Lecture 2: biological and psychological perspectives on crime
Science and the justice system
- Strong interest in ‘bio governance’ – managing crime and criminals WHY? – is crime
coded in our DNA, can our biology be used to detect crime?
- Biological advancements: DNA analysis, biometrics, brain imaging and analysis of
biological processes for lie detection
- Psychological advancements: identification, diagnosis, and treatment of what is
recognized as a mental disorder
‘Explanations’ of criminality
- Several cases in which the criminal had a biological “abnormality” (illness, accident,
predisposition..)
- Brain functions are (partly) localized
- Personality and behavior find their basis in the brain
- Focal damage leads to psychological focal defects case of Phineas Gage
Biological explanations of crime
Positivism in social sciences
- Criminologists acquire information about crime which is based on empirical research
- Testable hypotheses that are supported or disproved are determined through
empirical research- data driven
- This research forms the basis for understanding, explaining, predicting and
preventing crime (policy)
Phrenology 1796
- Frans Jozeph Gall
- German neuroanatomist, physiologist
- The study of the formation of the skull as indicative of mental capacities and
character traits
Cesare Lombroso
- Italian criminologist, phrenologist, physician, and founder of the Italian School of
Positivist Criminology
- Application of scientific methods in the study of human behavior: observation,
experiment and controlled samples as method
- L’Uomo delinquent
- Atavism: a tendency to revert to something ancient or ancestral. BIOLOGY:
recurrence of traits of an ancestor in a subsequent generation
- Possessing 5/18 atavistic stigmata- “hereditary throwbacks to less developed
evolutionary form”.
The Italian school of criminology
, - Cesare Lembroso, Enrico Ferri and Raffaele Garafalo
- Some (less evolved or degenerate) people are more prone to crime than others
- This approach is at odds with the classical school (Montesquieu, Beccaria, Rousseau)
- Free will becomes determination
- Equality gives way to natural differences
- Social knowledge and human laws give way to scientific (discovered) laws
Continued focus on appearance- somatyping
- William Sheldon (1898- 1977) psychologist
- Endmorph: guided by mouth and stomach: delinquency and fraud
- Mesomorph: aggressive, assertive, violent: robbery and manslaughter
- Ectomorph: vulnerable, thoughtful, shy: thieves
Limitations of early biological perspectives
- Methodological weaknesses
- Conceptually limited- “criminal” is a legal definition, not biological
- Simplistic (universal theory)
- Tends to reinforce sexist, racist and classist beliefs of crime
- New “biosocial criminological theory” is more complex and embedded in multiple
disciplines within (neuro)psychology
Contemporary biological perspectives
- Genetics
- Twin studies (MZ/DZ) 1920’s-2000’s
- Adoption studies 1920’s-2000’s
- XYY Chromosomes- “supermales” (additional y chromosoom> more masculine> more
into crime)
- Defective genes
- Biochemical, endocrinal, and hormonal imbalances
- Low IQ or learning disabilities, ADHD
Limitations
• Predisposition does not necessarily lead to commission of a crime
• Biological explanations are insufficient
• Social explanations alone cannot explain crime
• Recognition that genetic disposition alone does not determine criminality – there is
no “criminal gene”
• Fishbein (1988, p. 94) “Behavior (criminal or otherwise) is not inherited; what is
inherited is the way in which an individual responds to the environment. Inheritance
provides an orientation, predisposition, or tendency to behave in a certain fashion.”
