Genetic and Neural

• Genetic Explanation


  Inherited genotypes make display of criminal behaviour in the phenotype more likely
• Family Studies


  Twin and Adoption studies try to show people with biological criminal relations are more likely to be criminals

  • Osborne and West (1979) - 40% of sons with criminal fathers committed a crime before age 18, compared to 13% of control
• Candidate Genes - Tiihonen (2014)


  Studied 900 offenders in Finland and found that 2 genes may be responsible for criminality

  • MAOA gene which controls for serotonin and dopamine in the brain is linked with aggression
  • CDH13 gene is linked to substance abuse and ADHD
• Diathesis-Stress Model - Caspi (2002)


  Some genes only expressed due to an interaction with the environment

  Study of 1000 people since birth from 1970s

  • Found within men who had commited antisocial behaviour, 12% had low MAOA genes and had experienced child abuse
• Neural Explanation


  Biological processes / neural structures within the brain lead to crime
• Prefrontal Cortex - Raine (2000)


  Brain scanning images showed that those with APD have reduced activity in the prefrontal cortex, which regulates emotional and moral behaviour

  • Also found an 11% reduction in grey matter
• Mirror Neurons - Keysers (2011)


  Found that when criminals were asked to empathise did their mirror neurons activate, suggesting they can turn empathy on and off
• (+) A03: Rhee (2002)


  51 twin and adoption studies in a large meta-analysis

  • Genetics accounted for 41% of variance in anti-social behaviour

  Statistics being in-line with Osborne and West, suggesting a biological influence
• (-) A03: Biological Determinism


  Socially sensitive as it can be used to justify discriminative activities; Lawyers use the arguement of genetics to justify no control of actions in crime
• (-) A03: Reductionist, Limited Explanation


  Valid understanding would also consider drug abuse, childhood etc; hard to generalise to non-violent crimes such as fraud or bigamy, making crime a social construction, hard to explain in terms of genes