Crime Analysis Report

“Born to Be Bad” Biological, Physiological, and Biosocial Theories of Crime

Essential Criminology

“Bad brain, bad behavior.”

—Criminologist Adrian Raine, in summarizing his research

The idea that crime is “in the blood,” that certain criminal behaviors are inherited, or innate, is the hallmark of the biological approach to criminological explanation. Contemporary bioethicists argue that we have the ability to manage high-risk populations with biotechnology. The term biogovernance (using biotechnology to manage potential deviants) is used through the Human Genome Project and in reproductive technologies, cloning, genetically engineered foods, hybrid animals, gene therapy, DNA profiling, and data banking (Gerlach 2001). Science and criminal justice are linked with DNA and data banks containing considerable information, including fingerprints, palm prints, facial recognition, as well as voice, signature, keystroke, and gait recognition. “Biometrics,” as this field is called, is increasingly being used “by governments and business organisations in their bid to fight fraud, organised crime and terrorism, as well as to combat illegal immigration. Biometrics technology using advanced computer techniques is now widely adopted as a front-line security measure for both identity verification and crime detection, and also offers an effective crime deterrent” (Motorola 2006, 3). Proponents argue that “developments in biotechnology and knowledge have opened up discussion and debate about biology, crime and social control in an unprecedented way. People have always linked criminality to heredity to some extent, but we are much closer to scientifically legitimating that link and developing strategies for doing something about it” (Gerlach 2001, 113). We are now seeing technology employed not only in detecting crime but also in examining the physical functioning of the brain through functional magnetic resonance imaging to establish the biological blood-flow patterns that occur when the brain processes deceptive thoughts (D. Fox 2011; Haddock 2006; Willing 2006), though this is not without criticism (Henry and Plemmons 2012).

What if we could predict violent thought in advance of its practice? Consider the notorious case of twenty-five-year-old Charles J. Whitman, who in 1966 killed his mother and wife and the next day shot sixteen people to death and wounded another thirty from a 307-foot tower on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin. Going up into the tower he also killed a receptionist by hitting her in the back of the head. After Whitman was killed by police sharpshooters, an autopsy revealed a walnut-size malignant tumor in the hypothalamus region of Whitman's brain. This type of tumor is known to cause irrational outbursts of violent behavior, which Whitman had reported experiencing in the months prior to the mass murders. According to thirty-two medical experts and scientists, the tumor “was the probable cause of his criminal actions” and the primary precipitating factor in the mass murder (Holman and Quinn 1992, 66–67). The note Whitman left next to his wife's body contained chilling insight into his medical abnormality. Parts of it read: “I have been a victim of many unusual and irrational thoughts … overwhelming violent impulses… . After my death I wish that an autopsy would be performed on me to see if there is any visible physical disorder. I have had some tremendous headaches… . I decided to kill my wife… . I cannot rationally pinpoint any specific reason” (www.popculture.com/pop/bioproject/charleswhitman.html, December 5, 2002). Could this murder spree have been prevented using “modern” biotechnology or biometrics? Is it true that “a systematic pre-detection … to prevent risky individuals and groups from becoming manifestly dangerous” is now a reality (Gerlach 2001, 97)? If violence is the result of genetic inheritance, tumors, or changes in body chemistry, can the individual be held responsible?

Biological explanations of crime have appeared since the sixteenth-century “human physiognomy” (the study of facial features) of Giambattista della Porta (1535–1615), who studied the cadavers of criminals to determine the relationship between the human body and crime (Schafer 1976, 38). In the 1760s, Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801) claimed to have identified a relationship between behavior and facial structure (Lilly, Cullen, and Ball 2011, 24), and in 1810 Franz Joseph Gall (1758–1828) developed a six-volume treatise on “craniology,” or “phrenology.” According to Gall, crime was one of the behaviors organically governed by a certain section of the brain. Thus, criminality could be ascertained by measuring bumps on the head (Francher 1996). The biological explanation for crime did not become fully established, however, until the late 1800s.

Currently, liberals tend to view biological theories of crime as “efforts to shift responsibility away from social factors that cause crime and onto criminal individuals” (Rafter 2008, 5). Conservatives support biological theories more readily than liberals, but grow more tense upon discussion of their history, “a perspective suggesting that scientific truths are contingent upon social factors” (ibid.). Sociologists also look doubtfully at “biological risk factors” as they ignore social influences that may influence criminal behavior, whereas biocriminologists tend to ignore social factors because they distract “from the important work of scientific research” (Rafter 2008, 6). While there is currently plenty of resistance to biological theories of crime, theorists such as Nicole Rafter believe that opposition is “likely to crumble over the next several decades” (2008, 8). She believes that such resentment is often deepest when new theories are first introduced. “But when a new theory resonates with other culturally dominant factors, as current genetic, evolutionary, and neurological explanations do, opponents often come around” (ibid.). In fact, Rafter and other proponents of biological criminological theories predict that “we are on the threshold of a major shift that could lead to various genetic and other biological ‘solutions’ to criminal behavior” (ibid.). In this chapter, we present the basic premises of the search for the causes of crime, outline the historical context under which it evolved, provide illustrative examples of the early and contemporary studies, review some of the latest developments, evaluate findings and assumptions, and provide policy implications.

Biological and Positivistic Assumptions

To comprehend biological theories, it is necessary to grasp the underlying assumptions about humans that biological criminologists make. The major emphasis of this applied science of criminology is that humans have unique characteristics, or predispositions, that, under certain conditions, lead some to commit criminal acts. In other words, something within the individual strongly influences his or her behavior, but this will occur only under certain environmental conditions. For example, some people seem to behave perfectly normally most of the time, but when they get behind the wheel of a car the slightest inconvenience sends them into an angry rage (James and Nahl 2000). Without the automotive environment, they do not manifest anger. According to biological theory, the same can be true for other offenders. For some, the setting and act together provide a thrill that, according to biological theorists, might satisfy an abnormal need for excitement. For others, the environmental trigger to crime might be alcohol, drugs, or being subjected to authority.

For early biological criminologists, the classical theory of crime was intuitive and unscientific speculation. Any significant examination of criminal behavior cannot assume that humans are essentially all the same. Rather, they contended that looking at individuals’ unique characteristics and differences would reveal the underlying causes of criminal tendencies. Early biological criminologists believed that the key to understanding crime was to study the criminal actor, not the criminal act. Criminologists should study the nature of criminals as “kinds of people” who would commit such acts (A. Cohen 1966).

Of central importance to these founding biological criminologists was how to study the criminal. Accurate investigation of human features demands both rigorous methods and careful observation. The approach adopted by these pioneers of scientific criminology is called the “positivist” method, which argues that social relations and events (including crime) can be studied scientifically using methods derived from the natural sciences. “Its aim is to search for, explain and predict future patterns of social behaviour” (McLaughlin and Muncie 2012, 325). Positivism “has generally involved the search for cause and effect relations that can be measured in a way that is similar to how natural scientists observe and analyse relations between objects in the physical world” (ibid.). As Rafter (1992, 1998) points out, however, unlike contemporary positivists, early positivists also accepted folk wisdom, anecdotes, and analogies to lower forms of life as part of their empirical data.

Those first interested in this approach were criminal anthropologists. They believed that criminals could be explained by physical laws that denied any free will (ibid.). They claimed it was possible to distinguish types of criminals by their physical appearance. The physical features most often studied were body type, shape of the head, genes, eyes, and physiological imbalances. Although their methods were crude and later shown to be flawed, an understanding of these founding ideas is instructive.

