criminology ~ physiological theories

• lombroso theory


  a possible criminal is likely to have primitive evolutionary stage of development and is shown more in facial features - conducted a study that suggested criminals have an abnormality on their skull
• how was lombroso's data collected?


  on autopsies
• traits of a criminal according to lombroso

  long arms, large teeth, lacking ear lobes, more body hair
• what did lombroso argue


  criminals shouldn't be blamed for their activity as they can't control the way they look - suggesting that people turn to crime because of the way they look
• goring theory


  tested lombroso's studies and compared approximately 2,300 london convicts with a controlled group and couldn't support lombroso and came to the conclusion that criminal activity isn't to do with appearance
• hooton theory


  conducted a 12 year study and he argued that criminality was due to appearance through some features - sloping head, protruding ears, narrow jaw
• sheldon theory


  certain body types are more likely to commit crimes and own different personality types - examined 4,000 photos of men
• endomorph


  round and heavy body form often sociable and relaxed
• mesomorph


  muscular body form and often confident, most likely to commit crime
• ectomorph


  tall and skinny body form and often introverted and restrained, least likely to commit crime
• a brain abnormality example

  charles whitman - in 1996 killed mother and then took a gun to a university and killed 7 people and wounded 31 others he was then killed by police
• raine et al theory

  used PET scans to determine that criminals are more likely to have a problem with their pre-frontal cortex
• phineas gage incident

  railroad accident, 3 foot, inch thick tampering rod impaled via cheek, left eye and into the frontal lobe, damaged pre-frontal cortex, showed no evident difference in speech or movement but his personality took a drastic change for the worse and turned aggressive
• neurotransmitters


  are chemicals found in the brain to hep transmit messages between synapses
• serotonin


  associated with regulating mood and behaviour
• what was discovered about serotonin?


  low levels of serotonin means high levels of aggression - serotonin is in foods therefore foods with high levels of serotonin are often given to criminals in prison