CHAPTER 5

LECTURE NOTES

Chapter five involves the study of the trait theories on crime that suggest that criminals have physical (biological) or mental (psychological) traits that make them abnormal and different. The first part of the chapter discusses the biological approaches followed in the second part by the psychological approaches. We had already reviewed the history of the early biological approaches which tended to seek differences in exterior physical features that defined people as criminals such as Cesare Lombroso's theory of Criminal Atavism and Gall's theory of Phrenology. As late as the 1940's William Sheldon found three distinct body types that predicted behaviors. As our text indicated though, biological theories fell out of favor with criminologists because first, these early theorists used flawed research designs. Second, the biological approaches became associated with the Eugenic movement which was in itself tainted by the association with Nazi Germany. Further, as mentioned in a previous lecture, the sociologists from the Chicago School of Sociology conducted a number of studies and wrote numerous articles on the relationship between the social environment and crime. They were very influential and criminology soon became a sub-field of sociology. Criminologists, therefore, have been educated in the sociological tradition and most criminologists today have a sociological perspective on crime.

I think it is important for students to understand the story behind the scenes and some of the forces at work that shape what Americans hear. Therefore, I will provide some background on the sociological/biological warfare that has been going on for some time.

Sociological criminologists have strongly resisted the incorporation of biological and genetic factors into their understanding of criminal behavior. Their stance is probably ideologically based since those who hold a more liberal political viewpoint tend to favor social structural theories whereas those who favor individual-level explanations have a more conservative political outlook. Beginning in the early 1970's there has been an explosion of new research linking biology, genetics and criminal behavior but many criminologists and sociologists have systematically attacked the findings even in the face of what would appear to be overwhelming scientific evidence in support. They have even gone as far as to arrange for the disruption of conferences where crime and biology were to be discussed. They further continue to feed the media with the same anti-biological arguments year after year and I think that it has forced the more timid to avoid talking and writing about crime and biology much less lending support through coverage in textbooks. Our text does provide more coverage than most. I taught a juvenile justice course recently in which the writer of the text absolutely ignored all the new research and made the statement that biological criminologists "believe that there are such things as criminal genes and that many scientists "doubt the existence of the so-called crime gene." The implication is that biocriminologists are wacky. Modern biological scientists have never claimed a crime gene. As you have read in the opening pages of chapter 5, they believe that a combination of genetic factors interact with the social and the physical environment to produce behavior, hence they are referred to as biosocial criminologists. This is a good example of the distortions that have persisted with biological explanations. Part of the problem is that these sociologists believe that humans start out life as a blank slate and that personality development and human behaviors are the result of the exposure to the social environment only.

Another argument posits that if it is true that humans are hardwired at the beginning of their life, they are pre-destined and nothing can change their behavior. Again, this is false because it is known that the environment can and does impact behavior. For example, one may be born with a genetic predisposition to alcoholism but through environmental intervention can be taught to avoid alcohol consumption or if addicted, how to overcome the addiction.

Fortunately, your text takes a non-committal approach and presents both the pros and cons as it has with the many other theories we have studied to date. If so inclined I have provided a list at the end of this lecture of books that present the biosocial perspective.

Biosocial Criminology, Introduction and Integration, Anthony Walsh , (Anderson Publishing ,2002)

Are we Hardwired? The Role of Genes in Human Behavior, Clark and Grunstein, (Oxford Press, 2000)

Born that Way, Genes, Behavior, Personality, William Wright, (Routledge, 1998)

Stranger in the Nest, David Cohen (John Wiley and Sons, 1999)

 

BIOSOCIAL TRAIT THEORIES -INTRODUCTION:

There are essentially three principles of biosocial trait theories according to our text and they are:

 Not everyone is born with the same potential to learn and achieve (equipotentiality). All of us start out in life with a different genetic configuration. No two people are alike.  For example, some people will be born with a pre-disposition for impulsive behavior that can be controlled by the interactions of the social and physical environment.

 Genetic make-up contributes significantly to human behavior

 The combination of the environment and human genetic traits produces individual behavior patterns.

  The social and physical environments interact to either limit or enhance a persons capacity to learn

  Some learning is influence by instinctual drives

 

For purposes of our study, I am going to focus only on biochemical and neurophysiological factors that effect behavior and also genetics since these areas are getting most of the research attention in recent years and some new information is not available in the book.

Biochemical Factors:

Biochemical conditions that are either acquired through genetics, through diet and/or the environment can have significant influence on behavior. These biochemical conditions include nutrition and diet, hypoglycemia, vitamins, allergies, hormones and environmental contaminants. The two areas receiving the most attention today are hormones and neurotransmitters.