The Social Context of Criminal Anthropology

Evolutionary biology heralded a different way of looking at human development. In 1859, Englishman Charles Darwin (1809–1882) presented his theory of evolution, On the Origin of Species ([1859] 1968), in which he argued that the development of any species proceeds through natural variations among offspring. The weakest strains fail to adapt to their environment and die off or fail to reproduce, whereas the strong survive, flourish, and come to dominate the species at a more advanced state. Cesare Lombroso (1835–1909), a professor of forensic medicine, psychiatry, and later criminal anthropology, and his students, Enrico Ferri and Raffaele Garofalo, applied these ideas to the study of crime. This “holy three of criminology” became known as the Italian School (Schafer 1976, 41). Their position was radically opposed to Italian classicists such as Beccaria, whom they saw as overemphasizing free will at the expense of determinism. Rather than seeing humans as self-interested, rational individuals who possess similar capacities to reason, the Italian School criminologists believed humans differ and that some are more crime-prone than others. As Jock Young has pointed out, their approach was the mirror image of classicism: “Free-will disappears under determinacy, equality bows before natural differences and expert knowledge, and human laws that are created become scientific laws that are discovered” (1981, 267). If classicism was the language of logical deduction, traditional opinion, and abstract reasoning, then, wrote Ferri, “We speak two different languages” (1901, 244).

The new scientific criminology, founded on positivist assumptions, valued the “experimental method” as the key to knowledge based on empirically discovered facts and their examination. This knowledge was to be achieved carefully, over years of systematic observation and scientific analysis. The task of the criminologist was to apply the appropriate scientific apparatuses, the calipers, dynamometer, and aesthesiometer, to measure and chart the offender's deformities (Rafter 1992). Only then would we discover the explanation for crime and for what would become known as the “born criminal.”

The Born Criminal

To both realize and value the revolutionary nature of these early biological and physiological theories, it is necessary to recall that in the late nineteenth century, science was viewed as a sort of “new religion,” a source of knowledge, and a solution to problems such as disease, starvation, unemployment, and—of interest to us—crime. Lombroso is widely recognized as the most influential founding scholar to rely on the scientific method to study crime and is often called the “father of modern criminology.” With Ferri and Garofalo, and later with his daughter Gina Lombroso-Ferraro he explored the differences between ordinary “noncriminal” people and those who committed criminal offenses; therein, he argued, would be found the secret to the causes of crime.

Lombroso's theory of “atavism,” explained in his 1876 book The Criminal Man, was founded on Darwinian ideas about humanity's “worst dispositions,” which were “reversions to a savage state” (Darwin 1871, 137). Atavism (or reversion) is a “condition in which characteristics that have previously disappeared in the course of evolution suddenly recur” (Faller and Schuenke 2004, 61). According to this theory, criminals were hereditary throwbacks to less developed evolutionary forms. Since criminals were less developed, Lombroso believed they could be identified by physical stigmata, or visible physical abnormalities, which he called “atavistic features”: “For Lombroso, these anomalies resembled the traits of primitive peoples, animals and even plants, ‘proving’ that the most dangerous criminals were atavistic throwbacks on the evolutionary scale” (Gibson and Rafter 2006, 1). These anomalies or signs included such characteristics as asymmetry of the face; supernumerary nipples, toes, or fingers; enormous jaws; handle-shaped or sensile ears; insensitivity to pain; acute sight; and so on. Possessing five of the eighteen stigmata indicated atavism and could explain “the irresistible craving for evil for its own sake, the desire not only to extinguish life in the victim, but to mutilate the corpse, tear its flesh and drink its blood” (Lombroso 1911, xiv). Because these anomalies could be examined, counted, and classified, Lombroso “promised to turn the study of criminality into an empirical science … called … ‘criminal anthropology,’ reflecting his desire to reorient legal thinking from philosophical debate about the nature of crime to an analysis of the characteristics of the criminal” (Gibson and Rafter 2006, 1). As he says in the first 1876 edition of his classic work, “Most criminals really do lack free will” (quoted in ibid., 43).

Not all criminals, however, fell into the atavistic category. By the fifth edition of his book, Lombroso recognized four main classes of criminals. The first group, referred to as “born criminals,” was atavistic, responsible for the most serious offenses, and recidivist. This group made up about a third of the criminal population and was considered by Lombroso to be the most dangerous and incorrigible. The second class, “criminals by passion,” commits crime to correct the emotional pain of an injustice. Third was the “insane criminal,” who could be an imbecile or have an affected brain and is unable to distinguish right from wrong. Fourth, the “occasional criminal” included four subtypes: (a) the “criminaloid,” who is of weak nature and easily swayed by others; (b) the “epileptoid,” who suffers from epilepsy; (c) the habitual criminal, whose occupation is crime; and (d) the pseudocriminal, who commits crime by accident (Martin, Mutchnick, and Austin 1990, 29–32).

Eventually, Lombroso conceded that socioenvironmental factors, such as religion, gender, marriage, criminal law, climate, rainfall, taxation, banking, and even the price of grain, influence crime. By the time his last book, Crime: Its Causes and Remedies ([1912] 1968), was published in 1896, he had shifted from being a biological theorist to being an environmental theorist, but not without forcefully establishing the idea that criminals were different from ordinary people and especially different from the powerful members of society. Even though his main ideas were disproved and his research found to be methodologically unsound, the search for the biological cause of crime was inspired by his work (Goring [1913] 1972).

It is important to note that Lombroso's progression of work, though possessing some serious flaws, has been seriously distorted by translators until recently. Even his daughter, Gina Lombroso-Ferraro, was thought to considerably simplify the complexity of her father's original ideas in his original work, Criminal Man. One example is his “biological determinism,” which always recognized multiple causes, and eventually included social causes, which allowed him to “continue denying free will by conceptualizing environmental and biological forces as equally determinate” (Gibson and Rafter 2006, 12). Often neglected, too, is that he proposed humanitarian reforms as alternatives to incarceration to prevent crimes by “occasional criminals,” especially children, whose occasional criminality was a temporary phase, advocated institutions for the criminally insane, and urged that the severity of punishment match the dangerousness of the criminal (ibid., 2). However, Lombroso did advocate the death penalty, abolished in Italy in 1889, for the born criminal, arguing in the Darwinian fashion that “progress in the animal world, and therefore the human world, is based on a struggle for existence that involves hideous massacres.” Society need have no pity for born criminals who were “programmed to do harm” and are “atavistic reproductions not only of savage men but also the most ferocious carnivores and rodents.” Capital punishment in this view would simply accelerate natural selection, ridding society of the unfit (Gibson and Rafter 2006, 15).

Lombroso's student at the University of Turin, Enrico Ferri (1856–1929), was even more receptive to environmental and social influences that cause crime, but he still relied on biological factors, and in fact coined the term criminal man, later used by Lombroso, and the term criminal sociology. Ferri, who studied statistics at the University of Bologna, and later, in Paris, was influenced by the ideas of French lawyer and statistician A. M. Guerry (1802–1866) and Belgian mathematician and astronomer Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quételet (1796–1874). Ferri used his statistical training to analyze crime in France from 1826 to 1878. Ferri's studies (1901) suggested that the causes of crime were physical (race, climate, geographic location, and so forth), anthropological (age, gender, psychology, and so on), and social (population density, religion, customs, economic conditions, and others). This view was much more encompassing than Lombroso's original ideas, was accepted by Lombroso as furthering his theory, and is not dissimilar from modern theorists’ ideas about multiple causality.

However, Ferri's anticlassicist ideas, and his Marxist leanings, cost him his university position. They also affected his views on criminal justice and policy, which he was invited to implement in Mussolini's fascist regime (and which were eventually rejected for being too radical). He argued that because causes needed scientific discovery, juries of laypeople were irrelevant and should be replaced by panels of scientific experts, including doctors and psychiatrists. Not surprisingly, since he rejected the idea that crime was a free choice, Ferri also believed it was pointless to retributively punish offenders, preferring instead the idea of prevention through alternatives (which he called substitutions). His idea was to remove or minimize the causes of crime while protecting the state. He advocated “hygienic measures” such as social and environmental changes and, consistent with his socialist politics, favored the state provision of human services. He also advocated “therapeutic remedies” that were designed to be both reparative and repressive and “surgical operations,” including death, to eliminate the cause of the problem (Schafer 1976, 45). Ferri's primary contribution was to offer a more balanced, complete picture of crime relying on scientific methods.

