To what extent is criminal behaviour learnt PDF

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2:2 Essay Example (53) "To what extent is criminal behaviour learnt" Feedback was that the essay was too psychology based.

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Candidate Number: 185107 “To what extent is criminal behaviour learnt? Critically assess key theoretical approaches.” Criminal behaviour is described as behaviour which breaks a set of rules that governs society. (Julius 2013) To a large extent, it can be argued that criminal behaviour is not acquired through learning, one theory that supports this statement is that of Cesare Lombroso who presented the theory of the born criminal in the 1870s. Lombroso argued that criminals possess similar characteristics to lower primates, for example, having a strong jaw, high cheekbones and facial asymmetry. This conclusion was based on a study whereby Lombroso examined the facial features of hundreds of living and dead Italian convicts and proposed that the criminals could be identified as having biologically determined atavistic features. According to Lombroso, 40% of criminal acts could be accounted for by these atavistic characteristics. (Lombroso 2006). However, Lombroso did not compare his criminal subjects to a control group. Moreover, the majority of his participants had psychological disorders and so his findings cannot be generalised outside of this population. Additionally, Goring (1913) reconducted Lombroso’s earlier study using 3000 criminals and 3000 non criminals and found no group to have distinct unusual features therefore contradicting Lombroso’s argument that criminals are easily distinguished by their atavistic features and so there is a lack of evidence to support the theory that criminals follow an atavistic form. The genetic explanation for criminal behaviour states that offenders inherit a gene or a combination of genes that predispose them to commit crime. This biological explanation for the origin of criminal behaviour is supported by a study carried out by Johannes Lange. Lange (1930) studied 30 pairs of twins who were of the same sex, 13 of the pairs were monozygotic twins and 17 were dizygotic twins, at least one of each twin pair had previously committed a crime. Lange found that both twins in 10 from the 13 pairs of monozygotic twins were both criminals compared to both twins in 2 of the 17 dizygotic pairs. Therefore, the study shows that genetics play a predominant role in criminality. These findings are further supported by a studied carried out in 1974 by Christiansen who evaluated the criminal behaviour of 3586 pairs of Danish twins. He found that the chance of one twin engaging in criminal behaviour when the other is a known criminal was 50% for monozygotic twins and 20% for dizygotic twins. However, due to the concordance rate of the monozygotic twins not being 100%, there is an element of environmental factors contributing to the development of criminality. The genetic explanation for criminality is also supported by adoption studies. Mednick, Gabrielli and Hutchings (1984) used 14,427 adoptees to investigate the possible genetic factors which can cause criminal behaviour. The study found that the children with a biological parent who was a criminal were more likely to engage in criminal activities. For example, a statistically significant correlation was found between the adoptees and their biological parent’s convictions of property crimes. Therefore, it can be argued that biological factors play an undisputed role in the cause of criminal behaviour. Another explanation for the basis of criminal behaviour being due to biological causes rather than being learnt is the neural explanation. The neural explanation for criminality claims that dysfunctions on the brain and nervous system cause criminal behaviour. Raine (1998) investigated the brain mechanisms that subserve violent behaviour. Using brain imaging techniques, the study found that individuals with antisocial personalities have reduced activity in the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain responsible for regulating emotional behaviour. The results from the study supported the hypothesis that emotional, impulsive murderers are less able to regulate and control their aggressive impulses that are generated from subcortical structurers due to deficient prefrontal regulation. However, it is difficult to establish cause and effect between brain abnormalities and offending behaviour and so this makes the validity of this theory questionable.

