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The relevance of biological theory in understanding crime or criminal behaviour
Strength and weaknesses of biological theory of crime
The relevance of biological theory in understanding crime or criminal behaviour
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The criminal justice policy has many different sides. This include the different theories of crime and how they have an impact the criminal justice system. Some of this theories are the Biological studies, Psychological theories, and last the Sociological theory all are used as different methods of explaining why crime exists.
Biological theories are the biological explanations of crime. A famous theorists Cesare Lombroso, founder of the Italian school of Positivist Criminology. His biological explanation of crime, was that criminal behavior were genetic and that individuals who take part in crime, can be recognized by physical abnormalities or defects. One example is that murders have cold, glassy blood shot eyes, long hair and thin lips. He
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William Sheldon theory of crime took on a different approach; he associates certain body types with certain behaviors. In his theory, he believed behavior to be inherited. One of Sheldon theory was that there is an association between personality and body type. Below are three basic body types according to Sheldon ▪ Endomorphs-which are heavy, obese; soft, round shaped ▪ Mesomorph- rectangular build, muscular, hard and heavy ▪ Ectomorphs-linear, flat, thin, fragile, and delicate. Another biological explanation of crime relates to certain brain dysfunctions (Sammons, 2015). This can be seen in children and adults who suffer from ADHD, and other hyperactivity disorders. According to an article written by Dr. Goldstein, “The severity of ADHD symptoms in adolescence and adult- hood apparently coincides with an increase of problems related to aggression and conduct. Thus, the worse an individual 's ADHD symptoms get, the more likely the individual might progress to criminal behavior”(Goldstein, 2005). Generally, everyone has their own theory and
Biology, genetics, and evolution theory: Is when your body and your way of thinking affects your behavior negatively and force you to commit a crime Being mentally ill or even a poor diet can be the explanation to why someone commits a crime. It’s one of the key theories because it separates the criminals from the mental ill individuals. It also allows us to help the people with the biological defect.
1. There are a couple of differences and similarities between the classical and biological theories of criminology. The biological theories of crime support the idea that an individual commits a crime due to their biological make-up and had criminal tendencies because of certain abnormalities that an individual may have had and not because the offender in their right mind chose to commit the crime. The classical theory has the belief that every individual has their own right in the way in which they act upon, so they commit a crime because they choose to do so, not because it is in their biological make-up.
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”...
The biological approach does not explain all people, what about the people with these characteristics that do not resort to crime, or what about other people who commit crimes who do not possess any of these characteristics. I believe like many criminologists Lombroso was looking for a solution to solve criminal behavior and came up with the theory of physical traits linked to criminal behaviors based on some similarities with no real way to test the theory. I think there are many different reasons why people commit crime, such as opportunity, mental illness, family influence, low economic standing and drug dependence. Theories based on these characteristics in my opinion better describe why people resort to criminal behavior over having certain physical
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.
The most vivid example of the biological determinism is the theory of Cesare Lombroso. Lombroso based his theory on the assumption that criminals have certain physiognomic features or abnormalities. Lombroso wanted to be able to detect future criminals in order to isolate them from the society. This gave criminology a strong push to create new methods of dealing with criminals and prevent crimes. Lombroso implied that prisoners had common facial characteristics. If to exaggerate criminals in Lombroso’s theory can be identified through the shape of their skulls, asymmetry of the face and head, large cheekbones, ears and lips, long arms and a twisted nose. Lombroso’s theory is the oldest one and it can without a doubt be called the main background data for the whole process of the development of criminology. Lombroso stated that men are more inclined to commit crimes due to the conservatism and the narrow-mindedness of their interests. According to Lombroso women have less social contacts and this is what predetermines their conservatism. Thi...
Winslow, R. W., & Zhang, S. (2008). Contemporary Theories of Crime. Criminology: a global perspective (). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson/Prentice Hall.