Raffaele Garofalo (1851–1934), also a student of Lombroso, trained in the law and was of Spanish noble ancestry, although he was born in Naples. He saw crime as rooted in an organic flaw that results in a failure to develop both altruistic sensibilities and a moral sentiment for others. Garofalo presented a principle called “adaptation” which was based on Darwin's work. He argued that criminals who were unable to adapt to society, and who thereby felt morally free to offend, should be eliminated, consistent with nature's evolutionary process. This should be accomplished through one of three methods: death, long-term or life imprisonment, or “enforced reparation” (Bernard, Snipes, and Gerould 2009). Indeed, echoing Lombroso's Darwinist thinking on the state-administered death penalty, he stated: “In this way, the social power will effect an artificial selection similar to that which nature effects by death of individuals unassimilable to the particular conditions of the environment in which they are born or to which they have been removed. Herein the state will be simply following nature” (Garofalo 1914, 219–220, cited in Morrison 1995, 126).

These three theories have been relegated to the status of historical artifacts, and subject to some distortion, although each contains some resonance of truth. The research methods employed were simplistic or flawed, revealed a racist and even sexist bias, and have not stood up to empirical verification. But the theories are important because they chart the course of later theories and also point out the importance of using scientific principles. Many of the research methods associated with the perspective of the Italian School persist into the twenty-first century.

Early US Family-Type and Body-Type Theories

Shortly after the conclusion of the American Civil War in 1865, it was widely believed that there were basic differences between individuals and among ethnic groups and that certain families could be mentally degenerate and “socially bankrupt.” This notion has to be understood in historical context. Society in the United States was undergoing rapid transformation with the abolition of slavery and massive immigration of Europeans of various ethnic groups, who, like the freed slaves, were largely poor and unskilled. These immigrants moved into the rapidly urbanizing cities, where, living in crowded conditions, they presented a threat of poverty and disease to established Americans. In fact, since the 1870s some Americans had been calling for eugenics measures, according to which a nation could save its stock from degeneration by rejecting the unfit, preventing their reproduction, and encouraging the fit to procreate (McKim 1900; Rafter 1992).

Richard Louis Dugdale's work, which fascinated Lombroso, was consistent with these views. In his book The Jukes: A Study in Crime, Pauperism, Disease, and Heredity ([1877] 1895), Dugdale found that the Juke family (from the name of the family of illegitimate girls that a Dutch immigrant's sons had married) had criminals in it for six generations. Dugdale concluded that “the burden of crime” is found in illegitimate (non-married) family lines, that the eldest child has a tendency to be criminal, and that males are more likely than females to be criminal. Obviously, his conclusions are subject to varying interpretations.

Following Dugdale's degenerative theory, European criminal anthropology became available in the United States through a variety of works (e.g., MacDonald 1893; Boies 1893; Henderson 1893; Drahms [1900] 1971; and Lydston 1904; see Rafter 1998 for an overview). These authors were the first US criminal anthropologists to claim that their approach was a new science studying the criminal rather than the crime, just as medicine studies disease. Rafter (1998) states that the central assumption of this new science was that the physical body mirrors moral capacity, and criminals were, as Boies argued, “the imperfect, knotty, knurly, worm-eaten, half-rotten fruit of the human race” (1893, 265–266).

After the turn of the nineteenth century, science was still viewed as being the solution to most human problems. Social science research became more rigorous, and improved research methods, such as larger sample sizes and control groups, became important. For example, in 1939 E. A. Hooton, a Harvard anthropologist, published The American Criminal: An Anthropological Study based on his research comparing 14,000 prisoners to 3,000 noncriminals. His results indicated that “criminals were organically inferior” and that this inferiority is probably due to inherited features, including physical differences such as low foreheads, compressed faces, and so on.

Hooton's methods have been criticized on several grounds. First, his control or comparison group included a large percentage of firefighters and police officers who were selected for their jobs based on their large physical size. Second, the differences he found were very small, and furthermore there was more variation between prisoners than between prisoners and civilians. Finally, his methods have been called “tautological,” meaning that they involved circular reasoning. For example, some people are violent so there must be something wrong with them; find out how they are different, and this explains their violent behavior.

Ten years later, in spite of a general decline in the idea of a correspondence between the human body and moral behavior, physician William Sheldon and his colleagues sought to explain the relationship between the shape of the human body and temperament. The most complete statement on this typology and crime was Varieties of Delinquent Youth (Sheldon, Hastl, and McDermott 1949). Using “somatotyping” (classifying human bodies), Sheldon observed three distinct human body types. The first, endomorphs, were of medium height with round, soft bodies and thick necks. Mesomorphs were muscular, strong-boned people with wide shoulders and a tapering trunk. The final group, ectomorphs, had thin bodies and were fragile, with large brains and developed nervous systems. Sheldon recognized that no “pure” type existed and that each person shares some of all the features. Each type had a different personality and favored a different kind of criminal activity. Endomorphs, motivated by their gut, were tolerant, extroverted, sociable, and inclined to delinquency and occasional fraud. Ectomorphs had sensitive dispositions and were tense, thoughtful, and inhibited. They could become occasional thieves. Mesomorphs lacked sensitivity and were assertive, aggressive, and prone to habitual violence, robbery, and even homicide. Some of these results were confirmed in the 1950s studies on delinquency by Sheldon Glueck and Eleanor Glueck (1956), whose study of five hundred incarcerated, persistently delinquent boys compared with five hundred nondelinquent boys found that although only 31 percent of the noncriminal comparison group were mesomorphs, 60 percent of the delinquents had a mesomorphic body type. However, when other factors were considered, such as parenting practices, Glueck and Glueck found that body type was only one of several factors contributing to delinquency. Other controlled studies claim stronger correlations, one finding that 57 percent of delinquents were mesomorphic compared to 19 percent of nondelinquent controls (Cortes and Gatti 1972).

Fishbein pointed out “early ‘biological criminology’ was eventually discredited for being unscientific, simplistic and monocausal” (1998, 92). The early studies suffered critical methodological weaknesses, including poor sample selection, inadequate measurement criteria, and the failure to control for factors such as unreported delinquency, social class, and criminal justice agency bias. In addition, one cannot avoid the observation that they tend to reinforce class, gender, and especially racial stereotypes. By excluding hidden crime, crimes by women, occupational crimes, and crimes of the powerful, and by often relying on samples of convicted offenders, body-type theories tell us more about who is likely to be processed through criminal justice agencies than about what causes crime. However, these theories were sufficiently provocative to stimulate a new generation of inquiry into the nature of what was inheritable. This new era of biosocial criminological theory is more sophisticated and deserves serious consideration, not least because it is built on new knowledge about the human brain and the multidisciplinary insights gained from “genetics, biochemistry, endocrinology, neuroscience, immunology and psychophysiology” (Fishbein 1998, 92).

Contemporary Biological Perspectives

In spite of its earlier methodological shortcomings, biological theory and the use of scientific methods remain popular in criminology in the twenty-first century. Indeed, “a growing literature base has served to substantiate that genetic factors are as important to the development of some forms of criminal activity as are environmental factors” (Ishikawa and Raine 2002, 81). Rather than determining crime, “multiple genes—acting in combination—result in varying degrees of genetic disposition to criminal behavior … through heritable physiological processes such as neurotransmitter and autonomic nervous system functioning, which, in turn, predispose some individuals toward crime” (ibid., 82). Improved technology, computerization, and software design and advanced statistical techniques have allowed more precise measurement and improved data collection, especially with regard to detailing the genetic process and mapping genes.

