why did you or didn’t you become a juvenile delinquent?
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RegoliCh.3Slides-ChoiceandBiologicalTheories1.pptxChapter 3
Choice and Biological Theories
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What Theories Are
Theories are integrated sets of ideas that explain and predict when and why children commit crime.
Theories are evaluated using three criteria:
Simplicity
Testability
Empirical validity
Different theories lead to different policy recommendations.
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Purpose of Theory
A good theory is testable and makes predictions that:
Confirm or modify a theory
Expand the parameters of a theory
Have practical application
There are no perfect theories.
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Choice Theory
Part of the Classical School of Criminology.
Argues that juveniles are rational, intelligent people who exercise free will.
Juveniles thus choose to engage in crime.
Behavior is the result of a conscious decision and thus offenders may be held responsible for their choices and consequences.
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Cesare Beccaria
Wrote an essay titled On Crimes and Punishments that emphasized humanity, consistency, and rationality.
Argued that punishment should be swift, certain, and severe.
His essay influenced the criminal code in France and the United States Constitution.
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Jeremy Bentham
Work is grounded in utilitarian principles.
Argued that people seek pleasure and avoid pain.
The “best” punishment was one that produced more pain than the pleasure the offender received from committing the crime.
Punishment must fit the crime.
His ideas transformed the English Penal Code.
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The Neoclassic School (1 of 2)
The weakness of the Classical school was that it did not ask why people committed crimes.
The Classical school focused on the criminal act and not on the criminal actor.
The idea that real differences exist among people emerged in the Neoclassic school.
The Neoclassical school argued that some of the causes of crime exist outside of the individual’s control.
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The Neoclassic School (2 of 2)
Emphasis was placed on understanding mitigating circumstances.
These external forces gave rise to the principle of individual justice in the court room.
Insanity defense was born.
Expert witnesses were introduced into courtrooms.
New way of thinking about crime was a form of scientific determinism.
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Rationality of Offenders
The Modern Classic School
Questioning the effectiveness of rehabilitation.
Some treatment works some of the time for some offenders in some settings.
Rational Choice Theory
People make calculated choices before they act.
Research shows offenders often select a specific location to commit crime.
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Mapping Delinquency Theory: Classical and Rational Choice Theories
© Jones & Bartlett Learning.
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Routine Activities Theory
Theorizes that crime increases when there are suitable targets, motivated offenders, and an absence of people to deter the would-be offender.
Criticisms of rational choice and routine activities are that they overlook some factors that cause criminalization and do not identify which factors motivate offenders to commit crimes.
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Mapping Delinquency Theory: Routine Activities Theory
© Jones & Bartlett Learning.
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Are Offenders Rational?
Research has produced mixed results.
Ronald Akers suggests that the concept of rationality is itself problematic.
James Q. Wilson suggests that children who behave badly have not had morality instilled into them.
Hans Eysenck blames juvenile delinquency on poor parenting and childrearing.
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Choice Theory and Delinquency Prevention
Choice theories aim to prevent delinquency through two models.
The Justice Model
The Utilitarian Model
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Until a person reaches the age of seven, the law does not recognize a child’s ability to form criminal intent. Age is often used as a mitigating circumstance in sentencing, particularly when defendants are either very young or very old.
© Photodisc/Getty.
The Justice Model
Idea introduced by David Fogel.
Promotes fixed-time sentences, abolishing parole, and using prisons to punish offenders.
Indeterminate sentences should be abolished and replaced with determinate sentences.
Grounded in retribution or the notion of punishment for causing social harm.
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The Utilitarian Model
Offenders must be punished to protect society.
Grounded in Ernest Van den Haag’s idea that punishment deters crime.
Programs such as boot camps, Scared Straight, and shock probation are based on the utilitarian punishment model.
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Biological Theories
Traced to the positivist school which used the scientific method to study crime.
Influenced by Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution.
Marks a change in shifting theoretical focus from the act to the actor.
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Atavism
Cesare Lombroso constructed the first biological theory of crime in that he argued how physical appearance was a reflection of someone’s evolutionary history.
Atavistic beings or throwbacks to an earlier, more primitive stage of human development.
Criminals posses stigmata or distinctive physical features.
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Body Type (1 of 2)
In 1949, William Sheldon classified body type and delinquency.
3 types, including:
Endomorphs
Mesomorphs
Ectomorphs
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Body Type (2 of 2)
Found offenders were most commonly mesomorphs.
In Glueck’s research, they also found that offenders were more likely to be mesomorphs.
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Sheldon’s Types of Human Physique
© Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Autonomic Hypoactivity and ADHD
The most consistently documented biological correlate of delinquency is autonomatic hypoactivity, which is an under-aroused system marked by low resting heart rate.
Low resting heart rate is more commonly found in males than females.
David Farrington found low resting heart rate to be the most consistent predictor of crime.
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Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (1 of 2)
Is the most common neurobehavioral disorder in childhood.
ADHD symptoms usually appear before the age of four.
It is five times more common in boys than girls.