It also includes the factors of social environment. It recognizes more factors of influence, building on trait theory. Arousal theory provides that individuals have different levels of arousal affected by the nervous system, chemistry in the brain, and heart rhythm. The basic idea of this theory is that certain actions, including the act of committing a crime, causes a “thrill” to some. They seek out the thrill and stimulation provided by these actions. Thus, a feeling that is positive, created by an action, will cause someone to seek out that feeling. Genetic theory is another trait theory. Genetics being the sole influence that might make a person behave in a certain way is the explanation of this theory. A certain genetic configuration causes personality traits, and determines behaviors the individual will be likely to have. Attachment theory uses psychology to suggest that criminal behavior is linked with a lack of a personal relationship or attachment as an infant. This lack of positive attachment to a motherly figure leads to psychological problems, such as antisocial behavior. Nature theory is that criminal activity is based on IQ, whereas a low IQ means more of a possibility of criminal behavior. Social structure theory provides that social and economic events and
Cesare Lombroso, medical criminologist, headed the school. Enrico Ferri and Raffaele Garafolo were Lombroso’s disciples, both of whom also headed, as well as had their own opinions on the biological crime theory. Lombroso argued that “criminality was a biological trait found in some human beings” (Boundless, 2015, 1). Today, the biological theory emphasizes the relationship between genetics and crime. The biological theory of crime has evolved over the years in the sense that, initially, the theory was primarily based on physical features. In contrast, it is now primarily based on genetics. As technology has also evolved as well as our knowledge on genetics, this only makes sense (Boundless,
Lombroso's main idea was partly inspired by the evolutionary and genetical studies at the end of the nineteenth century, and proposed that certain criminals had physical evidence of an "atavistic" (reappearance of characteristics which were present only in distant ascendants) or hereditary sort, reminiscent of earlier, more primitive stages of human evolution. These anomalies, named as stigmata by Lombroso, could be expressed in terms of abnormal forms or dimensions of the skull and jaw, assymmetries in the face, etc, but also of other parts of the body. These associations were later shown to be highly inconsistent or plainly inexistent, and theories based on the environmental causation of criminality became dominant.
There are many different aspects of criminal justice policy. One in particular is the different theories of crime and how they affect the criminal justice system. The Classical School of criminology is a theory about evolving from a capital punishment type of view to more humane ways of punishing people. Positivist criminology is maintaining the control of human behavior and criminal behavior. They did this through three different categories of Biological studies, which are five methodologies of crime that were mainly focused on biological theories, Psychological theories, which contains four separate theories, and the Sociological theories, which also includes four different methods of explaining why crime exists. The last theory is about Critical criminology. Their goal was to transform society in a way that would liberate and empower subordinate groups of individuals.
Theories that are based on biological Factors and criminal behavior have always been slightly ludicrous to me. Biological theories place an excessive emphasis on the idea that individuals are “born badly” with little regard to the many other factors that play a part in this behavior. Criminal behavior may be learned throughout one’s life, but there is not sufficient evidence that proves crime is an inherited trait. In the Born to Be Bad article, Lanier describes the early belief of biological theories as distinctive predispositions that under particular conditions will cause an individual to commit criminal acts. (Lanier, p. 92) Biological criminologists are expected to study the “criminal” rather than the act itself. This goes as far as studying physical features, such as body type, eyes, and the shape or size of one’s head. “Since criminals were less developed, Lombroso felt they could be identified by physical stigmata, or visible physical abnormalities…characteristics as asymmetry of the face; supernumerary nipples, toes, or fingers; enormous jaws; handle-shaped or sensible ears; insensibility to pain; acute sight; and so on.” (Lanier. P. 94). It baffles me that physical features were ever considered a reliable explanation to criminal behavior. To compare one’s features to criminal behavior is not only stereotypical, but also highly unreliable.
If one were to look up the definition of the word theory, they might find a meaning that pertains to words such as philosophy or a hypothesis. Theories exist in all aspects of life in order to give us explanations of why a certain phenomenon exists. This is extremely evident in the area of criminal justice. One phenomenon I am interested in is the human element during the juvenile years. Throughout I will examine why at an early age some juveniles choose one option that leads to a life of no crime and others choose an option that leads to criminal activity at an early age and then eventually as an adult. Throughout I will bring to the attention some theories of this varied behavior that have been discussed over the years and explain why I agree or disagree with such theories.
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.
Criminology is the scientific study of why people commit crime and why they act the way they do. The origins of criminology are usually placed in the eighteenth to the mid- nineteenth century. This was also a point of scientific discoveries and the creation of the new scholarly field of studies. One of these was criminology. Criminology was an act against the wild system of law, punishment, and justice that existed before the French revolution. (Adler, Mueller, Laufer & Grekul, 2012). There are many criminology theories that explain why an individual commit a crime. Anomie/stain theory and labelling theory are two important theories in criminology. There are two different kinds of theories, psychological theories and biological theories. Both of those theories share the assumption that such behaviour is caused by some underlying physical or mental condition that separates the criminal from the non-criminal. They seek to identify the kind of person who becomes a criminal and to find the factors that caused the person to engage in criminal behavior. (Adler et al.,).