Genes, called the “atoms of heredity,” were discovered by Gregor Mendel in 1865 and reinvigorated again in the 1920s as essential elements in chromosomes. The 1952 discovery of the chemical constitution of genes as an explanation of how “like begets like” fueled the new genetic era of biology. By 1959, genes were being used to explain every aspect of individuals, every variation of their personality, yet, as Fishbein pointed out, although “numerous studies have attempted to estimate the genetic contribution to the development of criminality, delinquency, aggression and anti-social behavior … it is difficult to isolate genetic factors from developmental events, cultural influences and housing conditions” (1998, 95). First among the contemporary approaches were twin and adoption studies.

Twin Studies and Adoption Studies

A major boost to the genetic theory of crime came with evidence from twin studies and adoption studies. Put simply, if crime is the outcome of some genetically conveyed heritable factor (e.g., impulsivity, low arousal to pain, sensation seeking, or minimal brain dysfunction), then we would expect to find more crime in the twin partners of identical twins—where one twin is criminal—than in fraternal twins or between siblings. This is because monozygotic (MZ) twins are identical, with 100 percent of their genes in common, since they result from fertilization of a single egg. In contrast, fraternal, or dizygotic (DZ), twins occur when two separate eggs are fertilized at the same time (and as a result share around 50 percent of the same genes). Genetically, they are no different from two separate eggs being fertilized at different times, as with other siblings. This explains why MZ twins are always of the same sex, whereas DZ twins may be of opposing sexes. Researchers have compared twins of each type and claim to find that there are greater similarities in criminal convictions between identical (MZ) twins than between fraternal (DZ) twins, which lends support to the genetic basis for crime.

The most comprehensive study of this type was conducted by Karl Christiansen (1977; Mednick and Christiansen 1977), who studied 3,568 pairs of Danish twins born between 1881 and 1910. He found that 52 percent of the identical twins (MZ) had the same degree of officially recorded criminal activity, whereas only 22 percent of the fraternal twins (DZ) had similar degrees of criminality. These findings persisted even among twins who were separated at birth and raised in different social environments. Numerous twin studies have since found the same basic relationship, with identical twin pairs being up to two and a half times more likely to have similar criminal records when one of the pair is criminal than are fraternal twin pairs.

This apparently consistent finding has been criticized for its methodological inadequacy. Factors criticized include dependence on official crime statistics, especially conviction records; unreliable processes for classifying twins such as inaccurate determinations of monozygosity; errors resulting from small samples or biases in sample selection; failure to take into account the similar environmental upbringing of identical twins compared with fraternal twins; and the inability of genetics to explain “why the majority of twin partners of criminal twins are not themselves criminal” (Einstadter and Henry 2006, 97). And although some studies based on self-reports (rather than official crime statistics) found both greater criminality and greater criminal association among identical twins where one twin admitted delinquency compared with fraternal twins, several others argue that the higher-quality twin studies are less clear about the genetic contribution (Hurwitz and Christiansen 1983; Walters 1992).

Adoption studies seem to offer a way out of some of the environmental confusion plaguing twin studies by examining rates of criminality in children who are adopted away from their birth families (Rafter 2008, 229). If some biologically predispositional factor is involved in criminality, we would expect that the biological children of convicted criminals would have criminal records more consistent with those of their natural parents than with their adoptive parents. In fact, several studies “indicate that some relationship exists between biological parents’ behavior and the behavior of their children, even when their contact has been nonexistent” (Siegel 2012, 154). Barry Hutchings and Sarnoff Mednick (1975) studied adoptees born between 1927 and 1941 in Denmark. They found that if boys had adoptive parents with a criminal record but their natural parents had no criminal record, then just fewer than 15 percent of the adoptive sons were convicted of criminal activity (Rafter 2008, 230). This was little different from cases where neither natural nor adoptive parents had a criminal record (13.5 percent). But where boys had noncriminal adoptive parents but criminal natural parents, 20 percent of the adoptive sons were found to be criminal. Moreover, these effects seem additive, such that where both adoptive and biological fathers were criminal, 25 percent of adoptive sons were found to be criminal (ibid.). Reporting more recent studies with larger samples and looking at both parents, the authors found similar though less pronounced results (Mednick, Gabrielli, and Hutchings 1987, 79). This finding was confirmed between adoptive girls and their mothers (Baker et al. 1989) and has been supported by other studies (Crowe 1975; Cadoret 1978). In spite of proponents’ claims, critics have raised several questions about adoption studies. A major problem is “selective placement,” whereby the adoption agency may match the adoptive home with the natural home in terms of social class and physical characteristics (Kamin 1985; Walters and White 1989; Walters 1992; Rydenour 2000). Another problem is whether the effects being measured reflect prenatal or perinatal factors (Denno, 1985, 1989). Overall, then, what at first seemed to offer solid and consistent scientific evidence of a heritable genetic predisposition to crime turns out to raise more questions than it answers. This has not stopped various processes from being identified as causal candidates for explaining crime.

Biosocial Criminology: A Developmental Explanation of Crime

Since the 1950s, researchers have received media attention for various “discoveries” that they claim may explain the biological causes of crime (Nelkin 1993; Nelkin and Tancredi 1994). The April 21, 1997, cover of U.S. News & World Report carried a similar title to that of this chapter—“Born Bad?”—and dealt with the biological causes of crime.

Before examining illustrative examples of these processes, it is important to understand the logic used by the biosocial criminologists to explain crime. Biosocial criminology was founded on the ideas of E. O. Wilson (1975), whose book Sociobiology marked a resurrection of the role of biological thinking in social science. The basic premise is that the “gene is the ultimate unit of life that controls all human destiny” (Siegel 2012, 143). Although sociobiologists believe that environment and experience also have an impact on behavior, their main assertion is that “most actions are controlled by a person's ‘biological machine’. Most important, people are controlled by the innate need to have their genetic material survive and dominate others,” which is more commonly known as “the selfish gene” (ibid.). All advocates of genetic explanations for crime agree that they are not claiming that genes alone determine behavior or that there is a “crime gene” (ibid.; Ishikawa and Raine 2002, 82). Rather, as stated above, criminal behavior is believed to result from the combination of hereditary factors interacting with environmental ones. Together, these factors affect the brain and cognitive processes that in turn control behavior (Jeffery 1994; Ellis 1988; Ellis and Walsh 1997; Fishbein and Thatcher 1986; Raine 2002; Wilson and Herrnstein 1985; Hurwitz and Christiansen 1983; Ishikawa and Raine 2002, 98–99). More recently, though, researchers have found a region of the chromosome where there are variants of a gene that “regulates the production of the enzyme monamine oxidase (MAOA), which has been proposed as a possible mechanism for a genetic theory of violence… . In this theory a variant of a gene either overexpresses or underexpresses a chemical that affects a region of the brain” (Krimsky and Simoncelli 2011, 266). A study that looked at the genotypes of 1,155 females and 1,041 males who participated in a long-term analysis of adolescent health from 1994 to 2002 found that individuals with the gene that results in low MAOA activity were twice as likely to join a gang as those with the high-activity form (Calloway 2009).

In addition to the interaction between genetic predispositions and environment, contemporary biological theorists do not abandon the notion of free will, as their predecessors did. Instead, they prefer the concept of “conditional free will.” In this approach, various factors restrict and channel an individual's decision to act, and each “collaborates internally (physically) and externally (environmentally) to produce a final action: The principle of conditional free will postulates that individuals choose a course of action within a preset, yet changeable, range of possibilities and that, assuming the conditions are suitable for rational thought, we are accountable for our actions… . This theory … predicts that if one or more conditions to which the individual is exposed are disturbed or irregular, the individual is more likely to choose a disturbed or irregular course of action. Thus, the risk of such a response increases as a function of the number of deleterious conditions” (Ishikawa and Raine 2002, 104–105).