Psychological explanations on crime
,“Crazy insane or insane crazy”
- Prevailing idea that crimes so heinous cannot be committed by a “normal” person
- Focus on individual mental qualities provoked by externalities
Psychoanalytic approach
- Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
- Unconscious drives shape and determine behavior
- Role of the unconscious mind
• Id- pleasure
• Ego- moral
• Superego- self-criticism and guilt
- Freud hardly wrote about crime, but his ideas were used to explain (criminal)
behavior
Psychoanalytical explanations of crime
- Attachment Theory (John Bowlby 1907-1990)
• Forming a secure bond with the biological mother
• Reactive attachment disorder
- Frustration Agression Theory (William Healy, Augusta Fox Bronner)
• Inability to find a release for frustration in a socially accepted manner
• Aggression (crime) as a means of release
- Maladaptation (ongewenst/onaangepast gedrag) as an explanation of crime
Trait-Based Personality and Behavioral, Situational Learning Theories
- Criminality is the product of personality traits and is learned
- Gordon Allport, Ivan Pavlov, Burrhus Frederic Skinner
Trait-Based Personality Theory
- Gordon Allport 1897-1967
- Ivan Pavlov 1849-1936
- Skinner 1904-1990
Trait-Based Personality Theory “criminal personality”
- Abnormal (criminal) behavior stems from abnormal (criminal) personality traits
- Triggered by environmental factors (drugs, alcohol, injury, illness) not from the
unconscious
- Hans Eysenck- Psychoticism score
• High scores more prone to psychotic break
• Thrill seekers need a release beyond normal stimuli
- Hervey Cleckely- Mask of Insanity
• Psychopathy, sociopathy, antisocial personality disorder
, Social Learning and Modelling
• Cognitive psychology
• Approach that humans are not rational beings, but that we examine and analyze our
environment – watch others and decide how to behave
• Poor role modes = poor judgement and behavior
• Jean Piaget (1896 – 1980) cognitive development occurs in stages
• Lawrence Kohlberg (1927 – 1987) stages of moral development
• Aaron Beck (1921 – 2021) hostile framing
Social learning theory 1997
- Alberta Bandura, Canadian American psychologist at Stanford University
- “Individuals are complex beings who don’t respond mechanically but observe,
analyze situations and then decide to act”.
- Bobo doll experiment 1961 (a kid is shown a video of Bobo the clown being hit, and
after watching this video the child were hitting Bobo also> copying the behaviour)
- Criticized the “passive” view of humans as a product of their environment- advocates
for personal agency
Conclusions
• Biological and psychological explanations of crime are still of interest today
• scientific advancement + criminal justice system
• “Basic instinct” and unconscious forces are difficult to verify/falsify
• Circular explanations and weak causal relationships
• Problems of determinism
• Theories may help to better understand human behavior but cannot be taken as
complete theories of criminal behavior
Science and the justice system
- Strong interest in ‘bio governance’ – managing crime and criminals WHY? – is crime
coded in our DNA, can our biology be used to detect crime?
- Biological advancements: DNA analysis, biometrics, brain imaging and analysis of
biological processes for lie detection
- Psychological advancements: identification, diagnosis, and treatment of what is
recognized as a mental disorder
‘Explanations’ of criminality
- Several cases in which the criminal had a biological “abnormality” (illness, accident,
predisposition..)
- Brain functions are (partly) localized
- Personality and behavior find their basis in the brain
- Focal damage leads to psychological focal defects case of Phineas Gage
Biological explanations of crime
Positivism in social sciences
- Criminologists acquire information about crime which is based on empirical research
- Testable hypotheses that are supported or disproved are determined through
empirical research- data driven
- This research forms the basis for understanding, explaining, predicting and
preventing crime (policy)
Phrenology 1796
- Frans Jozeph Gall
- German neuroanatomist, physiologist
- The study of the formation of the skull as indicative of mental capacities and
character traits
Cesare Lombroso
- Italian criminologist, phrenologist, physician, and founder of the Italian School of
Positivist Criminology
- Application of scientific methods in the study of human behavior: observation,
experiment and controlled samples as method
- L’Uomo delinquent
- Atavism: a tendency to revert to something ancient or ancestral. BIOLOGY:
recurrence of traits of an ancestor in a subsequent generation
- Possessing 5/18 atavistic stigmata- “hereditary throwbacks to less developed
evolutionary form”.