Hormones:

Higher than normal testosterone levels in males has been shown to be related to aggressive, violent behavior. The thinking is that testosterone increases the dominant seeking behaviors and also increases the need for environmental stimulation. The violent crime rate for males peeks at about age 18 at the same time that testosterone is peeking. The problem is that high testosterone does not guarantee violence. As with other biological factors, there is a complex interaction taking place that is not yet understood.

Neurotransmitters:

An important area of research involves the study of neurotransmitters in the brain. Neurotransmitters are chemical compounds that influence or activate the various brain functions. When we experience something in our environment, our chemical system in our brain will cause some kind of response. For example, when we taste a certain food, we may find it pleasurable because the brain has released certain chemicals when we first tasted it to say that it was good. These chemicals are the way in which nerve cells communicate with each other and with other cells in our bodies. One of the key neurotransmitters in aggression research today is serotonin. Lower levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin in the brain, has been associated with increased anger and depression in males. Behaviors associated with lower levels of serotonin include physical aggression and suicide. Dopamine is another neurotransmitter that appears to be related to drug addictions. An important question is whether neurotransmitters and testosterone levels are inherited or the result of some environmental factor.

Genetics:

There are at least three research methods to understand the influence of genetics on behavior as noted in the book. One researcher is Thomas Bouchard from the University of Minnesota who has studied the differences between twins reared apart and those reared together. The twins in the study were separated at birth so they were raised in totally different environments. This allows the researchers to look at similarities in personalities and behaviors between them and also compare them to twins reared together. If genetics is a powerful influence we should see similarities in behaviors between those reared apart and the research bears this out. In fact, based on these studies, genetics does appear to play a very strong role in personality development and certain behaviors. They have found for instance that IQ is highly influenced by genetics. Also, most personality characteristics including temperament, impulsivity, ADHD are in part determined by ones genes. However, it should be noted that these researchers point out that the social environment plays a very important role as well. How much of our behavior is influenced by genes. No one knows for certain, but educated guesses place it at about 50%.

In summary, it does appear, based on recent genetic research that humans are all wired differently at birth with different potentialities for various behaviors. However, the social environment, after birth then significantly impacts behavior. For example, an individual may be born with an impulsive personality but his parents provide him with a very stable and nurturing environment that allows him to manage his impulsive behavior and excel in other areas. That same person may be raised by parents who are also have impulsive personalities (and they passed on the impulsive gene to the child) and fail to provide that child with a stable nurturing environment and fail to teach him how to how to control his impulsiveness. In the second scenario, the child is much more likely to get involved in criminal behavior than the first.

 

PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS-INTRODUCTION

Psychology is a science that developed in the late 19^th century. It focuses on human mental processes and behavior. Modern psychologists have attempted to link a disturbed personality structure to anti social behaviors. Criminal behavior they would say is a result of mental and emotional disturbances. There are three psychological approaches on criminal behavior and include psychodynamic, behavioral and cognitive. We will also explore mental illness and crime and the relationship between IQ and crime.

Psychodynamic

Psychodynamic theories assume that all behavior is a result of subconscious drives. The most important contributor to this perspective was Sigmund Freud. Freud believe that the human personality was composed of three components:

 Id

The id is composed of the unconscious, unrestrained, primitive, pleasure-seeking, instinctual drives that every child is born with. The drive for food, sex and love are examples. The Id does not concern itself with the feelings of others as it meets its need. Freud did not discuss this but what he is saying is that these drives are derived from genes. If it weren't for the next two components that control the id, we would all be in trouble!

 

 Ego

The ego is the rational thinking component that is developed through the socialization process. Parents are the primary group responsible for the creation and development of the ego and the superego as well. This is where society rules are internalized. The ego learns what is appropriate and what isn't and the punishments associated with bad behavior. For example, the id may want to satisfy a sexual desire but the ego reminds him that there are rules regarding such behavior.

 Superego

The superego as with the ego develops in the socialization process and represents the conscious. Societies values and morals are internalized here.

All three of these components are working together with the ego moderating between the effects of an overly active id and an over developed super ego. Criminal behavior can be explained in several ways but the most significant would be that the person whose is id dominated is more likely to be involved in criminal behavior.

Psychodynamic theory says that in order to change a person's abnormal behavior the therapist must delve into the subconscious to seek solutions. This is a very tedious and long-term process with questionable validity. This type of therapy was tried in prison populations in the 1930's and 1940's with little success.

Behavioral Theory

Behavioral theory originated in the 19^th century but was popularized in the 1940's and became the most dominant method utilized to change behavior in the1940's. After realizing that human behavior could not be controlled exclusively by its methods, it lost some of its popularity by the 1960's. Social learning theories were derived from behaviorism.

