8. Kidd KK. Association of disease with genetic markers: deja vu all over again. Am J Med Genet (Neuropsychiatric Genetics) 1993;48:71-3. 9. Brunner HG, Nelen M, Breakefield XO, Ropers HH, van Oost BA. Abnormal behavior associated with a point mutation in the structural gene for monoamine oxidase A. Science 1993;262:578-80. [Abstract] 10. Brennan PA, Mednick SA. Genetic perspectives on crime. Acta Psychiatr Scand 1993;370(suppl):19-26. 11. Billings PR, Beckwith J, Alper JS. The genetic analysis of humanbehavior: a new era? Soc Sci Med 1992;35:227-38. Read More