Explanations of Criminal Behaviour

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Explanations of Criminal Behaviour

• Theories of Criminal Behaviour

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Who commits crime?

• Carefully think about your A/S study.
• Brainstorm reasons for criminal behaviour.
• Make a list of these reasons.
• Try to put these reasons into categories or
  theories.
• e.g. Is there a personality type who commits
  crime? - Personality theory.

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Theories of Criminal Behaviour

• Biological Theories genetic and physiological.
  Cause is the individual, no real part played by
  social factors. Twin and adoption studies.
  Biochemistry (alcohol) and neurology (Raine)
• Personality Theories certain types inclined to
  crime (Eysenck). Psychoanalytic (early childhood)
• Social Learning learned criminal ways
• Issue Nature vs. Nurture debate

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Lombroso
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Lombroso

• Lombroso in 1876 argued that the criminal is a
  separate species, a species that is between
  modern and primitive humans. He argued that the
  physical shape of the head and face determined
  the "born criminal".

Evaluation - Reductionist
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• William Sheldon believed that people could be
  classified into three body shapes, which
  correspond with three different personality
  types.
• endomorphic (fat and soft) tend to be sociable
  and relaxed.
• ectomorphic (thin and fragile) are introverted
  and restrained
• mesomorphic (muscular and hard) tend to be
  aggressive and adventurous.
• Sheldon, using a correlational study, found that
  many convicts were mesomorphic, and they were
  least likely to be ectomorphic (Sheldon et al
  1949).

Evaluation Validity, Reductionist
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Sheldon
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Genetic - XYY
Jacobs et al (1965) suggested that men with the
XYY syndrome were more aggressive than normal
'XY' men. XYY men are over-represented in the
prison population. There are 15 sufferers per
1,000 in prisons and 1 per 1000 in the general
population.
Evaluation Reductionist, no recognition of
social factors.
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Genetic - XY
Normal Male
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Genetic - XYY
XYY Male
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Neurophysiological

• Raine 1994 used PET scans to study the living
  brains of impulsive killers. Damage was found in
  the pre-frontal cortex, which controls impulsive
  behaviour. The task used involved sustained
  attention. It involved watching a screen for 32
  minutes and responding every time a 0 appeared.
  Impulsive individuals also missed many of the 0s.
  Oddly enough, pre-frontal under arousal has also
  been found in politicians!

Evaluation A/S Study ???
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Neurophysiological
PET Scanner
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Neurophysiological
PET Scan
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ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)

• Another suggestion is that certain
  individuals, as a result of genetic
  predisposition or brain damage at birth, suffer
  from a cluster of symptoms which render them
  incapable of moral control and because of
  cortical under arousal, they are constantly
  seeking stimulation.

Evaluation Nature vs. Nurture
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ADHD
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Neurochemical

• The brains chemistry can be influenced by
  diet, for example, food additives, pollution or
  hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar levels associated
  with forms of diabetes). Dawn Stanton attacked
  her husband with a knife when hypoglycaemic.
  However not all diabetics without insulin act
  criminally.

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Neurochemical

• Individuals who take large amounts of steroids
  can become extremely violent (known as "roid
  rage"). Steroids, usually taken to increase
  muscle growth, also increase testosterone levels.
  Horace Williams, a body builder, beat a man to
  death after taking two thousand times the
  recommended dosage of steroids. However not
  everybody in this state turns to criminality

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Influence of drugs?
Influence of other drugs. Which drug is most
associated with criminality? Why? Neurochemical
or cultural?
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Family Studies
Nature vs. Nurture debate
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Twin studies

• An 'MZ apart' study is when two monozygotic (same
  genes and gender) children have been brought up
  apart.
• If both turn out to be criminals then this would
  be support for the genetic explanation.
• The degree of similarity between two twins is
  known as the concordance rate.
• This rate can then be compared with dizygotic
  (not identical) twins who are brought up together
  'DZ together'.
• Looking at a number of studies the average
  concordance rate is 55 for MZ twins and 17 for
  DZ twins (Bartol, 1999).

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Monozygotic twins
MZ twins look a like therefore generate similar
social responses. There are a preponderance of
males who are MZ twins. Males are more likely to
be criminal.
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Evaluation

• Different studies define criminality in
  different ways (e.g. traffic violations, military
  offences, treason during World war 2).
• Quasi-experimental designs are not so controlled
  as experimental designs.
• Age of separation of MZ twins.
• Misclassification of twins as MZ or DZ.

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Evaluation

• MZ twins look alike and may therefore generate
  more similar social responses than DZ twins. This
  means that in addition to sharing the same genes,
  they may also share an almost identical social
  environment.
• MZ twins often have a very close relationship
  and may therefore develop similar interests,
  which might include criminal behaviour.
• Very small sample size in some studies, because
  of the inherent difficulties in obtaining access
  to criminal twins.

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Adoption studies
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Adoption studies

• A retrospective study by Mednick et al (1987)
  looked at court convictions in a small European
  country and found 14,000 adoptees amongst them.
  The criminal records of their biological and
  adoptive parents were then investigated. Many of
  the adoptees had criminal biological parents
  (particularly strong relationship for sons and
  fathers). There was no relationship in the types
  of crime committed. Where there was an
  improvement in social conditions there was a
  reduction in crime (going against the genetic
  explanation).