Premise: All behavior is learned through various methods including modeling and operant conditioning.

Criminal behavior can be learned through life experiences. There is no room for biology in this theory. If the individual commits crime and receives positive reinforcement through benefits derived from the crime as well as support from a delinquent peer group he is more likely to engage in that behavior. However, if he received negative reinforcement he less likely to continue to commit crime. For instance, if he is arrested and punished, that is negative reinforcement. Further family and friends may shun him further providing negative reinforcement. In that case, he is more likely to desist. It is much more complicated than that but this does illustrate how it works.

Behavior modification is a type of therapy based on behaviorism and is used extensively in institutional settings. Level systems are a type of behavior modification program that attempts to coerce appropriate behavior by allowing the participant the opportunity to move up in levels with consequential increases in benefits through good behavior. In contrast, inappropriate behavior will result in a decrease in level and a corresponding decrease in benefits. Behavior modification combined with cognitive therapy is probably the most powerful method we have today in managing human behavior.

 

Cognitive Theory

Premise: The way people think; the way people perceive the world mentally and the way they solve their problems can be associated with criminal behavior. The text has chosen two examples of cognitive theory including Moral Development Theory and information processing.

Moral Development Theory (Lawrence Kohlberg)

According to this theory, people travel through several different stages of moral development. Kohlberg has identified six stages. A person's judgment will be affected by the stage in which the are in at the time. Everyone starts out life in stage one but as the mature they will start progressively moving through the stages. However, some people never get past stage one or stage two and it is theorized this includes chronic offenders. Review the six stages on page 169.

Information processing:

People make decisions by utilizing the steps as noted below.

 encode the data

 interpret the data

 make a decision to act

 action is taken

Some theorists believe that criminals make mistakes in their interpretation of data which in turn causes the criminal act. Sometimes these misinterpretations are referred to as "thinking errors." Cognitive therapists believe that by restructuring they way people think about things, can change behavior. For instance sexual offenders often think that the children they abuse are as much responsible as they are.

 

Crime and Mental Illness

Recent studies have estimated that about 15% of the jail population in the U.S. have a mental illness of some kind. Many of these jail inmates are schizophrenic. The problem we have in Texas is that this population often goes without mental health services. At some point they probably had been diagnosed, maybe even hospitalized and prescribed medication that may have at least allowed them to function in the community. However, most schizophrenics will stop taking their medications and sooner or later will get the attention of the police because of their behaviors. The Bexar County jail has a special group of cells for the mentally ill and it is usually filled up. Texas is near the bottom of the list of states in per capita spending on mental illness.

Personality Traits

Psychopath and sociopath are names commonly used to describe offenders who engage in anti social behaviors that are often bizarre such as Jeffery Dahmer or just plain evil as with Ted Bundy. Technically, no one will receive either of these labels by psychologists and psychiatrists today. The manual they use (American Psychiatric Association Diagnostic and Statistical Manual IV) does not include them. Instead, since 1980, such offenders would have been classified as having anti social personality disorders (ASPD). Characteristics of the ASPD include shallow emotions, lack of remorse, impulsivity, irresponsibility, deceitfulness and egocentrism. It is estimated that prisons are full of those with ASPD and one of the reasons why is that those with this personality disorder often finds themselves in contravention with society rules and once caught they do not respond to rehabilitation efforts. It seems that prisons were made for these offenders.

Intelligence and Crime

Read through the section on the discussion of IQ and crime beginning on page 166. Note that IQ tests were developed at the turn of the century and were immediately utilized by schools, employers and the military to classify people. They also began to be used in studies. Remember that Charles Goring determined in 1913 that criminals had "defective intelligence." Lack of intelligence became associated with crime. But Edwin Sutherland in an article entitled "Mental Deficiency and Crime" in 1931 helped to dismiss these ideas claiming that IQ, if there is such a thing, is not related to criminality. Sutherland's opinion was so well respected that he effectively put an end to the crime/intelligence link in criminological textbooks for the next 50 years. But as noted in the text, beginning in about 1977 we began to see an increase in the literature of studies again claiming the IQ/crime link. By the end of the 1980's, textbooks, including ours, began presenting the IQ issue. As suggested in the text, the debate is not settled with sociologists leading the opposition. One important factor that often gets overlooked and that is none of criminologists who support the link believes that IQ alone is a determinant of criminal behavior. They believe that IQ is one of only many factors that can have an impact on a person's behavior though IQ does seem, according to recent studies, to be a very significant factor.