Biological Explanations

Atavistic form

Atavistic form is a historical approach used to explain criminal behaviour, which is based on biological factors. This explanation was proposed by Lombroso in the 1870’s and suggests that some people are born with a criminal personality due to lacking evolutionary development. He believed that certain individuals were savage and untamed in nature, and therefore would find it impossible to adjust to a civilised society. The animalistic nature of particular individuals would therefore make them more susceptible to crime. Lombroso kind of portrayed criminals as out of control cave men/women, that haven’t engaged or adapted to a modern civilised society.

Lombroso believed that criminals could be identified by particular physical characteristics. This was based on research that examined the features and measurements of nearly 4,000 criminals, as well as the skulls of 400 dead criminals. He found that 40% of the criminal acts could be accounted for by the atavistic characteristics that he had identified.

He even categorised particular facial features with specific crimes e.g. murderers had blood shot eyes, curly hair and long ears; sexual deviants had glinting eyes, fleshy lips and projecting ears; people who had committed fraud were described as having thin lips.

However, after insulting many individuals by singling them out with ‘ugly’ features, he then sympathised with offenders as he believed that individuals were not responsible for their actions, as they could not be blamed for their innate, inherited physiology – therefore, they lacked freewill.

Lombroso’s criminal characteristics:

• large jaw, forward projection of jaw
• low sloping foreheads
• High cheekbones
• curly hair
• flattened or upturned nose
• handle-shaped ears
• dark skin
• large chins, very prominent in appearance
• hawk-like noses or fleshy lips
• hard shifty eyes
• scanty beard or baldness
• insensitivity to pain
• long arms

Memory Strategies – Thank you to Issy & Leo

SHREK

• Slopping brow
• High cheek bones
• Really large jaw
• Ears are shaped like handle bars
• Killer blood shot eyes

JAIL

• Jaw is large
• Arms are long
• Insensitivity to pain
• Low sloping brow

Strengths:

• Scientific/Objective: Lombroso’s research gave scientific credibility to criminology for the first time. The idea that criminals could be studied and identified in order to create links and patterns, was a unique and insightful perspective. His list of characteristics enabled a fairly objective measure. It was the starting point in offender profiling.
• Research to support: Lombroso’s work appears to be backed up to some extent as research by Goring (1913) found lower rates of intelligence in convicts- suggesting they might be less evolved. Therefore, the theory may have some credibility. However, this does not connect to the visual features of the theory.
• Lack of Freewill: Lombroso’s theory challenged the idea that criminals are just evil or that they chose to commit crime – it highlighted a lack of freewill, which was not reflected in the current system of law which was they criminals chose to commit crimes and therefore should be punished.
• Usefulness: Lombroso was an early influence on the idea of offender profiling. This helped to put forward the idea that criminals could be identified through certain characteristics, intelligence being a key part of disorganised and organised criminals with the top-down profiling.

Weaknesses:

• Scientific issues: Lombroso’s did not use a control group in his research; therefore, although he found physical trends amongst his substantial group of offenders, he was not comparing them to a group of ‘normal’ controls. Therefore, it may be more likely that these physical features are coincidental and can be found amongst any people group of that size. Goring (1913) attempted to replicate Lombroso’s findings by comparing a large group of offenders with a control group of non-criminals and found no significant differences in facial and cranial characteristics between the two groups.
• Reductionist: the view that certain characteristics lead to crime is an extremely simplistic explanations. As a consequence it doesn’t take in to account individual differences such as facial disfigurement, and therefore is not a full explanation of criminal behaviour.
• Application: Not all criminals may have atavistic features, only 40% of criminals Lombroso looked at had atavistic features. There may be people who have atavistic features that aren’t criminal.
• Social sensitivity: People with atavistic features will be labelled and could suffer from a self-fulfilling prophecy, there could also be an issue of racism as many of the atavistic features defined are in with the those of African descent.
• Deterministic: the theory assumes people who are criminal can’t escape their destiny of being a criminal, this is unhelpful to society, as it takes the perspective that criminals can’t be helped of prevented.
• Nature/Nurture: it is impossible to separate nature from nurture, therefore, any theory that only considers biology (nature) will not be a full explanation. Lombroso’s theory does not consider nurture influences such as upbringing, poverty, educational opportunities.