The Italian school of criminology
, - Cesare Lembroso, Enrico Ferri and Raffaele Garafalo
- Some (less evolved or degenerate) people are more prone to crime than others
- This approach is at odds with the classical school (Montesquieu, Beccaria, Rousseau)
- Free will becomes determination
- Equality gives way to natural differences
- Social knowledge and human laws give way to scientific (discovered) laws
Continued focus on appearance- somatyping
- William Sheldon (1898- 1977) psychologist
- Endmorph: guided by mouth and stomach: delinquency and fraud
- Mesomorph: aggressive, assertive, violent: robbery and manslaughter
- Ectomorph: vulnerable, thoughtful, shy: thieves
Limitations of early biological perspectives
- Methodological weaknesses
- Conceptually limited- “criminal” is a legal definition, not biological
- Simplistic (universal theory)
- Tends to reinforce sexist, racist and classist beliefs of crime
- New “biosocial criminological theory” is more complex and embedded in multiple
disciplines within (neuro)psychology
Contemporary biological perspectives
- Genetics
- Twin studies (MZ/DZ) 1920’s-2000’s
- Adoption studies 1920’s-2000’s
- XYY Chromosomes- “supermales” (additional y chromosoom> more masculine> more
into crime)
- Defective genes
- Biochemical, endocrinal, and hormonal imbalances
- Low IQ or learning disabilities, ADHD
Limitations
• Predisposition does not necessarily lead to commission of a crime
• Biological explanations are insufficient
• Social explanations alone cannot explain crime
• Recognition that genetic disposition alone does not determine criminality – there is
no “criminal gene”
• Fishbein (1988, p. 94) “Behavior (criminal or otherwise) is not inherited; what is
inherited is the way in which an individual responds to the environment. Inheritance
provides an orientation, predisposition, or tendency to behave in a certain fashion.”
Psychological explanations on crime
,“Crazy insane or insane crazy”
- Prevailing idea that crimes so heinous cannot be committed by a “normal” person
- Focus on individual mental qualities provoked by externalities
Psychoanalytic approach
- Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
- Unconscious drives shape and determine behavior
- Role of the unconscious mind
• Id- pleasure
• Ego- moral
• Superego- self-criticism and guilt
- Freud hardly wrote about crime, but his ideas were used to explain (criminal)
behavior
Psychoanalytical explanations of crime
- Attachment Theory (John Bowlby 1907-1990)
• Forming a secure bond with the biological mother
• Reactive attachment disorder
- Frustration Agression Theory (William Healy, Augusta Fox Bronner)
• Inability to find a release for frustration in a socially accepted manner
• Aggression (crime) as a means of release
- Maladaptation (ongewenst/onaangepast gedrag) as an explanation of crime
Trait-Based Personality and Behavioral, Situational Learning Theories
- Criminality is the product of personality traits and is learned
- Gordon Allport, Ivan Pavlov, Burrhus Frederic Skinner
Trait-Based Personality Theory
- Gordon Allport 1897-1967
- Ivan Pavlov 1849-1936
- Skinner 1904-1990
Trait-Based Personality Theory “criminal personality”
- Abnormal (criminal) behavior stems from abnormal (criminal) personality traits
- Triggered by environmental factors (drugs, alcohol, injury, illness) not from the
unconscious
- Hans Eysenck- Psychoticism score
• High scores more prone to psychotic break
• Thrill seekers need a release beyond normal stimuli
- Hervey Cleckely- Mask of Insanity
• Psychopathy, sociopathy, antisocial personality disorder
, Social Learning and Modelling
• Cognitive psychology
• Approach that humans are not rational beings, but that we examine and analyze our
environment – watch others and decide how to behave
• Poor role modes = poor judgement and behavior
• Jean Piaget (1896 – 1980) cognitive development occurs in stages
• Lawrence Kohlberg (1927 – 1987) stages of moral development
• Aaron Beck (1921 – 2021) hostile framing
Social learning theory 1997
- Alberta Bandura, Canadian American psychologist at Stanford University
- “Individuals are complex beings who don’t respond mechanically but observe,
analyze situations and then decide to act”.
- Bobo doll experiment 1961 (a kid is shown a video of Bobo the clown being hit, and
after watching this video the child were hitting Bobo also> copying the behaviour)
- Criticized the “passive” view of humans as a product of their environment- advocates
for personal agency
Conclusions
• Biological and psychological explanations of crime are still of interest today
• scientific advancement + criminal justice system
• “Basic instinct” and unconscious forces are difficult to verify/falsify
• Circular explanations and weak causal relationships
• Problems of determinism
• Theories may help to better understand human behavior but cannot be taken as
complete theories of criminal behavior