The research on biosocial criminology and behavior has empirical support. For one example, Raine conducted a review and semi-meta-analysis of thirty-nine studies and concluded, “When biological and social factors are grouping variables and when antisocial behavior is the outcome, then the presence of both risk factors exponentially increases the rates of antisocial and violent behavior” (2002, 311).

Chromosomes, Nervous System, Attention Deficit Disorder, Hormones, and the Brain

The list of causal candidates for the predispositional side of this interactive equation is long, and growing. None have captured the imagination more than those based on aspects of genetic theory. For example, in the 1960s, a chromosomal theory of crime attributed violent male criminality to an extra Y chromosome. This extra chromosome created what was termed a “supermale,” one who was excessively violent. This theory was initially supported by the finding that 1 to 3 percent of male inmates had an extra Y chromosome compared to less than 1 percent of the general population of males (P. Jacobs et al. 1965; Telfer, Baker, and Clark 1968). Further research revealed, however, that incarcerated inmates with an extra Y chromosome were less likely to be serving a sentence for a violent crime. Moreover, the XYY chromosome pattern was more prevalent among prison officers than prisoners (Sarbin and Miller 1970; R. Fox 1971). However, “recent research has failed to support a relationship between the XYY chromosomal complement and criminal behavior; some studies even suggesting that XYY males are less likely to exhibit aggressive behavior than those with an XY chromosomal pattern” (Flowers 2003, 9).

Another candidate used to explain the intergenerational transmission of criminality is the autonomic nervous system (ANS), which is the “regulatory sector of the central nervous system and is largely responsible for controlling arousal and one's ability to adapt to the surrounding environment” (Bowman, 2010, 602). The argument here is that “law-abiding behavior is a learned trait… . Individuals learn to act in a social manner through proper primary caregiver interaction in childhood, most often through their rearing parents” (ibid.). Despite criticisms, there has been some support garnered for ANS theory through adoption studies, brain wave analyses, and delayed response experiments.

Attention deficit disorder (ADD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have also been targeted as possibly heritable factors in criminality (Moffitt and Silva 1988; S. Young and Gudjonsson 2008). According to epidemiological data, approximately 4 to 6 percent of the US population has ADHD. That is about eight to nine million adults. ADHD usually persists throughout a person's lifetime. It is not limited to children. Approximately one-half to two-thirds of children with ADHD will continue to have significant problems with ADHD symptoms and behaviors as adults, which impacts their lives on the job, within the family, and in social relationships (Jaska 1998). Studies conducted in the United States, Canada, Sweden, Germany, Finland, and Norway indicated that two-thirds of institutionalized young offenders and about one-half of the adult prison population screened positively for ADHD (Cole, Daniels, and Visser 2013, 3).

Children and adults with ADHD are “less likely than others to succeed in school, form healthy and lasting social and family relationships, or find and sustain productive work in order to contribute to their societies” (ibid.). Johnson and Kercher (2007) studied ADHD, strain, and criminal behavior and concluded that people with ADHD are less able to cope with strain in legitimate ways. According to recent research, “Post-traumatic stress disorder caused by child abuse produces symptoms similar to ADHD symptoms, and … these disorders frequently coexist and overlap” (Matsumoto and Imamura 2007). Weinstein, Staffelbach, and Biaggio supported this observation in the case of victims of child sexual abuse (2000).

Hormones have also been claimed as causal agents in criminality. Hormones are “a group of molecules that are responsible for carrying messages to cells throughout the body.” Higher than normal levels of testosterone in men have been linked to aggression and violence (Ferguson 2010, 88). Some researchers have also found that abnormal levels of androgens (male sex hormones) produce aggressive behavior (Siegel 2012, 146). But reviews of the evidence suggest that neither of the hormonal explanations has adequate research support, and some have even argued that hormonal changes “may be the product rather than the cause of aggression” (Curran and Renzetti 1994, 73; see also Janet Katz and Chambliss 1991; and Horney 1978).

As we are increasingly seeing, the relationship between biology and crime is not simple, and probably not linear but more likely reciprocal, with both biological and environmental factors feeding into and enhancing each other.

The Importance of Neurotransmitters in Relation to Depression and Aggression

The role of neurochemical processes, particularly neurotransmitters, is increasingly seen as important. These are chemicals, such as serotonin and dopamine, released by electrical signals given off by nerves that transmit information to receptors in the brain. The brain then instructs the body to adjust various behaviors, including aggression, in relation to the human organism's environment. Serotonin in humans or animals inhibits aggression, and having relatively low levels of this substance released by neurotransmitters results in a failure to inhibit violent and impulsive behavior (Virkkunen et al. 1987, 1989; Fishbein 1990, 1998; Coccaro and Kavoussi 1996). A review of studies found that overall the low-serotonin relationship to antisocial behavior is significant (Moore, Scarpa, and Raine 2002).

BOX 4.1 Epidemiological Criminology A Case for Sociobiological Determinism

The very essence of this essay is best reflected in a recent question asked by my (Timothy's) daughter, Aubrey, who is twelve years old and already expressing her desire to be a criminologist—not because of her father, but because of her favorite TV show, Bones, which portrays a brilliant female forensic anthropologist working closely with the FBI to resolve challenging cases. While out for dinner, she asked, “Daddy, why is there crime?” As I thought about the question, I realized that I could not, in all honesty, provide a clear and definitive answer. Is it because of economics? Family dynamics? Social interactions? Behavioral or other biologically linked dysfunction that remains unaddressed or unrecognized? Did criminals receive an adequate education? Was it something they ate? Did they bang their heads too many times growing up? Or were they born with a “predisposition” toward criminal behavior? These questions, among many others, have guided the work of research scientists, educators, policy makers, criminologists, and dilettantes for centuries. Today, these questions are yet to be resolved; they remain enigmatic and challenging, awaiting definitive answers based on solid evidence.

The scientific world, as we know it, comprises a vast number of disciplines and subdisciplines, spanning the sociobehavioral to the computational and biological, and everything in between these domains. As we advance technologically, and as our environments as well as world economies continue to undergo radical transformations, human behavior and associated social dynamics will, without a doubt, become significantly altered. Included among the outcomes of such complex dynamics are apparent erosions in the fundamental mores, folkways, and norms that help to keep us grounded and disciplined in response to socioeconomic, environmental, and other stressors. Starting with the most basic question, “Which came first, the crime or the criminal?” how do we determine the underlying causes of crime? Is there any one or multiple explanations? Can any single discipline explain crime, or is it such a complex phenomenon that it cannot be explained without an interdisciplinary examination of the interactive effects of many possible causes, relative to each individual? Or can we aggregate and make reasonable, rational conclusions?

Now, let's try to set forth a scenario that tracks our future biological or surrogate mother or father, then move through the process where the baby is born and eventually commits a crime, as compared to a baby that does not commit a crime. From there, maybe we will come closer in terms of beginning to address Aubrey's question: “Daddy, why is there crime?”

Through an emerging paradigm titled “epidemiological criminology,” new criminological tools, methods, models, processes, hypotheses, and theories can be proposed and developed (Akers and Lanier 2009; Lanier, Lucken, and Akers 2010). This notion is not unreasonable, given that some fifty years ago noted criminologist and sociologist Donald Cressey advocated for the inclusion of epidemiology in criminological theory and research, as espoused in his 1960 article titled “Epidemiology and Individual Conduct: A Case from Criminology.” As we begin to think more creatively and advance new interdisciplinary-based conceptual theories, the study of epidemiological criminology can serve as a case study for sociobiological determinists. In effect, we can begin to ask broad but basic and rudimentary questions such as, “What are the sociobiological factors that will likely affect our understanding of crime and criminal behavior?”