Candidate Number: 185107 The cognitive explanation for criminal behaviour argues that the cause of offending behaviour is the internal mental processes of the offender. Kohlberg (1931) developed a theory of the stages of moral development and the idea of justice, with each stage representing a more advanced level of moral understanding. He claims that criminals are more likely to be characterised at the pre-conventional level of moral understanding, whereas non-criminals have usually progressed. The pre-conventional level is characterised by a need to avoid punishments and gain rewards and is typically associated with less mature, childlike reasoning. Thus, adults who remain at this level may commit crime if they can get away with it or gain rewards. Eysenck (1979) proposed the theory of the Criminal Personality, a theory that combines biological and learning theories of criminality, arguing that personality traits are biological in origin and that 67% of the variants for the personality traits are due to genetic factors. He proposed that the criminal personality type is neurotic-extravert because extraverts seek more arousal and so engage in dangerous activities, neurotics are unstable and therefore are prone to overreact to situations of threat which can explain some criminal activity. Psychoticism can also be linked to criminality as psychotic individuals are aggressive and lack empathy. Eysenck claimed that people high in extraversion and neuroticism are less easily conditioned and so do not learn to avoid anti-social behaviour. According to Eysenck, criminality is the outcome of innate personality and socialisation, a person is born with certain personality traits but interaction with the environment is key in the development of criminality. This theory uses a diathesis-stress model to explain how biology and the environment work together in the formation of criminal behaviour. According to this model and Eysenck’s theory of the criminal personality, individuals are born with a biological predisposition for criminal behaviour which is triggered by factors in their environment. On the other hand, it can be argued that to a certain extent, criminal behaviour is a result of environmental factors and learning. The theory of differential association was developed by Sutherland (1955) and is a learning theory of criminality. The basis of the theory is that criminal behaviour is learned not inherited and so, only individuals who are ‘trained’ in crime will commit criminal acts. Sutherland (1955) argues that criminal behaviour is learnt through interactions with others in a process of communication. The principle part of the learning process occurs within intimate personal groups. When criminal behaviour is learnt, the learning process includes the techniques of committing the crime, the specific direction of the groups motives, attitudes and attitudes. The differential association theory predicts that an individual will choose to engage in criminal behaviour due to the excess of definitions favourable to breaking the law over definitions against breaking the law. Differential associations vary in their duration, priority, intensity and frequency meaning that associations with criminal behaviour and anticriminal behaviour also vary in those respects. Black and Newman (1995) propose that once learnt, aggression and violence as a problem solving behaviour is resistant to change meaning that once the criminal behaviour has been accepted by the individual, it is hard to transform. The maintenance of criminal behaviour can be explained in terms of operant conditioning. Jeffrey (1965) argues that criminal behaviour is maintained by the reinforcement produced by the environment. For example, property crimes offer positive reinforcement such as money, crimes against the person may involve negative reinforcement such as the removal of the enemy and sexual crimes produce gratification. Moreover, narcotics are a reinforcer due to the biological changes they produce in the body. However, coupled with the reinforcement is the potential of punishment. Through the legal system, society attaches aversive consequences to criminal behaviour and so, criminal behaviour can lead to either reinforcement or punishment. Criminal behaviour is under the control of reinforcing stimuli. The theory of operant conditioning assumes that some individuals have

Candidate Number: 185107 been reinforced for criminal behaviour whereas other have been punished but intermittent reinforcement maintains the criminal behaviour. Subsequently, criminal behaviour is learnt through Sutherlands theory of differential association (1955) but is maintained through operant conditioning, the consequences of the behaviour influence the manner in which the behaviour is conditioned. In conclusion, it can be argued that to a certain extent criminal behaviour is learnt. According to Julius (2013), criminal behaviour in terms of social learning is a product of learning or the failure of the socialisation process which teachers individuals how to behave appropriately. However, there is an overpowering amount of evidence to support the claim that criminal behaviour is a result of the inheritance of a ‘criminal gene’ or brain and neuron dysfunction. Therefore, it can be concluded that a diathesis stress model best describes the cause of criminal behaviour. If an individual inherits a biological vulnerability to criminality, their environment can trigger the onset of the criminal behaviour through Sutherland’s theory of differential association (1955), socialisation and then the behaviour is maintained by environmental reinforcement for the behaviour.

Candidate Number: 185107

References: Black, D. and Newman, M., 1995. Television violence and children. BMJ: British Medical Journal, 310(6975), p.273. Christiansen, K.O., 1974. Seriousness of criminality and concordance among Danish twins . na. Eysenck, H.J., 1979. Crime and personality. Medico-Legal Journal, 47(1), pp.18-32. Goring, C., Pearson, K. and Driver, E.D., 1913. The English convict: A statistical study: Including the schedule of measurements and general anthropological data. Patterson Smith. Jeffery, C.R., 1965. Criminal behavior and learning theory. J. Crim. L. Criminology & Police Sci., 56, p.294. JULIUS, A.A., NO, R. and OCHARO, D., 2013. CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR VIEWED AS A PRODUCT OF LEARNING. Kohlberg, L., 1931. The philosophy of moral development: Moral stages and the idea of justice (Vol. 1). San Francisco: harper & row. Lange, J., 1930. Crime and destiny. C. Boni. Lombroso, C., 2006. Criminal man. Duke University Press. Mednick, S.A., Gabrielli, W.F. and Hutchings, B., 1984. Genetic influences in criminal convictions: Evidence from an adoption cohort. Science, 224(4651), pp.891-894. Raine, A., Meloy, J.R., Bihrle, S., Stoddard, J., LaCasse, L. and Buchsbaum, M.S., 1998. Reduced prefrontal and increased subcortical brain functioning assessed using positron emission tomography in predatory and affective murderers. Behavioral sciences & the law, 16(3), pp.319-332. Sutherland, E.H., Cressey, D.R. and Luckenbill, D., 1995. The theory of differential association. Deviance: A symbolic interactionist approach, pp.64-68....