Biosocial criminology

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Acadēmica Orientālis (talk | contribs) at 00:42, 2 May 2012 (→Evolutonary psychology: more). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 00:42, 2 May 2012 by Acadēmica Orientālis (talk | contribs) (→Evolutonary psychology: more)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

This article is an orphan, as no other articles link to it. Please introduce links to this page from related articles; try the Find link tool for suggestions. (April 2010)

Biosocial criminology is an interdisciplinary field that aims to explain crime and antisocial behavior by exploring both biological factors and environmental factors. While contemporary criminology has been dominated by sociological theories, biosocial criminology also recognizes the potential contributions of fields such as genetics, neuropsychology, and evolutionary psychology.

History

Historically, the role of biology was seen as much more important, and early, 19th-century crimonological theories were heavily influenced by biological notions; for example Cesare Lombroso argued that criminals are unevolved, "barbaric" humans who can be identified by shared, "primitive", physical characteristics. With the passage of time and the advent of the 20th century, the nature vs nurture argument came to be dominated by an absolutist nurture faction, and theories related to the importance of biology on criminal behavior were seen as obsolete. In the second half of the twentieth century, however, such theories began to be revisited. While no longer doubting the significant impact of environmental factors, arguments were brought forward once more focusing on the importance of biological factors.

Approaches

Environment

Biosocial criminology has sometimes been criticized for ignoring environmental influences. Biosocial researchers argues that this is incorrect but that on the other hand many sociologically influenced criminological approaches completely ignores the potential role of genetics which means that the results are likely confounded by genetic factors. For example, if a study finds an association between parental abusive and antisocial behavior when the children become adults this is often assumed to be evidence for a causation between parental abuse and antisocial behavior. However, another possibility is that shared genes may cause both behaviors. Furthermore, the environment is often influenced by genes which is an example of gene–environment correlation. One example being that genes may influence which environment a person prefers and selects to be in. Thus, a strong association between exposure to delinquent peers and a person's own delinquent behavior has been taken as evidence for causal process where a person learns to become a criminal. However, research on the role of genetic factors have found that such exposure is largely caused by genetic factors.

Sociological approaches to criminality, while recognizing the importance of environmental factors through an individual's life, have mostly studied factors influential during adolescence or adulthood. Biological approaches have in addition emphasized the importance of early development when the brain is rapidly growing and developing. Birth complications can cause brain damage and are associated with later criminality. Also the environment during first few years after birth are critical for the growing brain. This early environment has been linked with child temperaments that are associated with later problematic behaviors.

Genetics

One approach to studying the role of genetics for crime is to calculate the heritability coefficient. It describes the proportion of the variance for some characteristic that differs between individuals that is due to genetic factors. The non-heritability proportion can be further divided into the "shared environment" which is the non-genetic factors which make siblings similar while the "non-shared environment" is the non-genetic factors which makes siblings different from another. Thousands of studies on antisocial behaviors studying hundreds of thousands of persons have typically found that the "shared environment" account for 10% or less of the variance while the "non-shared environment" account for around 40% of the variance. A more recent approach with a large potential is to directly study DNA and examine if specific genetic markers are associated with criminal behavior. A number of such associations have already been found, especially between neurotransmitter genes and criminal behaviors. Each individual association when studied in isolation has a relatively small effect. However, single genes can have a much larger effect in specific environments which is an example of gene–environment interaction.

Neurophysiology

Another approach is to examine the relationship between neurophysiology and criminality. One example is that measured levels of neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamin have been associated with criminal behavior. Another is that neuroimaging studies give strong evidence for that both brain structure and function are involved in criminal behaviors. The limbic system creates emotions such as anger and jealousy that ultimately may cause criminal behavior. The prefrontal cortex is involved in delaying gratification and impulse control and moderates the impulses from the limbic system. If this balance is shifted in favor of the limbic system this may contribute to criminal behavior. Terrie Moffitt's developmental theory of crime argues that "life-course-persistent offenders" make up only 6% of the population but commits more than 50% of all crimes and that this is due to a combination neurophysiological deficits and an adverse environment that creates a criminal path that is very difficult to break once started.