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Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (2 of 2)
An estimated 4%–12% of school-aged children, from ages 6 to 12 are diagnosed with ADHD.
The most common treatment is drug therapy.
ADHD is primarily caused by genetic factors.
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Brain Scans illustrate ADHD
Research on ADHD has shown the important role played by the brain in self-regulation and overall behavior control.
© Science Source.
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Frontal Lobes
Activities of the frontal lobes are referred to as executive functions. They include:
Sustaining attention/concentration
Abstract reasoning
Goal formulation
Planning
Effective self-monitoring behavior
Self-awareness
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Consequences of Damage to Frontal Lobes
Phineas Gage accident
Behavior changed after an iron rod pierced the anterior frontal cortex of his head.
Research has linked frontal lobe damage to delinquency.
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The radical change in the personality of Phineas Gage highlighted its biological origins. The frontal lobes are the anatomical location of the executive functions and have important implications for delinquent behavior.
Courtesy of National Library of Medicine.
The Nature-Nurture Interplay
Today it is understood that biology affects behavior through heritability.
Biological factors thus influence social behavior, including delinquency.
Genotype is an individual’s gene composition.
Gene x environment correlations (rGE)
Passive rGEs
Evocative rGEs
Active rGEs
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Gene x Environment Correlations (rGE)
Gene x environment correlations (rGE) are the ways genes interact with environmental conditions.
Three types of genes:
Passive rGEs
Evocative rGEs
Active rGEs
Some youth may be genetically predisposed to seeking out mischief.
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Intelligence
Intelligence is the ability to learn, exercise judgment, and be imaginative.
Intelligence is judged through IQ scores, the ratio of mental age multiplied by 100 and then divided by chronological age.
Early research suggested that low intelligence led to lawbreaking.
Edwin Sutherland denied the relationship between intelligence and delinquency.
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Intelligence and Delinquency
Travis Hirschi and Michael Hindelang found IQ to be a better predictor of involvement in delinquency than race or social class.
Intelligence has been linked to the most severe forms of criminal behavior.
Jean-Pierre Guay’s study on sex offenders.
5 possibilities of how intelligence affects delinquency.
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Hormones and Puberty
Alan Booth and Wayne Osgood found a significant relationship between testosterone and deviance.
Testosterone is a correlate of aggression.
Richard Felson and Dana Haynie found that adolescent boys who were more physically developed were more likely to engage in violent and property crimes.
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Family, Twin, and Adoption Studies
Probands or subjects who present the traits under investigation.
Gluecks’ family study speculates that crime runs in the family.
Sociopathy among family members was strong in Robert Cloninger and Samuel Guze’s study.
David Rowe and David Farrington’s transmission of criminal convictions yielded significant results.
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Twin and Adoption Studies
Monozygotic twins (MZ) or identical twins; from a single egg.
Dizygotic twins (DZ) or fraternal twins; from two eggs. No more alike than non-twin siblings.
Barry Hutchings and Sarnoff Mednick’s adoption and delinquency study and criminal records among parents and children.
National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (ADD Health) and research on genes.
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The Nurture-Nature Interplay
Behavior is under control of the brain and genes and cells interact with the environment.
The environment contributes to the brain’s wiring and contents.
Outside social environments can severely damage the brain of an unborn child.
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Maternal Cigarette Smoking (1 of 2)
Second-hand smoke kills roughly 50,000 adult nonsmokers annually.
Approximately 500 newborns die from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome induced by second-hand smoke annually.
Child illnesses such as ear infections and asthma are related to smoking.
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Maternal Cigarette Smoking (2 of 2)
Third-hand smoke can linger for months.
Research on mothers who smoke has found that their children are more likely to have developmental and behavioral problems.
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Chemical Poisoning (1 of 2)
Chemicals indirectly affect behavior by interfering with brain functioning.
Research shows that chemical pollutants such as mercury are dangerous and especially harmful when ingested by children.
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Chemical Poisoning (2 of 2)
Exposure to mercury causes damage to the brain, cardiovascular system, and kidneys.
Lead, another toxin, is dangerous to children because it damages their internal organs, causing intelligence and behavioral problems.
Poor, African American children are most susceptible to lead poisoning.
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Mapping Delinquency Theory: Lead Poisoning
© Jones & Bartlett Learning.
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Nutrition
Researchers have found a link between nutrition and behavior.
Stephen Schoenthaler’s vitamin study
Bernard Gesch’s supplement study
Jianghong Liu’s dietary study
Healthy diet improves brain function, intelligence, and performance in school, which are all strong links to delinquency.
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Biological Theory and Delinquency Prevention
Past recommendations based on biological theories were for drug therapy.
Previous drug therapy treatments were often unsuccessful.
Today researchers know the environment is a critical risk factor for influencing behavior.
Prevention is another way to reduce delinquency.
Early intervention can help eradicate risk factors for delinquency.
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Conclusions
Choice Theories
Assume children are rational and intelligent beings who make decisions to commit crime.
Associated with the Classical school of criminology.
Biological Theories
Blame delinquency on factors over which the individual has little to no control.
Associated with the Positive school of criminology.
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