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4.1: Biological theories influencing policies - Coggle Diagram
4.1: Biological theories influencing policies
Crime control policies
Surgery
Surgical castration
of sex offenders has been used in Denmark and the US. Results have been mixed.
Lobotomies
have been used to treat paranoid schizophrenia and sexually motivated and spontaneously violent criminals. It involves cutting the connection between the frontal lobes of the brain and the thalamus. As a result, it can have serious side effects and very few lobotomies are now performed.
Diet
Vitamin B3 has been used to treat some forms of schizophrenia.
Dietary changes have been used to try to control hyperactivity (which may lead to offending), e.g. removing tartrazine from children’s diets.
Gesch et al
Eating salmon, cheese, chocolate and nuts can increase serotonin levels, in turn improving anti-social behaviour (in up to 37% of cases).
In addition to the above individualised treatments, other policies use methods aimed at controlling groups by using chemical substances. For example,
tear gas
may be used to control crowds or disperse rioters. It works by causing uncomfortable or distressing sensations, including vomiting, breathing difficulties and disorientation. It can also cause lung damage and even death.
Drug treatments
Methadone
is used to treat addicts, as a long-term alternative to heroin or to prevent withdrawal symptoms. It is a legal, medically controlled substitute.
Stilbestrol
is a form of “chemical castration” that has been used in prison to treat male sex offenders. It is a female hormone that suppresses testosterone as a way of reducing men’s libido (sex drive). It can have serious side effects, including breast development, feminisation and serious psychiatric disorders.
Antabuse
is used in aversion therapy to treat alcoholism. It works by preventing the body from breaking down alcohol, immediately causing very unpleasant “hangover” symptoms if the user consumes even a small quantity.
To keep potentially troublesome or violent prisoners calm,
sedatives
and
tranquillizers
such as Valium, Librium and Largactil have been used.
Genetic theories - eugenics
Compulsory sterilisation
The “genetically unfit” should be prevented from breeding, (e.g. criminals and individuals with mental illnesses or learning difficulties).
Eugenicists set up pressure groups to campaign for their policies, which were introduced in several countries. For example, in 1927 the US Supreme Court ruled that it was legal to compulsorily sterilise the “unfit”, including those with learning disabilities, “for the protection and health of the state”. Other eugenic policies have included forced abortions and restrictions on the right to marry.
Nazis' "racial purity" policies
The Holocaust
Ultimately, eugenic policies became part of the justification for the Nazis’ genocide of supposedly “inferior” races during WW2. These included Jews (of whom at least 6 million were killed) and Gypsies/ Roma (of whom up to 1.5 million were murdered). In addition, many thousands of others defined as “deviants” were killed, including gays and lesbians, drug users, alcoholics and the homeless.
The Nazis strongly favoured such policies as a means of “purifying” the “Aryan master race” by eliminating those they deemed unfit to breed. Initially they targeted the physically and mentally disabled, with 400,000 people sterilised against their will and 70,000 killed under the Nazis’ euthanasia policy.
In the early 20th century, eugenicists were obsessed with the fear that the human race was in danger of ‘degenerating’ because the poor were breeding at a faster rate than the higher classes.
They were passing on supposedly “inferior” genes for low intelligence, insanity, poverty and criminality more quickly than the higher classes were passing on their “superior” genes, therefore lowering the average intelligence and moral quality of the population.