Alternative perspective:

• Nature/Nurture: An alternative way of looking at Lombroso’s findings is to consider the interaction of genetics and the environment, in that people with features described as atavistic, may be more likely to lean towards criminal behaviour due to the way that they are treated. offending behaviour.

Genetic Explanations of Offending

Genetic explanations for crime suggest that offenders inherit a gene or a combination of genes that predispose them to commit crime.

Brunner (1993) – The warrior gene 

A case study on a Dutch family was carried out to investigate biological explanations of crime. Within the large study, 5 males were affected by borderline mental retardation and abnormal violent behaviour. The males exhibited criminal behaviours such as arson, rape and exhibitionism. Numerous urine samples were taken and analysed from the sample over a period of 24 hours.

From these samples, a mutation in the X chromosome was identified, which explained why no females were affected as the XX genetic make-up counteracted the mutation.

Brunner found that this mutation of the X chromosome appeared to have an effect on the MAOA. A mutation of the gene can lead to a reduced rate of MAOA. MAOA is an enzyme that breaks down neurotransmitters, such as serotonin, and dopamine. When these neurotransmitters are not broken down in the body, excess neurotransmitters interfere with communication among neurons, leading to abnormally aggressive and antisocial behaviour.

However, it is important to point out that not all males in the family were affected by violent behaviour, even when they suffered with mental retardation. In addition, this is an extremely rare condition and even if it were responsible for the criminal behaviour, it would be very difficult to generalise the findings.

Dabbs: To investigate the link between sex and crime

Two groups were created – male prisoners who had committed violent crimes and male criminals who had committed non-violent crimes. Saliva swabs were taken in order to measure testosterone levels. The researchers found that inmates who committed crimes of sex and violence had higher testosterone levels than inmates that were jailed for property crimes or drug abuse. In addition, they found that inmates with higher testosterone levels were more involved in open confrontation whilst in prison. Dabbs et al. say that high testosterone is associated with a lack of control over emotions, as well as aggression and violence. The higher testosterone suggests that males are more likely to commit crimes more than females due to that fact that males have higher levels of testosterone compared to females.

Neural Explanations of Offending

The following areas of the brain form an integral part of research by Raine. In this research Raine used PET scans to investigate the differences in neural activity in the brains of 41 ‘murderers’ (who were judged as Not Guilty for Reasons of Insanity (NGRI) this is due to having mental health disorders which ranged from Schizophrenia to brain damage or disease) with 41 controls non-murders.

Results:

• Murderers had reduced activity in the Prefrontal cortex compared to controls – Linked to loss of self-control and altered emotion – violence.
• Murderers showed reduced activity in the limbic system – amygdala, thalamus and hippocampus. This part of the brain has been associated with aggression and memory, it could imply that less activity in this area increases aggressive behaviour, and they may not have a good enough memory to learn from their mistakes.

General brain areas linked to crime:

People with reduced grey matter in the amygdala and therefore less neural activity have been found to be more psychopathic, in the sense that they lack empathy and are very calculated.

The pre-frontal-cortex is associated with emotional processing and control. People with damage to this part of the brain have less self-control, can be more aggressive, and they may find it difficult to deal with their emotions. This could lead an individual to lash out.

The limbic system AKA the emotional nervous system is made up of the amygdala, hippocampus and thalamus. Damage to this area has been linked to aggression, problems with memory, learning and attention. This could be why criminals fail to learn from their mistakes i.e. there is a very high reoffending rate for those who have been to prison, which would support this theory.

PET (Positron Emission Tomography) Patients are injected with a slightly radioactive glucose i.e. sugar. The most active brain tissue uses the glucose so it attracts the radioactive substance. The scan is usually presented as a coloured image where hot colours such as read and orange represent lots of brain activity whereas cold colours such as blue and green represent less brain activity. Therefore, this brain scan is more appropriate when you are trying to investigate the brain activity of certain areas of the brain. 

