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biolgical theories of criminality - Coggle Diagram
biolgical theories of criminality
Lombroso
Lombroso's the idea that criminality can be predicted by the characteristics of a person: murderers have blood shot eyes strong jaws
this would suggest that criminality can be spread from generation to generation
however there are issues with Lombroso theories such as he didn't compare non-criminals to criminals, many of his test subjects would of been considered mentally ill by our standards Lombroso's theories can also cause scientific racism
Sheldon's Somatotypes
endomorph: relaxed, sociable, tolent. plump, buxom
mesomorph: active insensitive, vigorous muscular
ectomorph: quiet, fragile, restricted.... skinny
Sheldon states that mesomorphs are more likely to commit crime due to higher levels of testreone
other studies how proven parts of this theory such as Gleuk & Gleuk who found that 60% of offenders where mesomorphs
could be correlation not causation this means that the body type doesn't cause crime, but the body type is a result of a criminal life style
genetic theories of crimes
twin studies
monozygotic twins (MZ) share exactly the same genetic information therefore if one commits the crime the other are likely to too
52 percent of monozygotic twins both commit crimes and dizygotic twins have a 22 percent concordance rate.
this however its hard to sepreate nature and nurture as the twins will both grow up in similar satiations it also does not take the 42% of no cordant ctwin crimals into consideration
adoption studies
compares adopted children to their biological parent
adopted children share the envoirment of their adopted parent but the genetics of the bio parent the Mednick's study found that children with criminal bio parents where more likely to commit crime (20 %) this shows a possible biological connection to crime:
hutching and metchick found that 36% of adopes have a concordance of criminal records if both their bio and adopted parent had a criminal record.
21% of adoptees had a concordance rate if their bio parent had a criminal record.
12% if adopted parent.
11percent if neither
however these result may be because of the actual process is traumatic causing criminal behaviour
Jacob's XYY study
we have 46 chromosomes arranged in 23 pairs: female XX & male XY
there is a rare disorder called XYY syndrome, this is when a man has more of the Y chromosomes
men with XYY sundrome are commonly taller and stronger however they have a lower IQ
studies in imprisoned criminal places like secure psychiatric hospital showed an above average number of people with XYY syndrome