Transcript Spot the criminal - King Edward VI Handsworth School VLE

Spot the (alleged) criminal
Spot the (alleged) criminal
Musician
Politician
Estate agent
What are their alleged crimes?
Today’s session
You are learning about...
You are learning to...
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Physiological theories of
criminal behaviour
Critically evaluate
psychological theories
Physiological theories
• Theories that link criminal behaviour to
biological form and function
– Atavistic form (Lombroso)
– Somatotype (Sheldon)
– Extra Y syndrome
Atavistic form theory
• Lombroso (1876)
– Criminality is inherited
– Genetic transmission of throwback/atavistic (i.e.
primitive) features
– Physical features indicate criminal tendencies
Lombroso (1876)
• Can you tell whether someone is a criminal
just by looking at them?
• How would you test this idea scientifically?
Lombroso (1876)
• A number of significant flaws:
– Lack of a control group for comparison
– Sample included people with
psychological/physiological disorders
– ‘Crime’ is a social construction
– ‘Single defective gene’ theories - doubtful
Lombroso (1876)
• A number of significant contributions:
– Later believed that most criminality was ‘acquired’
– environment, poverty, education
– Shifted study of crime to an empirical basis
– ‘The father of modern criminology’ (Shafer, 1976)
Somatotype theory
• Sheldon (1949)
– ‘Constitutional psychology’
– Criminality is linked to temperament
– Temperament is linked to bodily build
• Ectomorph
• Endomorph
• Mesomorph
Source: www.pponline.co.uk
Sheldon (1949)
Relaxed and
hedonistic
Energetic
and
adventurous
Solitary and
restrained
Sheldon (1949)
• The mesomorph’s personality makes him
more likely to engage in criminal activity
– Thousands of photographs rated 1 – 7 for
mesomorphy
– College students & delinquents compared
– Delinquents had higher mesomorphy ratings (4.6
vs. 3.8)
Sheldon (1949)
• Sheldon’s constitutional psychology is no
longer taken seriously
• But there is a small association between
bodily build and criminality. How could this
be explained?
– Influence of testosterone on body and behaviour?
– Effects of stereotyping and labelling?
• Last year you looked at the effects of sex
chromosome abnormalities on development.
What did you learn?
Chromosomal abnormalities
XY
XXY
XYY
Male with
feminine
characteristics
Male with
exaggerated male
characteristics
Chromosomal abnormalities
• ‘Extra Y’ syndrome was suggested to lead to:
– High testosterone levels
– Powerful bodily build
– Heightened aggression
– Propensity for violent crime
Chromosomal abnormalities
• XYY males not actually as predicted (Graham
et al, 2007):
– Normal testosterone levels
– Normal aggression levels
– Taller, but not necessarily more powerful
– Prone to developmental disorders and learning
difficulties
Chromosomal abnormalities
• XYY males are rare in the general population
and over-represented in the offender
population
– However, their crimes are not violent ones
– So why are XYY men at a greater risk of offending?
• Single factor theories of criminality are always
likely to fail
– ‘Crime’ is not a natural or homogenous category
of behaviour
– It is self-evidently the result of interaction
between a range of factors
– Different explanations for different types of crime