Many criminologists started out their original training as sociologists. As students of crime, many in the social and behavioral sciences often hold themselves out to also be considered as criminologists. More than any other, they subscribe to the concept of social determinism. In effect, when asking what causes crime and criminal behavior, they turn to issues around interpersonal interaction, education, racism, and injustice, among others. However, the scope of their arguments is often constrained when asked to consider other factors, causes, or explanations. Unfortunately, this results in paralysis through analysis—leading to generally limited and relatively myopic perspectives on very complex issues.

On the other hand, when crime is examined from a more biological deterministic perspective, we begin to head down a path fraught with risk, uncertainty, and professional liability. It is considered professional suicide to even postulate such a hypothesis, as it appears to some to be a rebirth or a resurgence of the old eugenics movement that occurred during the first half of the twentieth century, when it was assumed that a person's physical characteristics could help to determine the likelihood of criminal behavior. In reality, it has been the focus on genetic and environmental factors that has led biological determinists to appreciate the depth and breadth of both factors.

However, what happens when you take sociologists, psychologists, and biologists, among others, outside of their comfort zone—removing them from their comfort zone or away from their subject area of interest? Then what happens when you seek out their critique of how biological determinism has stepped forward to challenge other explanations of crime? That is, where does genetics play into this milieu, or does it? Or does only a part of it have an effect? Therefore, when we prematurely discount potential factors that may help to explain criminal behavior, we do so at our own scientific peril; in effect, we show our scientific ignorance, or what we may also call scientific fraud, by intentionally neglecting to consider other explanations of criminal behavior using interdisciplinary approaches.

When trying to merge a small fraction of sociobiological determinism in order to help explain aberrant behavior, we can see other examples that have more of an environmental influence, such as when biology and genetics play a role in understanding how toxic environmental contaminants may impact fetal development or early-childhood development. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that roughly one in six children is diagnosed with a developmental disability—leading many to speculate that physical environments where one lives, works, and plays directly impact fetal and early-childhood development. The more exposed the child is to a dangerous and toxic environment, the more likely the child will experience behavioral and maladaptive problems. In essence, the best way to help determine such impact is through the use of large-scale epidemiological studies, in which social, behavioral, biological, and environmental characteristics may directly impact or help predict an offspring's likelihood of committing a criminal act. A child falls or injures her head often and is neglected by not being taken to the emergency room. Brain lesions begin forming. Behavior starts to change, and, before we know it, the once innocent child has now stepped over the line into criminal behavior.

Therefore, when trying to explain “Why is there crime?” we are also left to ask ourselves if we have the right type of data to help scientifically predict a probability of someone committing a violent or nonviolent criminal act. Large-scale epidemiological studies have also revealed that biological and chemical agents present potential threats to the unborn, infant, and child; lead products, methylmercury, arsenic, toluene, and polychlorinated biphenyls are but a few examples of the type of environmental toxins that are known to cause birth defects, leading to neurobehavioral deficits. From an epidemiological criminology perspective, environmental exposures to such toxins can clearly serve as a bridging framework that can help to address the sociobiological deterministic divide, and therefore to provide one small piece of the answer to the question, “Why is there crime?”

Dr. Timothy A. Akers is Professor of Public Health and Assistant Vice President for Research Innovation and Advocacy in the Division of Research and Economic Development at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland. He is a former Senior Behavioral Scientist with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and holds degrees in criminology/criminal justice and environmental and urban studies.

Dr. Joseph Whittaker is Professor and Former Dean of the School of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences at Morgan State University. He is a neuroscientist and was a founding member of the Morehouse School of Medicine's Neuroscience Institute in Atlanta.

References

Akers, Timothy.; Mark Lanier. 2009. “‘Epidemiological Criminology’: Coming Full Circle.” American Journal of Public Health 99, no. 3, 1-6.

Cressey, Donald R. 1960. “Epidemiology and Individual Conduct: A Case from Criminology.” Pacific Sociological Review 3, 47-58.

Lanier, Mark M.; Karol Lucken; Timothy Akers. 2010. “Correctional Opportunities: Epidemiological Criminology.” In Key Correctional Issues, edited by Muraskin., Roslyn 2d ed. Prentice-Hall Englewood Cliffs NJ.

TIMOTHY A. AKERSM.S., PH.D.JOSEPH WHITTAKERPH.D.

In contrast, dopamine is an excitatory transmitter that offsets the effects of low serotonin. As Fishbein says, dopamine “operates as the ‘fuel’ while serotonin provides the ‘brakes’ for behavioral responses” (1998, 99). Dopamine “operates by setting into motion a biological process that gives rise to an emotional response that motivates behavior. It affects a person's ability to respond to environmental ‘cues’ that are associated with some sort of reward or stimulus that satisfies some drive” (Fishbein 2002, 111). When the dopamine system is stimulated, “novelty-seeking and self-stimulation behaviors increase.” When this system goes awry, behavior may be stimulated “in the absence of a reward, a threat, or other appropriate stimulus” (ibid.).

As with hormones, however, it is uncertain whether changes in serotonin and dopamine are the outcome of changes in environment or the reverse (W. Gibbs 1995). For example, Miczek showed that “an increase in serotonin can occur at the time of aggression and can continue to increase throughout a potential attack demonstrating that an environment or situation or social context can trigger appropriate serotonin production to help deal with it” (Einstadter and Henry 2006, 89). Indeed, as Miczek said, “Instead of only looking at biology as the cause of behavior, we also need to consider the reverse—that being the aggressor or victim of aggression is the event that sets the neurobiological processes in motion” (cited in Niehoff 1999, 116). Put simply, recent analyses of the relationship between the human brain, its environment, and behavior challenge notions of predisposition and suggest, rather, that the relationship might be reciprocal; that is, not only might biological factors result from behavioral and environmental ones, but the biological factors are not immutable and can be altered by changes in behavior and environment.

Recent Directions in Biosocial Criminology

Related to these new developments is a biocriminological theory that is increasingly seen as tying together many of the earlier findings. Lee Ellis (1977, 1987, 1990, 1995, 2005) has become one of the leading advocates in this field and has contributed significantly to its development, which has flourished to command a significant place in criminological thinking. Ellis has several dimensions to his theory (Ellis and Hoffman 1990; Ellis and Walsh 1997, 2000; Ellis 2005). In his sensation-seeking and arousal theory, Ellis has argued that as a result of low levels of dopamine, and dopamine-like neurotransmitters called endorphins, some people have lower-than-average emotional arousal under normal environmental conditions (as a result of a predisposition). Whereas most people are excited by a wide range of stimuli, dopamine-depressed people are easily bored. To raise their level of arousal to normal levels, such individuals engage in super-challenging or intensely stimulating activities. Indeed, such sensation seeking is “strongly linked to other antisocial traits such as impulsiveness, recklessness, irresponsibility, and criminality” (Martens 2002, 174). Criminal behavior provides this “on the edge” stimulation for such “sensation seekers” (Ellis 1995; Zuckerman 1979). Ellis argues that we can expect higher levels of criminality from sensation seekers than from those with normal sensitivities to stimulation. Evidence has accumulated supporting the idea that sensation seeking, risk taking, and impulsivity are biologically determined (Knoblich and King 1992; Magnusson, Klinteberg, and Stattin 1992), and studies of convicted offenders reveal that a key motivational factor is a neurophysiological “high” experienced in the course of committing an offense (Wood, Gove, and Cochran 1994; Gove and Wilmoth 1990). This high is similar to the intrinsic pleasure experienced from drugs and alcohol; it results from a similar external stimulation of internal opiates known as endorphins (Wood et al. 1995; Fishbein 1990; Fishbein and Pease 1988). As Barak (1998) observes, Ellis's theory of arousal may also explain corporate and white-collar crime (see also Hare [1993]). Indeed, corporations have been shown to seek precisely the kind of executive motivated to maximize sensations through risk taking, and it is just such a profile that is associated with corporate crime (Gross 1978; Box 1983). More recently, Hare ([1993]) has applied the concept of psychopathy, which assumes biologically based traits, to explain corporate offenders, using his inventory of psychopathology to explain such offenders without conscience (which will be discussed in the next chapter).

