Crime is an issue affecting us directly or indirectly in our everyday lives and we are surrounded by it constantly. Although criminal acts are often disturbing they are hugely fascinating and when such violent crimes occur, we seek answers. Regardless of how severe the crime is, we strive to know what the cause was and why it happened. Unless we have a clear reason it is challenging to put it behind us. The debate regarding criminality being a result of nature or nurture has been a topic of discussion both within criminology and outside of it for decades.
Criminologists brought forward theories attempting to address and explain this paradox, and explanations for crime included psychological, sociological, economical, biological reasons, amongst many others. However the dispute is generally focused around the subject of nature or nurture, and the majority of individuals embrace notions from both sides. Some psychologists argue that our differences in behaviour are the reason why some people are more likely to commit criminal acts, and such differences arise from biological factors, social interactions or personality characteristics.
Biological theories of crime dominated the majority of the 19th and 20th centuries around the time of Lombroso’s (2006) Criminal Man, with a great focus on natural selection and inheritance, ignoring environmental influences. In time, more sociological views became accepted as the biological theories were no longer favoured. Sutherland (1947) argued that differential socialisation was a result of crime, as opposed to heritable, individual factors being the real cause.
Although many studies now understand accept the view that criminal behaviour arises from both nature and nurture, the tension between those who favour one over the other remains, and I will be exploring the issue of criminality as a result of nature of nurture of an offender further within this essay. Berstein et all 1999 – the criminal mind The main question surrounding the debate of nature and nurture is whether there is such thing as a criminal mind. Criminologists and psychologists try to establish if there is a possibility that a person can be determined to be a criminal before even leaving the womb.
Criminal psychology – a book written by a clinical psychologist Doug Bernstein (2007) explores crime as “a developmental process from birth throughout early adulthood” and examines how different aspects play a role in the development of criminal behaviour. It takes into account how there is a correlation between crime and genetic, biological, developmental and social factors, as well as exploring victim characteristics and behaviours, with a huge focus between crime and the brain.
In the movie Frankenstein (1931) an assistant was ordered to steal a “normal brain” in order to create a new creature, however he accidentally drops it and picks up a new one, which happens to belong to a violent criminal resulting in the creation of a monster. With nature being a possible result of crime Bernstein (2007) explores brain imaging research and the ways in which psychopaths’ brains differ from “normal” brains.
As we know, the brain and spinal cord are both part of the central nervous system, the other major one is the peripheral nervous system which includes the somatic nervous system and the autonomic nervous system which affects physical, emotional and motivational reactions. There is a sympathetic nervous system which prepares body for situations where it might need to flee a threat and it’s job is to increase stimulation, arousal and increase blood pressure. These systems work in the way that they let the brain know exactly what is happening and therefore send instructions from the brain that allow the muscles and orgasms to respond.
When it comes to the brain a part called the hypothalamus controls our motivated behaviour such as sex drive or hunger, it also plays a part in maintaining a connection with the autonomic nervous system in order to receive information about the function of our internal organs which helps to improve their regulation. However its most important job is to assess levels of hormones in our body and to send that information further to the pituitary gland which then directs the function of the other glands in the endocrine system which is involved in the regulation of our responses.
Many genes could affect the human brain functioning which can result in either reducing or increasing the chances of people learning certain behaviour patterns. It could be argued that criminals lack control over their actions and can often make impulsive decisions which others could resist, this could be because we are simply too afraid to commit the crime as we are aware of the consequences that will follow through, it could be our morals and social values, for example being caught after committing a crime may lead to damaging our social bonds, losing jobs etc.
Possibly every individual could possess criminal tendencies, but only some are able to control them. According to Eysenck (1985) it comes from the process of socialisation, usually primary socialisation, which is learnt at home throughout our childhood years. Social influences can lead to criminality in the sense that one’s upbringing and life experiences lead to such behaviour and what might appear like a rational decision to one person might be the complete opposite to another.
Warr (2002) suggested that young adults particularly are influenced by their peers, desperately trying to fit in could mean that they will be willing to commit a crime if it means getting the approval of their peers. Furthermore, there are endless studies supporting the idea that if an individual comes from a more unfortunate, poor background, they are far more likely to engage in criminal acts. In addition there is a matter of whether heredity could possibly lead to criminality and anti-social behaviour.
If a child comes from a household where they have been raised around aggression and violence, the probability that they will struggle to express emotions or become impulsive is quite high. Addiction has also been subject to discussion and has been identified as hereditary as it is a biological as well genetic trait which could be passed on, making it possible for a child to be born with an addiction as well as the fact that they are exposed to such substances throughout their life it may affect how easily addicted they find themselves later.
Mental health and biological factors are strongly related when it comes to early childhood development, Silva (2004) has found a link between autism and homicidal behaviour. Furthermore, Tehrani (2002) studied the correlation between mental health and violence, and argued that parents who have either gone through experiencing a psychiatric hospitalisation or committed violent crimes which increase the risk of their children offending also.
His argument was that perhaps that is due to mentally ill. arents actually transmitting such biological characteristic which lead their child to lean towards criminal violence. Following from that study, an experiment was carried out to see whether there is a true correlation between mental health and crime being related, and most importantly whether mentally retarded parents can in fact pass that onto their offspring. Heston (1966) had a sample of 47 schizophrenic mothers and their children who were separated at birth and the babies were put into foster care.
His original aim was to find out if these babies would be schizophrenic despite instant separation from their mothers, and it was found that five of the 47 babies were in fact diagnosed with schizophrenia, with this in mind, he later found out that eleven of them were imprisoned for criminal offences later on in their lives. Regardless of the separation having a biological parent who is schizophrenic meant an increased risk in criminal or violent behaviour in the child.
This suggested that perhaps there is a genetic link between crime and mental health which supports the idea of heredity. Similarly, personality disorders and traits are often linked in as an essential element in diagnosing individuals with criminal or anti-social behaviour. When it comes to personality disorders the “symptoms” first appear in children, although according to Holmes et al (2001) some of the more prominent disorders do appear to have a relationship with adult behaviour later in life.
For instance, Oppositional Defiance Disorder (ODD) which is one of the disorders shown to have a relationship with adult behaviour is made up of characteristics such as irritability, argumentativeness and noncompliance, and once a child grows older, these characteristics remain with them and often turn their behaviour for even worse as they begin to engage in vandalism, stealing, aggression etc. Holmes at al. , 2001). With that in mind, some children actually develop other disorders, a frequent pair is ODD developing into conduct disorder, as established by Morley & Hall (2003) Moreover there are additional studies based on families, twins and adoptions which support the idea that there is a genetic component linked to criminality as discussed by Tehrani (2002).
Studies regarding families proved to have a strong connection between parent and their offspring and criminal behaviour, particularly Robin’s (1966) study on family, which established that one of the best ways to predict whether a boy partake in anti-social behaviour was looking at the criminal records of their fathers, although this is not the best way to provide evidence for genetic influence as these boys were brought up by criminal fathers. Likewise twin studies support the idea that criminal behaviour may be heritable.
The idea is that you compare the behaviour of two genetically identical twins with a pair of twins which are not to get a clear image of the role that genetics play. A study carried out by Christiansen (1977) where he used an unselected sample of 3586 Danish twins, it was found that 52% of genetically identical twins were consistent for their criminal behaviour, whereas in comparison, only 22% of the other twins were consistent. As the number of monozygotic twins is significantly higher it strongly suggests that these twins inherit biological characteristics to some extent which increase their likeliness to commit crime.
