In the mid-eighteen hundred’s, the development of ideas about criminals and punishment started to align with the study of criminal behavior based upon external factors. This was notably known as positivist criminology. Positivist theory was an idea that criminals were born and not made into criminals; in other words, it was the nature of the person and not how the person was raised. In the nineteenth Century, Cesare Lombroso was an Italian psychiatrist, who drew on the thoughts of Charles Darwin and proposed that criminals were atavistic (Bohm, R.M., & Vogel, B. L., 2011). He proposed that their brains were under developed or not fully developed. In his study of criminals, he found that they shared various basic physical attributes, such as …show more content…
Essentially, criminals were born that way. His theory is basically a hypothesis of biological positivism. Psychological theories suggest that criminal conduct is the product of individual differences in their minds. There are many psychological theories, however they all stem around the beliefs that it is the individual's thoughts and feelings that influence their criminal activities that they are involved in (Lilly, Cullen, & Ball, 2011). As such, these thoughts and feelings are assumed to be a product of three basic ideas and that crime is a result of these ideas, a failure in psychological development, a learned behavior of aggression and violence, and an inherent in personality traits (Akers, 2010). Some people fall into the idea of having a failure in psychological development, meaning that their minds didn’t grow, or develop, in ways that minds normally do. For example, someone can have an underdeveloped conscience where they may do things as they please and don’t think about right or wrong or the …show more content…
Children are more likely to grow and become violent because they have learned these types of behaviors by witnessing the criminal behavior of violent parents. In a situation where a child will grow and see violence as a norm, it is assumed that a child will grow and have signs of criminal causation (Akers, 2010). Sometimes people are predisposed toward criminal behavior and some psychologists believe that people who seek out dangerous and exciting activities may lead them to act recklessly and perhaps act out in criminal ways. This can be caused by a psychological abnormality in which people are chronic thrill seekers and because of that they may break laws to be able to seek out their next thrill, such as jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge, it’s illegal and they will still jump. If we were to compare or contrast these theories, we could assume that some biological criminal behaviors could be associated with psychological criminal behaviors. Meaning that a psychological behavior could be caused by a biological shortcoming and because of that shortcoming we can assume that it could be a cause to someone’s psychological criminal behavior, and could be assumed the other way
...unities (Gregoriou, 2011). Furthermore the understanding of the determinants that influence crime and the social theories surrounding this issue could enable public health experts to discover improved methodologies to improve this public health issue. If we can gain a better understanding of criminals and evaluate current procedures it could be a significant issue to address, in order to reduce the prevalence of crime.
Crime causation began to be a focus of study in the rapidly developing biological and behavioral sciences during the 19th century. Early biological theories proposed that criminal behavior is rooted in biology and based on inherited traits. Cesare Lombroso (1836-1909), an Italian army prison physician, coined the term “atavism” to describe “the nature of the criminal”...
Criminals have been linked to many theories. Some are absurd, to others being logical. As a nation, we only make 5% of the world’s population. Yet, we hold 25% of the world 's population of prisoners. Many can be missing a superego from the psychodynamic psychology. Others just grew up with criminals like differential association. To many not seeing themselves at fault, but try to make the act they did less severe than it actually was, like in neutralization theory.
People are uniquely different and because of this reason, they do have different behaviors. Crime is one kind of behavior that an individual can engage in. They are punishable by the law and may be prosecuted by the state (Helfgott, 2008). There are different theories existing that try to explain the actions of criminals. They deeply explain what causes an individual to commit a criminal activity. This paper discusses some examples of the biological theories, social theories and psychological theories of crime.
The first well known study of crime and criminals is that of one who is often referred to as the ‘father of criminology’, Cesar Lombroso. Lombroso’s argument was based around the Darwinian theory of human evolution and his theory argued that criminals were a throw back to an earlier period of human progression. In other words, they were less evolved humans, with visible physical features such as large ears and big lips. His theory suggested that criminals were born and not made therefore, where genetically prone to criminality. Merton’s argument was to the contrary.
Despite much controversy surrounding the notion of inherited criminal tendencies, there is much evidence to support such theories. Although Lombroso may have employed his theoretic atavisms in an attempt to provide a biologically deterministic method of reducing or preventing crime, they have ultimately lead to an abandonment of gravitas concerning such a notion. However, as myopic as Lombroso's theories of criminality being a hereditary trait appears (Mannheim, 1965) research has shown shared physical characteristics to be commonplace in explicating the argument of genetic criminal behaviour. Although Lombroso presented...