More controversial, however, is Ellis's cluster of biocriminological theories based on the principle of the reproductive drives of the selfish (male) gene that he uses to explain behavior ranging from rape, spousal assault, and child abuse to male sexual promiscuity, cheating male spouses, and even theft (Ellis and Walsh 1997). The common theme underlying such explanations is the idea that it is in men's reproductive interest to behave as a sexual predator. For example, r/K theory assumes that rates of reproduction vary along an evolutionary continuum from r to K. Persons at the r end reproduce prolifically and, therefore, do not need to care much for their offspring because there will be many, and some will survive. In contrast, those at the K end produce a small number of offspring in which they invest much time and energy to ensure their survival, and they are generally more caring and nurturing. Criminals and psychopaths are expected to be at the r end, to come from large families, to begin sexual activity early, and themselves produce many offspring. Ellis acknowledges the racist inferences that could be drawn from such an idea and states, “Whichever racial/ethnic groups or social strata exhibit r-related traits to the greatest degree will also exhibit high rates of crime and psychopathy” (ibid., 257). Others may see these ideas as sexist, and as apologia for sexist behavior.

Ellis's most recent version of biocriminology is called evolutionary neuroandrogenic theory (ENA) and is used to explain the higher rates of violent crimes committed by males. Walsh and Ellis note, “ENA theory asserts that evolutionary, neurological, and hormonal factors, like social environment factors, are all involved in crime causation” (Walsh and Ellis 2007, 215). ENA theory has two fundamental assumptions. The first is that “males have been naturally selected for engaging in resource procurement and status striving, especially after the onset of puberty.” Walsh and Ellis continue that “females who have chosen mates based on a male's ability to obtain resources will have left more offspring in subsequent generations than females who use other criteria for selecting mates.” The second assumption claims that “fetal exposure of male brains to … androgens … makes them more prone to competitive status striving than females … (and) that criminality is part of a continuum of activities involving status striving in which males are the main offenders” (ibid., 215–216).

Related to these ideas, “cheater theory” argues that some men are sexually aggressive, seeking to dominate as many women as possible and to employ deception to achieve sexual conquest of as many women as possible. They may use illegal and violent means to acquire the resources for sexual access to females. Yet others, who find women resistant to their mating behavior, will use force, including rape, which Ellis and Walsh refer to as “forceful copulatory tactics” (1997, 255), to overcome the tension between the sexes. These authors recount a similar line for spousal assault that is seen as “associated with maintaining exclusive copulatory access,” and they predict that “spousal assaults should be most common in populations in which infidelity is most common” (ibid. 256). In short, male sex hormones and other neurochemical processes increase competitive or victimizing behavior or both, which in turn reciprocates with the chemical processes (Ellis 2005).

It should be clear that Ellis's theories resonate with commonsense male sexist assumptions that males’ sexual predatory behavior is beyond their control, caused by their biological makeup. The evidence for this is far less convincing. As the list of biological factors grows, so does the refutation from accumulated studies. Researchers have so far found some support for connections between aggression and physiology, brain chemistry, and hormones, although sensation-seeking and arousal theory may show more promise. Indeed, there are several conceptual and empirical limitations for this approach that we briefly explore next.

Conceptual and Empirical Limitations

We have already discussed several of the limitations in the research methodology with regard to the early biological theories. Even though contemporary genetic studies use far more sophisticated methodology, they too are fraught with numerous difficulties. One problem stems from the nature of criminal behavior itself being a legal rather than a behavioral category and a category that comprises different behavioral types. For example, just because rape is defined as a violent criminal offense, does this mean all rapists are similarly motivated? Some are motivated by sexual desire, others by opportunity (e.g., date rape), and others by power; yet others are rapists due to the age of their “willing” partner. If biological theory is to explain rape or violence, researchers should disaggregate “behaviors that are reflective of actual acts that can be consistently and accurately measured and examined” (Fishbein 1998, 98). Accordingly, “Genetic studies that focus on criminal behavior per se may be inherently flawed; as criminal behavior is heterogeneous, genetic effects may be more directly associated with particular traits that place individuals at risk for criminal labeling” (ibid.).

A second and related problem is that researchers rarely distinguish between those with an occasional criminal behavior pattern whose actions might be the result of situational factors and those whose criminal offending is more long term and repetitive and whose actions may be more explainable by inherent predispositions (ibid.). Even if behavior is disaggregated, since no single gene has been associated with most behavior, research on antisocial behavior suggests multiple combined effects that are difficult to isolate, not only from each other but especially from developmental events, cultural influences, early experiences, and housing conditions (ibid., 94).

In spite of these limitations, the new multidisciplinary direction in biosocial research focused on the relative interaction between biological, psychological, and social factors seems to offer the best hope for the future. Meanwhile, contemporary theorists continue to suggest—if with caution—criminal justice policy implications based on their limited evidence. As we shall see in the next section, this approach has a poor and dangerous track record.

Criminal Justice Policy Implications

At its simplest, the policy of biological theory is the medical model, which involves identification, prevention, and treatment. Under this model, if inheritable predispositions, such as genes, chromosomes, hormones, or imbalances in brain chemistry, are the causes, or at least the predisposers, of crime, then preventive policy should involve identifying those individuals potentially predisposed prior to their creation of harm. To be fair, though, biosocial criminologists also argue that “environmental manipulations can be successful in reducing the incidence of crime by preventing full expression of genetic predispositional factors” (Ishikawa and Raine 2002, 83). However, this has not always been the obvious policy conclusion. The policy legacy of biological theory is that it has been associated with interventions designed to prevent the proliferation of criminals by stopping their procreation, or, more accurately, through eugenics. The first cousin of Darwin, Francis Galton, coined the term eugenics in 1883. He used the term to mean “purely born” and saw the betterment of the human species by planned breeding (Garland 2001).

As well as limiting the ability of the “undesirable” to reproduce, the logical policy from the biological perspective is to cure the “sickness,” which in this analysis is equated to crime, and this is seen as more appropriate than punishment. From this perspective, sentences should be designed to address, as in “treat,” whatever is diagnosed as the “cause,” and expert science, rather than judicial analysis, should decide this. Thus, indeterminate sentences are designed for each individual offender, based on his or her needs, with treatment length dependent on the time taken to cure or remove the cause.

We have discussed how early anthropological biocriminologists proposed invasive criminal justice policy and practice to deal with offenders. Suggested measures ranged from drug treatment and surgery to segregation and elimination through negative eugenics (forced sterilization) and even death for those who could not be “cured.” For example, in the early part of the twentieth century, Henry H. Goddard found that prisoners and convicted juvenile delinquents had low IQ scores, with the assumption that their “feeblemindedness” was an inherited trait accounting for their criminal behavior. Goddard, among other eugenicists, “reasoned that if they could prevent feebleminded people from having children, they would be able to rid the country of feeblemindedness and crime in a few generations” (Rafter 2007). This led to the development of custodial institutions for the feebleminded where the mentally defective could be held for life for the purpose of segregating them and preventing them from reproducing, a policy that in its extreme led to calls for forced sterilization (Wetzell 2000). Eugenics formed the basis of the US Bureau for Social Hygiene, which was founded in 1913 and operated through the 1930s. The bureau, funded by John D. Rockefeller Jr. was interested in promoting cutting-edge science, to control populations, and proposed eugenics policies to eliminate the causes of crime. Indeed, the eugenics movement spread nationwide. As Tony Platt has pointed out, “Under the banner of ‘national regeneration,’ tens of thousands, mostly poor women, were subjected to involuntary sterilization in the United States between 1907 and 1940. And untold thousands of women were sterilized without their informed consent after World War II. Under California's 1909 sterilization law, at least 20,000 Californians in state hospitals and prisons had been involuntarily sterilized by 1964” (2003). In the United States as a whole the government involuntarily sterilized more than 60,000 institutionalized people prior to the 1960s (Garland 2001).

