CCJ 2-15-19 - Marvin Krohn PDF

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Marvin Krohn...

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CCJ 2-15-19 Biological Theories of Crime Phrenology - Lombroso (1870) 1) Stigmatas a) Asymmetry of head b) Large ears and lips c) Receding chin d) Twisted nose e) Excessive cheek bones f) Extra fingers or toes 2) Criminals are an ativism (a throwback to an earlier stage of evolution) 3) Police began to use these to ID criminals 4) Men had to have 4-5 of these characteristics, women only needed 3 5) Crime is not rational

Biological approaches - Criticisms 1) Faulty science (deterministic) 2) Ethical and political implications 3) Sheer amount of crime - American criminology dominated by environmental explanations of crime 1) Neighborhoods 2) Peers 3) Families

Resistance to biogenetics in criminology

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Training of most criminologists Political implications Possible applied implications Ethics (eugenics)

Criminology has been slow to accept genetic factors into theories - Why has there been recent acceptance? 1) Breakthrough regarding the genetic code 2) Distinction among genotypes and behavior (not very well established yet)

Issues studying the relationship today - To date we have little information of genotypes to examine their link to criminal behavior 1) Few data sets on crime include genetic data, although there have been some attempts to do so - Limited research actually trying to identify the genotype that makes a particular type of behavior more likely - Too soon to tell some promising results - Research by Beaver et al. in the journal of youth violence and juvenile justice 1) Uses addhealth dataset - Examines the interactive effect between DRD2 and DRD4 - Gene X gene interaction between DRD2 and DRD4 is associated with the development of conduct disorder and adult antisocial behavior in males

Behavioral genetics - A field of study interested in decomposing the variance (in a behavior or trait) into 3 components 1) Genetics – heritability

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2) Shared environment 3) Non-shared environment Most studies of adolescent delinquency only take one child per household, why is this not adequate when examining genetic factors? Environment versus genetics – cannot distinguish the 2 So we need to look at siblings Twin studies 1) Monozygotic twins and/or dizygotic twins 2) If genetics play a key role, monozygotic twins (mz’s) should have more behavior similarity than dizygotic twins (dz’s) 3) Research generally supports this, but what is the problem with such studies? Role of environment: mz’s may be treated more alike than dz’s because of similarity of appearance (dressed alike) Ideal way is to examine mz’s who are reared apart (obviously difficult to do) Bouchard et al. 100 pairs – Minnesota study of identical twins reared apart (MISTRA) MISTRA found that things like aggression, self control and negative emotionality were highly heritable Other studies have found the likelihood of receiving a criminal conviction is the same among the twin and non-twin population

Adoption studies - The highest rate of conviction were found among people whose biological and adoptive parents both have been convicted of crime (however the effect size of the study was very small)

Extremely important to understand that the appropriate way of thinking about the influence of genetics is to think in terms of the gene X environment interactions

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- This refers to the hypothesis that exposure to certain environments will bring out the genetic tendency - Example 1) Chemicals and environmental toxins affecting brain and non-genetic biological factors 2) Lead in children’s blood in the 1970’s linked to crime spike in the 1990’s, other researchers say that the 1990’s crime spike was across all cohorts, not just the cohorts with higher levels of lead Gene X environment interactions - Abusive, unpredictable, harsh childhood conditions linked to changed in amygdala and prefrontal cortex - Violence, emotional abuse, and long term stress, elevate cortisol levels that can eventually change brain chemistry which can change the likelihood of reacting aggressively

Hormones - Monoamine oxidase (MAO)- low levels linked to psychopathy, alcoholism, sensation seeking, impulsivity, extroversion, schizophrenia, and criminal behavior 1) Men naturally have less MAO especially from ages 10-20 years - Serotonin levels- linked to negative emotionality and impulsivity

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