Evolutonary psychology

Men can potentially have many children with little effort; women only a few with great effort. This is argued to contribute to males having more variable reproductive success for females. One argued consequence of this is that males are more aggressive, and more violently aggressive, than females since they face higher reproductive competition from their own sex than females. In particular, low status males may easily become completely childless. Under such circumstances it may been have evolutionary useful to take very high risks and use violent aggression in order to try increase status and reproductive success rather than become genetically extinct. This may explain why males have higher crime rates than females and why low status and being unmarried is associated with criminality. It may also explain why the degree of income inequality of a society is a better predictor than the absolute income level of the society for male-male homocides. This because increased income inequality increases status differences in society while changing the average income level may not do so. Furthermore, competition over females are argued to evolutionary have been particularly intensive in late adolescence and young adulthood which may explain why crime rates are particularly high during this period.

The "evolutionary neuroandrogenic theory" focuses on the hormone testosterone as a factor influencing aggression and criminality and being evolutionary beneficial during certain forms of competition. In most species, males are more aggressive than females. Castration of males usually has a pacifying effect on aggressive behavior in males. In humans, males engage in crime and especially violent crime more than females. The involvement in crime usually rises in the early teens to mid teens which happen at the same time as testosterone levels rise. Research on the relationship between testosterone and aggression is difficult since the only reliable measurement of brain testosterone is by a lumbar puncture which is not done for research purposes. Studies therefore have often instead used more unreliable measurements from blood or saliva. Most studies support a link between adult criminality and testosterone although the relationship is modest if examined separately for each sex. Nearly all studies of juvenile delinquency and testosterone are not significant. Most studies have also found testosterone to be associated with behaviors or personality traits linked with criminality such as antisocial behavior and alcoholism. Many studies have also been done on the relationship between more general aggressive behavior/feelings and testosterone. About half the studies have found a relationship and about half no relationship.

Many conflicts causing homocides involve status conflicts, protecting reputation, and apparently trivial insults. Steven Pinker in his book The Blank Slate argues that in non-state societies without a police it was very important to have a credible deterrence against aggression. Therefore it was important to have a reputation for retaliation, causing humans to develop instincts for revenge as well as for protecting reputation ("honor"). Pinker argues that the development of the state and the police have dramatically reduced the level of violence compared to the ancestral environment. Whenever the state breaks down, which can be very locally such as in poor areas of a city, humans again organize in groups for protection and aggression and concepts such as violent revenge and protecting honor again become extremely important.

Some cultures place greater emphasis on protecting honor than other cultures. One explanation is that protecting honor was in the ancestral past relatively more important for herders than for farmers. The livestock of herders were easily and quickly stolen. As a result it was important to constantly show toughness as a deterrence which may cause a higher level of a violence. The predictions of the theory was confirmed in a cross-cultural examination of traditional farming and herding Spanish-American societies. However, the prediction that sedentary fishing societies would place a low emphasis on honor was not confirmed.

Evolutionary psychology researchers have proposed several evolutionary explanations for psychopathy. One is that psychopathy represents a frequency-dependent, socially parasitic strategy. This may work as long as there are few other psychopaths in the community since more psychopaths means increasing the risk of encountering another psychopath as well as non-psychopaths likely adapting more countermeasures against cheaters.

Sociobiological theories of rape are theories that explore to what degree, if any, evolutionary adaptations influence the psychology of rapists. Such theories are highly controversial, as traditional theories typically do not consider rape to be a behavioral adaptation. Some object to such theories on ethical, religious, political, as well as scientific grounds. Others argue that a correct knowledge of the causes of rape is necessary in order to develop effective preventive measures.

The Cinderella effect is a term used to describe the observed, in many but not all studies, significantly higher rate of stepchildren being abused by stepparents as compared to genetic parents. The effect has been explained by application of evolutionary psychology theories. There have also been various criticisms of these theories.

References

^ Kevin M. Beaver and Anthony Walsh. 2011. Biosocial Criminology. Chapter 1 in The Ashgate Research Companion to Biosocial Theories of Crime. 2011. Ashgate.
^ Aurelio José Figueredo, Paul Robert Gladden, Zachary Hohman. The evolutionary psychology of criminal behaviour. In Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199586073.001.0001, please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with |doi=10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199586073.001.0001 instead.
Lee Ellis; Kevin M. Beaver; John Wright (1 April 2009). Handbook of Crime Correlates. Academic Press. ISBN 9780123736123.
Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi:10.1016/j.avb.2011.03.009, please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with |doi=10.1016/j.avb.2011.03.009 instead.
Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi:10.1111/j.1745-6924.2009.01138.x, please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with |doi=10.1111/j.1745-6924.2009.01138.x instead.

Misplaced Pages