Up until the 19th century, Classicist ideas dominated the way in which people looked at crime. However during the late 19th century a new form of “scientific criminology” emerged, called Positivism (Newburn, 2007). Positivism looked at the biological factors on why someone would commit a crime, this involved looking at the physical attributes of a person, looking at their genetic make-up and their biochemical factors.
Over the years, the theory has evolved into today’s foremost biological crime theory. The theory takes into account genetics and disorders that may be inherited. One example of a disorder that is genetic is antisocial personality disorder. This specific disorder is accompanied by a variety of side effects, some of which may result in psychopathic or sociopathic behavior. Psychopathic and sociopathic behavior specific to this example would be murder. Jeffrey Dahmer, for example, was an individual that participated in seventeen murders over a span of thirteen years. Although Dahmer was not able to plead insanity, he still had a severe mental disorder that may be partly to blame for some of his actions. Biological disorder is often difficult to back up due to the fact that many disorders are also based on nurturing
Trait theory views criminality as a product of abnormal biological or psychological traits. It is based on a mix between biological factors and environmental factors. Certain traits alone cannot determine criminality. We are born with certain traits and these traits along with certain environmental factors can cause criminality (Siegel, 2013). According to (Siegel, 2013), the study of sociobiology sparked interest in biological or genetic makeup as an explanation for crime and delinquency. The thought is that biological or genetic makeup controls human behavior, and if this is true, then it should also be responsible for determining whether a person chooses crime or conventional behavior. This theory is referred to as trait theory (Siegel, 2013). According to Siegel (2013), due to the fact that offenders are different, one cannot pinpoint causality to crime to just a single biological or psychological attribute. Trait theorist looks at personal traits like intelligence, personality, and chemical and genetic makeup; and environmental factors, such as family life, educational attainment, economic factors, and neighborhood conditions (Siegel, 2013). There are the Biosocial Trait theories an...
To begin with, numerous reasons for why a child acts in the manner he exhibits and why he continues to exert such dangerous and even fatal schemes. Recent research shows that factors ranging from inherited personality traits to chemical imbalances and damages suffered in the womb can increase the odds that a child will become violent (Johnson 234). Experts argue that no one is predestined to a life of crime. They believe that influences such as repeated abuse, extreme neglect, poverty, media violence, and easy access to guns play the major role in molding children into criminals. The father of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer wonders, "If potential for evil is in the blood that some of us pass on to our children" (Seifert 23).
There has always been a fascination with trying to determine what causes an individual to become a criminal? Of course a large part of that fascination has to do with the want to reduce crime, and to determine if there is a way to detect and prevent individuals from committing crime. Determining what causes criminality is still not perfectly clear and likewise, there is still debate as to whether crime is caused biologically, environmentally, or socially. Furthermore, the debate is directly correlated to the notion of 'nurture vs nature'. Over time many researchers have presented various theories pertaining to what causes criminal behavior. There are many theories that either support or oppose the concept of crime being biological rather than a learned behavior.
... 86). Hence why I believe that criminal behaviour is influenced by mixture of a persons social background, life chances and pathology
In conclusion it is shown through examinations of a average criminals biological makeup is often antagonized by a unsuitable environment can lead a person to crime. Often a criminal posses biological traits that are fertile soil for criminal behavior. Some peoples bodies react irrationally to a abnormal diet, and some people are born with criminal traits. But this alone does not explain their motivation for criminal behavior. It is the environment in which these people live in that release the potential form criminal behavior and make it a reality. There are many environmental factors that lead to a person committing a crime ranging from haw they were raised, what kind of role models they followed, to having a suitable victims almost asking to be victimized. The best way to solve criminal behavior is to find the source of the problem but this is a very complex issue and the cause of a act of crime cannot be put on one source.
The first theory to be explored is the hereditary theory, which stems from Cesare Lombroso (1876) father of criminology, (Feldman, 1993) whose studies were carried out by morphology. Lombroso tried to show a relationship between criminal behaviour and physical characteristics. Lombrosco suggested that an individual was predisposed to becoming a criminal, as a result of internal or innate characteristics, rather than environmental factors.
After Comte and Darwin developed their theories about the world, they were followed by several criminologists who also believed that science could answer many of the problems that were present in society, particularly in the field of criminology. One of these men was Cesare Lombroso, who was the first to actually focus on criminology as a science (Adler et al 2012). Lombroso believed criminals could be identified because of physical differences between them and non-criminal members of society (Adler et al 2012). In order to recognize these people he created what he called the "atavistic stigmata" which are characteristics exhibited by humans who were less developed (Adler et al 2012:66). Individuals who exhi...