AQA A Level Psychology Paper 3
4.3 Issues and options in Psychology
Topic: Forensic Psychology
All 16 marker topic essays
1) Lombroso’s research into the atavistic form
[16]
The atavistic form is an early biological explanation for criminal
behaviour that proposed a new perspective that offenders were not to
blame for their actions as criminality was innate and rooted in genes.
The Italian physician Lombroso suggested that criminals were ‘genetic
throwbacks’, a primitive subspecies who were biologically different from
non-criminals. As a result, they are ill-suited to conforming to the rules of
modern society. The atavistic form can be identified by physiological
markers that were linked to certain types of offences, such as a narrow
sloping brow, a strong prominent jaw, and facial asymmetry. As well as
physical traits, Lombroso suggested that there were other aspects of the
born offender such as insensitivity to pain, the use of slang, tattoos and
unemployment. Lombroso went on to categorise certain types of
offenders in terms of their physical and facial characteristics, for example
murderers were described as having bloodshot eyes and curly hair,
whilst sexual deviants had glinting eyes and swollen, fleshy lips. In his
research, Lombroso studied the cranial and facial features of many
Italian convicts, both alive and dead, and after examining the skulls of
3839 living criminals and 383 dead ones, he concluded that 21% had
one atavistic trait and 43% had at least 5.
A strength of Lombroso’s work is that it changed the face of the study of
crime. He has been hailed the ‘father of modern criminology’, as well as
being credited as shifting the emphasis in crime research away from a
moralistic discourse (where offenders were judged as being wicked and
weak-minded) towards a more scientific position, that of evolutionary
influences and genetics where individuals are not to blame. Therefore,
,this suggests that Lombroso made a major contribution to the science of
criminology. Also, in trying to describe how particular types of people are
likely to commit particular types of crime, Lombroso’s theory heralded
the beginning of offender profiling, which strengthens his role as the
father of modern criminology, where there is more scientific evidence of
criminals.
However, one limitation of Lombroso’s work is that several critics
including De Lisi have drawn attention to the distinct racial undertones
within Lombroso’s work. Many of the features that Lombroso identified
as criminal and atavistic, such as curly hair and dark skin, are most likely
to be found among people of African descent. Thus, he may have been
suggesting that Africans were more likely to be offenders, a view that
fitted 19th century eugenics attitudes. Therefore, this suggests that some
aspects of his theory were highly subjective rather than objective,
influenced by racial prejudices at the time.
A further limitation of Lombroso’s work is that there is evidence to
contradict the link between atavism and crime. Goring, like Lombroso,
set out to establish whether there was anything physically atypical about
offenders. After conducting a comparison between 3000 offenders and
3000 non-offenders, he concluded that there was no evidence that
offenders are a distinct group with unusual facial and cranial
characteristics. Therefore, this is a limitation because this challenges the
idea that offenders can be physically distinguished from the rest of the
population and are therefore unlikely to be a subspecies.
, 2) Genetic and neural explanations for offending behaviour
[16]
Genetic explanations for crime suggest that would-be offenders inherit a
gene, or combination of genes that predispose them to commit crime.
Twin studies illustrate the importance of genes. For example,
Christiansen studied over 3500 twin pairs in Denmark and found
concordance rates for offender behaviour of 35% for MZ twins and 13%
for DZ twins. This included all twins born between 1880 and 1910 in a
region of Denmark. Offender behaviour was checked against Danish
police records, this data indicates that it’s not just the behaviour that
might be inherited but the underlying predisposing traits. Crowe found
that adopted children whose biological mother had a criminal record had
a 50% risk of having a criminal record by the age of 18, whereas
adopted children whose biological mother didn’t have a criminal record
only had a 5% risk.
In regards to candidate genes, a genetic analysis of almost 800 Finnish
offenders by Tiihonen et al suggested that two genes (MAOA and
CDH13) may be associated with violent crime. The MAOA gene
regulates serotonin in the brain and has been linked to aggressive
behaviour and the CDH13 gene has been linked to substance abuse and
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The analysis found that almost
5-10% of all severe violent crimes in Finland is attributable to the MAOA
and CDH13 genotypes.
If genetics do have some influence on offending, it seems likely that this
is at least partly moderated by the effects of the environment. A
tendency towards offending behaviour may come about through the
, combination of genetic predisposition, and biological or psychological
triggers, for example being raised in a dysfunctional environment or
having criminal role models.
One limitation with using twin studies as genetic evidence is the
assumption of equal environments. It’s assumed by researchers
studying twins that environmental factors are held constant because
twins are brought up together, and so must experience similar
environments. However, this ‘shared environment assumption’ may
apply much more to MZ twins than DZ twins because MZ twins look
identical and people tend to treat them more similarly which, in turn,
affects their behaviour. Therefore, higher concordance rates for MZ twins
in twin studies may simply be because they’re treated much more
similarly than DZ twins.
However, a strength of genetic explanations for offending is support for
the diathesis stress model of offending. A study of 13,000 Danish
adoptees was conducted by Mednick et al. when neither the biological or
adoptive parents had convictions, the percentages of adoptees that did
was 13.5%. This figure rose to 20% when either of the biological parents
had convictions, and 24.5% when both adoptive and biological parents
had convictions. This shows that genetic inheritance plays an important
role in offending but environmental influence is clearly also important.
Neural evidence provides evidence that suggests there may be neural
differences in the brain of offenders and non-offenders. Much of the
evidence in this area has involved individuals diagnosed with antisocial
personality disorder (APD). APD is associated with reduced emotional
responses, a lack of empathy for the feelings of others and is a condition
that characterises many convicted offenders. Raine has conducted many
studies of the APD brain, reporting that there are several dozen
brain-imaging studies demonstrating that individuals with antisocial
personalities have reduced activity in the prefrontal cortex, the part of the
brain that regulates emotional behaviour. Alongside this, Raine and his
colleagues found an 11.1% reduction in the volume of grey matter in the
prefrontal cortex of people with APD compared to controls. Recent
research suggests that offenders with APD can experience empathy but