These ideas have raised fears because of their racist and sexist connotations, and because of politicians’ inclinations for simple technological fixes based on apparently objective science to absolve them from dealing with more complex issues (Nelkin 1993; Nelkin and Tancredi 1994; Sagarin and Sanchez 1988). Civil rights and invasion of privacy issues involved in enacting policy on the basis of questionable evidence that affects some groups in society more than others have created considerable opposition that has resulted in canceled conferences and withheld federal research funds (J. Williams 1994). Nor have these fears been quelled by the support of some contemporary biocriminologists who have suggested screening clinics, early diagnosis, and preventive treatment as part of policy solutions (Jeffrey 1993; L. Taylor 1984).

Undeniably, as Wood, Gove, and Cochran note, “an effective crime control system would create conditions which minimize the likelihood that persons would commit crimes… . The key to preventing some crime may depend on finding alternative activities that both produce a neurophysiological ‘high’ and which are symbolically meaningful to the persons performing the crimes” (1994, 75–76). This might include competitive sports and Outward Bound programs as well as activities such as skydiving, bungee jumping, surfing, rock climbing, wakeboarding, and similar kinds of risky, thrilling, and nonharmful activities.

Summary and Conclusion

The early biological hereditary theories have been discredited since their findings have not been confirmed by later studies; however, they laid the foundations for current developments. Despite the reliance on observation and the scientific method, these early studies had serious methodological problems—including the failure to adequately define crime, reliance on official crime statistics, and failure to control for environmental factors—that rendered the results suspect. The early theorists stimulated research into the biological and environmental causes of crime, however, and they also promoted use of the scientific method. This was an improvement over the “armchair” classical philosophers who used logic and reason to develop their theories of crime.

Contemporary biological theories also have mixed validity. The search for causes of crime has become more sophisticated, in part due to improved technology. Particularly important has been genetic research. Furthermore, modern biological theories do not state that biological defects alone produce criminal acts; rather, biological factors in conjunction with certain environmental or social factors limit choices to those that make criminal behavior more probable. But the modern studies still have questionable validity due to the research methods employed. At best, biological factors are viewed as indirect causes. The most recent neurophysiological studies (explaining the relationship between brain processes and behavior) seem to offer the best hope for the future of this perspective. However, to date, their studies have not ruled out the possibility that physical and chemical changes in the brain are themselves the result, rather than the cause, of criminal behavior.

Policy implications affiliated with biological positivism are troublesome. One objective is to identify potential criminals before they commit a crime. But trying to “cure” someone who has not committed a crime is unethical. Even after a crime is committed, the interventionist treatment policies associated with biological positivism raise ethical dilemmas, as is illustrated in the discussion of voluntary chemical castration. The less invasive alternatives involving environmental manipulation may seem preferable, but these theorists seem naïve about society's willingness to accept policies that provide better options to those identified as potential criminals compared to those predicted to be noncriminals.

The best role for the biological contribution to our understanding of crime seems to be as a contributing part of some overall integrated theory (Fishbein 1998; Barak 1998; 2009). So far, the theories most conducive to such a mix are the psychological, social learning, and social environmental theories that we explore in the next three chapters.

Summary Chart: Biological Theory

Basic Idea: Captured in the phrase that some are “born criminal” with a predisposition to crime. Theorists believe that human behavior is determined by biological forces that in some manifest as crime under certain environmental conditions.

Human Nature: Humans inherit biological and genetically determined attributes that make people different. Attributes are randomly distributed; genetic variation makes each person unique. Most people possess a similar normal range of attributes and capabilities. Extremes of this distribution include those who are exceptional, either positively or negatively. Human behavior is an outcome of the mix of the biologically inherited qualities and their environment.

Society and Social Order: A consensus is implied. Individuals form a natural social order reflecting their biologically distributed characteristics, which produces a hierarchy comprised of the fittest who dominate over the weak.

Law, Crime, and Criminals: Law is a reflection of the consensus of society. Crime is a deviation from normal behavior that is prohibited by law. Science can measure what is normal and therefore aid in law creation, crime detection, and crime treatment. Criminals break laws naturally and will break norms and laws in any society. Criminals are different from noncriminals in being defective and predisposed to violate laws under certain conditions.

Causal Explanation: Defective biological attributes make some people predisposed or prone to deviate under certain environmental conditions. This is because they (1) are impelled to anger; (2) are impulsive; (3) have impaired learning ability, limiting their capacity for socialization; (4) are unable to control their behavior; and/or (5) are sensation seekers suffering from low arousal of the autonomic nervous system due to low production of dopamine or excessive production of serotonin, each of which might also result from environmental factors, including substance abuse. Early biocriminologists believed that defects were reflected in physical appearance (physical stigmata, or body types), with somatypes such as mesomorphs being more crime-prone, and that science could discover the cause of crime by examining the appearance of criminals compared to “normals.” Recent work has concentrated on genetic theory and the evidence from twin and adoption studies that shows a consistent relationship suggesting hereditary factors. Specific inheritable defects have included physical inferiority; XYY chromosome pattern; brain disorders or dysfunction; mental deficiency; feeblemindedness; low IQ; learning disabilities, especially hyperactivity; hormonal imbalance; low or high levels of serotonin; low levels of dopamine; defective genes resulting in a slow autonomous nervous system; blood chemistry disorders; and ecological stimuli or deficiencies such as excessive sugar consumption, allergens, or vitamin and mineral deficiencies.

Criminal Justice Policy: Treat the defect and protect society from the untreatable. This is achieved through the medical model of criminal justice, which involves (1) information collection, (2) individualized diagnosis, (3) discretion, (4) experts as decision makers, (5) prediction, (6) treatment presumption, (7) treatment selection, and (8) indeterminate sentencing.

Criminal Justice Practice: Treatments include surgery or drugs, incapacitation, eugenics for those who are untreatable, genetic counseling, environmental manipulation, and alternative environmental sources of stimulation.

Evaluation: May be useful for explaining some forms of crime resulting from insanity or delinquency resulting from attention deficit disorder, some aggressive offenses, and some addiction. Contradictory support for twin study and adoption data. The theory does not consider the majority not caught for offenses. Genetic defects are found in only a small proportion of the offenders. Tendency to medicalize political issues and potential for being used by governments as a harsh form of social control.

Discussion Questions

What are the assumptions about humans, society, and crime causation held by biological (positivistic) theorists?

Discuss the historical background of biological and biosocial theory and its relevance to criminology.

“Twin studies” have provided some compelling arguments supporting biological positivism. Discuss these and alternative explanations within the biological perspective.

Which of the biological theories do you feel has the most empirical support?

If biological positivism is correct, what are the policy implications? How do these fit into our current legal system?

What are some of the benefits and limitations of biological theories of crime causation and how does this theory fit into the wider explanation of crime?

Copyright © 2015 by Westview Press

APA citation:

Akers, T. A., AKERS, T. A., & WHITTAKER, J. (2015). "Born to be bad" biological, physiological, and biosocial theories of crime. In M. M. Lanier, & S. Henry, Essential criminology (4th ed.). Westview Press. Credo Reference: https://lopes.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/wviewc/born_to_be_bad_biological_physiological_and_biosocial_theories_of_crime/0?institutionId=5865

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