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Adoption studies
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Evaluation

• 1    Age of adoption
• 2    Amount of contact with biological parents
  (contamination effect)
• 3    Adoptive family selected to be similar to
  biological family.
• 4    Small sample sizes.

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Personality Theory - Questionnaire

• Follow instructions.
• Score questionnaire.
• Evaluate questionnaire. Do you consider it
  a reliable predictor of potential criminal
  behaviour?

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Eysencks Personality Theory
Suggests that high levels of introvertism and
extrovertism can be related to crime. Also
introduced a P scale (psychoticism) to predict
criminal behaviour.
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Eysenck's Personality theory
Extraverts need excitement so they are more
likely to seek crime in order to gain
excitement. Eysenck proposed that extraverts do
not condition easily. Whereas others would learn
that crime does not pay through classical and
operant conditioning, the extravert would not
learn these associations.
Evaluation Little supporting research evidence
however does seem to be valid in real life.
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Freud
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Traumatic Experiences
Traumatic experiences in early childhood leave
their mark on the individual despite the fact
that the individual was not aware of these
experiences. http//www.uwm.edu/Course/820-101/Ka
leta/InS00PersonalityFreud.htm
Slides 7 onwards. - Check for homework
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Freud and Effect of Family

• Alexander and Healy (1935) suggested that
  children need to progress from the pleasure
  principal (being id dominated and therefore
  needing instant gratification) to the reality
  principle (where the ego is dominant). Criminals
  are those children who do not make this
  transition. According to Freud the child needs a
  stable home environment in order to successfully
  make this transition. Research has supported the
  fact that most criminals come from unstable
  homes.

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Freudian Approach
John Bowlby (1946) (see Hodges and Tizard)
studied 44 juvenile delinquents and compared them
with non-criminal disturbed juveniles. 39 of the
delinquents had experienced complete separation
from their mothers for six-months or more during
the first five years of their lives compared with
5 of the control group.
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Problems with Bowlby's research

• unrepresentative samples
• poor matching for control group
• low reliability in the interviews with
  participants
• (Feldmann 1977).

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Evidence against Bowlby

• Koluchova (1976) studied a pair of Czech twins
  and reported that although they were severely
  neglected for the first 7 years of their lives
  they were deemed normal by the time they were 14
  after being cared for.
• Clarke and Clarke (1976) studied children from
  deprived backgrounds using a longitudinal study
  and found there were many factors that
  contributed to the child becoming a criminal, not
  just whether or not they were maternally
  deprived.

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However (Fred and Rosemary)

• However, the effects of emotional or sexual abuse
  can well be believed when we find that 'serial
  killers' such as Frederick and Rosemary West
  suffered terribly as children (Wansell 1996).

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Child abuse

• Out of 36 sex murderers interviewed in the USA
  42 were found to have been sexually abused as
  youngsters (Ressler et al 1988).
• Dietz and Warren (1995) found that 76 of the 41
  serial rapists that they interviewed were abused
  when young.
• However only about 10 of abused children go on
  to commit crimes.

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Sutherland (1939) differential association

• criminal behaviour is learned
• the learning is through association with other
  people
• the main part of the learning takes place within
  close personal groups
• the learning includes techniques to carry out
  certain crimes and also specific attitudes and
  motives conducive towards committing crime

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Sutherland (1939) differential association

• the learning experiences differential
  associations will vary in frequency and
  importance for each individual
• the process of learning criminal behaviour is no
  different from the learning of any other
  behaviour.

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A clue
Who is this?
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Bandura's Social learning theory

• Bandura (1977) suggests that there are three
  aspects to motivation
• 1. External reinforcement (as in operant theory)
• 2. Vicarious reinforcement the observation of
  other people being rewarded or punished for their
  behaviour
• 3. Self-reinforcement gaining internal
  satisfaction from an activity, which therefore
  motivates the individual to behave in a similar
  way in the future.

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Bandura 1976

• Observational learning is thought to take place
  primarily in three contexts
• 1. In the family
• 2. In the prevalent sub culture
• 3. Through cultural symbols such as television
  and books.

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Learning theory and social learning theories of
crime. An Evaluation

• Against
• The studies are conducted in laboratories or
  other artificial environments in carefully
  controlled conditions. Thus lack ecological
  validity, may not be sampling behaviour as in
  real life situations.
• Criminal behaviour tends to run in families is
  not necessarily due to imitation but may be due
  to circumstances such as social deprivation, or
  to genetic propensity to behave in an anti-social
  way.
• The biological differences between men and
  women, especially hormonal ones, and this, rather
  than socialisation, may account for differential
  rates of crime between men and women.

• For
• The theories are based on carefully conducted
  empirical research
• They can help to explain why criminality does, to
  an extent run in families.
• Males and females are socialised very
  differently, with females encouraged not to be
  aggressive and to conform, males are encouraged
  to stick up for themselves and be independent.

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Your opinion?
What is your opinion? Is criminal behaviour
nature or nurture? A combination of both? You
need to have reasons and evidence from what you
have learnt.