Strengths:

• Scientific/Objective: Research into this area tends to use scientific objective measures such as brain scans, blood and urine tests. These tests reduce the effects of bias and human error. This could arguably increase the validity of the data, and therefore the support for the theory is stronger and more credible.
• Validity: Raine has conducted several pieces of research which highlight differences in neural activity of criminals compared to non-criminals. This helps to support the credibility of this theory, as cause and effect was able to be established through the use of control groups.
• Usefulness: Neural activity is possible to change. Research by Maguire has supported the idea of brain/neural plasticity, potentially criminals could carry out activities to encourage the use of the pre-frontal cortex in order to increases neural activity. Alternatively, the use of drugs e.g. to balance certain serotonin and dopamine, or hormone treatments to reduce levels of testosterone.
• Lack of Freewill: genetic theories challenge the idea that criminals are just evil or that they chose to commit crime – it highlighted a lack of freewill, which was not reflected in the current system of law which was they criminals chose to commit crimes and therefore should be punished.

Weaknesses:

• Social Sensitivity and Biological Determinism: Our legal system is based on the belief that criminals should accept the responsibility for their actions by paying the price for their crimes. However, if genes and neural activity determine crime, this is suggesting that the offender does not have freewill, and therefore is not responsible. However, if genetics or mental illness eliminates the individuals capacity of freewill, can they really be punished? This issue raises huge ethical and socially sensitive issues and could have controversial effects on sentencing.
• Reductionist: the view that neural or genetic influences lead to crime is an extremely simplistic explanation. Research has shown that there are many factors involved in criminal behaviour, by narrowing it down to a inactive or overactive parts of the brain or hormones, over simplifies the complexity of why some people offend and others do not.
• Deterministic: the theory assumes people who are criminal can’t escape their destiny of being a criminal, this is unhelpful to society, as it takes the perspective that criminals can’t be helped of prevented.
• Nature/Nurture: It is impossible to separate nature from nurture, therefore, any theory that only considers biology (nature) will not be a full explanation. The Diathesis stress model may be a better explanation for offending

I’ve included the different types of brain scans as students tend to be interested in the difference between them. 

MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) Most of the human body is made up of water molecules, which consist of hydrogen and oxygen atoms. At the centre of each hydrogen atom is an even smaller particle called a proton. Protons are like tiny magnets and are very sensitive to magnetic fields.

When you lie under the powerful scanner magnets, the protons in your body line up in the same direction, in the same way that a magnet can pull the needle of a compass.

Short bursts of radio waves are then sent to certain areas of the body, knocking the protons out of alignment. When the radio waves are turned off, the protons realign. This sends out radio signals, which are picked up by receivers. These signals provide information about the exact location of the protons in the body.

They also help to distinguish between the various types of tissue in the body, because the protons in different types of tissue realign at different speeds and produce distinct signals. In the same way that millions of pixels on a computer screen can create complex pictures, the signals from the millions of protons in the body are combined to create a detailed image of the inside of the body.

This scan is more appropriate in highlighting tumors, or when you are trying to see the size or amount of grey matter in parts of the brain. 

fMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) uses the same technology as an MRI, but instead of creating images of organs and tissues like MRI, an fMRI looks at blood oxygen levels in the brain to detect areas of neural activity. When a brain area has more neural activity it consumes more oxygen and to meet this increased demand blood flow increases to the active area. fMRI can be used to produce activation maps showing which parts of the brain are involved in a particular mental process.

During an fMRI scan the patient could be asked to perform a specific task to increase oxygen-rich blood flow to a certain part of the brain. Such as tap their thumb against their fingers, look at pictures, answer questions on a screen, think about actions based off a picture (ex: they see a picture of a book and think about actions like read a book, write a book, buy a book), etc. For the tasks where the patient is asked a question, most of the time the patient is told to just think about the answer, that way the speech part of the brain is not activated as well.

The primary reason for an fMRI scan is to help map a patient’s brain before they go into brain surgery. Creating this map will help doctors better understand the regions of the brain linked to critical functions such as speaking, walking, sensing, or planning. The brain activity is mapped in squares called voxels, which represent thousands of neurons. Colour is then added to the image to create a map of the brain, so that it is easy to see what parts of the brain were active during certain tasks.