What makes a criminal?

• Lombroso presented a theory heavily influenced by Darwin's theory of evolution, that criminals could be recognised by their physiological characteristics. Such as a prominent jaw, or extra fingers/nipples.
• Early explanations focused on men with an extra Y chromosome. Jacobs et al found that XYY men were more aggressive and despite only making 0.001% of the population they accounted for 1.5% of prisoners.
• Some studies have linked the "warrior gene" MAOA to aggression, violence and increased risk taking. Such as Bradley Waldroup who shot his wifes friend 8 times and was given the sentence of involuntary manslaughter due to having this gene.
• Bandura showed that young children are prone to imitating role models, so if a young person is exposed to criminal role models it is likely they will imitate this behaviour. This is because the model has legitimised the behaviour.
• Differential association theory was proposed by Sutherland and states that criminal behaviour is learned by individuals being socialised around criminal behaviour so they will imitate this behaviour.
• WWHF - Raine

  • Investigate brain dysfunction to explain criminal behaviour, looking at regions of the brain previously linked to violence.
  • 41 ppts (NGRI) (39m and 2f) Groups were matched on age, gender and 6 were matched on having schizophrenia.
  • Quasi experiment all ppts had no meds for 2 weeks before brain PET scanning. A glucose tracker was injected and ppts did target recognition tasks for 32 minutes. Compared brain activity (glucose metabolism) to controls.
  • NGRIs showed less activity in prefrontal cortex and more activity in the right side of amygdala than left.
• Conclusions - Raine

  Murderers pleading NGRI have significant differences in the metabolism of glucose in certain areas compared to non-murderers. Study supports that brain dysfunction may explain crime. Activity in the amygdala controls emotional responses (like fear) which can explain the lack of fear leading to more aggression. A low level of response in the prefrontal cortex could mean criminals fail to see their behaviour is unacceptable and don't feel any guilt. Therefore differing levels of activity in these areas could explain why some people turn to crime.
• Health programs for pregnant women

  • Run weekly session with pregnant women at the local GPs and mothers' groups, educating them on the risk factors to their children (e.g. smoking during pregnancy) and give strategies to nurture early development through prenatal classes where women can learn to stay healthy during pregnancy.
  • Raine identifies a range of biosocial risk factors for anti-social and criminal behaviour e.g. mothers who smoke during pregnancy are more likely to have their child become a violent offender.
• Dietary interventions

  • Encourage people to regularly eat omega 3 fish oil and incorporate this and other healthy foods into their diet such as vegetables. Could set up weekly diet plans or set reminders to take a spoon of fish oil every morning.
  • Raine researched 231 English prisoners and showed that taking omega 3 supplements for at least 2 weeks was associated with a 35% reduction of offences after 5 months, which will therefore reduce the risk of criminal behaviour in the future.
• Plastic surgery for prisoners

  • Plastic surgery could be offered in prisons with a record of high reoffending rates to allow inmates with facial deformities to have corrective surgery. A plastic surgeon could visit the prison to explain the process of surgery and recovery times.
  • Lewison observed a British Columbian prison over a 10 year period and found that with plastic surgery reoffending rates went from 75% in gen pop to 42% of those who had surgery.