Chapter 3: Understanding Through Theory: Psychopathological, Psychodynamic, Social Location, and

Differential Association Perspectives

Introduction
 Strength of Theories
o general personality and cognitive social learning perspectives appear most powerful.
o Empirically, the weakest of the theories of criminal behavior were based on psychopathology
and social location perspectives.
o On the other hand, psychodynamic perspectives, historically, are at the heart of empirically
defensible criminological theory.
 Chapter Structure
o We begin, however, with psychopathological perspectives. Quite frankly, we want this
discussion out of the way so that we may move directly to the progress evident in the
psychodynamic, symbolic interaction, behavioral, personality, and social learning/cognitive
behavioral pathways toward an empirically defensible theory with considerable practical value.

Psychopathological Perspectives
 Perform very poorly when evaluated according to the standards of an adequate theory.
o Rarely is there a rationally organized set of principles that may be evaluated according to their
internal consistency, external consistency, parsimony, and so on
 How well do clinicians perform in their professional judgments of the probability of antisocial
outcomes?
o As will be reviewed in the chapter on prediction, the mean predictive validity estimates
(correlation coefficients) for professional clinical judgment are in the area of .03 to .12
o Systematic structured assessment instruments not concentrating on psychopathology readily
yield mean predictive validity estimates (r) of .35 and higher
 Evidence is equally bleak regarding the ability to influence antisocial outcomes through programs based
on psychopathological models
o Two important exceptions are noteworthy
 First, mental disorder may be a major specific responsivity factor within the RNR model.
 Second, the clinical talent that resides within forensic mental health may come to be
mobilized in pursuit of effective crime prevention.
 Forensic mental health has recently undergone a major intellectual revival
o predictive validity of assessments of substance abuse
o predictive validity of the Psychopathy Checklist–Revised (PCL-R)
 How does the PCL-R do relative to assessments of the “Big Eight” as introduced in Chapter 2?
o As a risk/need scale, PCL-R is an assessment instrument that focuses on antisocial personality
pattern and a history of antisocial behavior.
o The quick answer is easy: The mean predictive validity estimate for the PCL-R is in the area of .
25 while the mean predictive validity for the LSI-R is .37
 We are suggesting that a solid theory of criminal behavior will be more helpful to the field of forensic
mental health than the fi eld of forensic mental health has been to the development of PCC.
o forensic mental health (FMH)
 has something that has been sadly lacking in the fi eld of corrections
 deep connection to the ethos of patient care and a deep respect for clinical skills. I
 plea is made for FMH to come to view the reduction of criminal victimization as a
primary objective of clinical intervention.
 Skeem, Louden, Polaschek, and Camp (2007)
 illustrate the power within FMH when assessment and treatment contribute to the
blending of care and control.
  Considerable order in the outcomes of sex offender treatment programs has been
found when adherence with the principles of the RNR model is considered in
meta-analytic reviews
 putting understanding criminal behavior aside, the political economic and humanitarian issues
surrounding the treatment and management of the mentally ill in the justice system are huge.

Psychodynamic Conceptions of Human Behavior

 Review of Concepts in Context of PPC
o Id, Ego, Superego in Context of Criminal Conduct
 In sum, the id operates according to the pleasure principle, while the ego operates
according to the reality principle. The superego operates according to a severe moralistic
principle whereby moral lapses of commission or omission are subject to the experience
of intense guilt. The ego thus manages the demands of the id, external reality, the
conscience, and the ego-ideal.
 Adolescence represents a particularly risky period for criminal activity because, with
puberty, the sexual instincts are reawakened and remain at relatively high levels until
dampened by advancing age. By puberty, however, a more mature ego has developed that
can manage the id, the superego, and the opportunities and barriers provided in
immediate situations of action.
o Psychological Maturity
 For Freud, maturity is reflected in the ability to delay immediate gratifi cation, to love
and be loved in the context of a long-term sexual relationship, and to be socially
productive.
 Value judgments put aside, the empirical fact is that each of Freud’s three indicators of
“maturity,” when absent in individuals, are risk factors for criminal conduct.
 That is, weak self-control, marital instability, and an unstable employment record
are each well-established predictors of criminal conduct in adult samples
 There is another side to Freud’s conception of maturity that is often missed in discussions
of psychoanalytic theory.
 One of the consequences of a strong superego is a hyper-conventionality, which,
while often incompatible with criminal conduct, produces high levels of personal
misery.
 Clinicians who are Freudians are concerned with freeing individuals from the
prison of conventional controls as they are with controlling violations of
conventional codes

1. Environmental Barriers to Development

 the development of a mature ego and superego depends upon conditions of warmth, care, and attention,
in combination with supervision, direct training, and direct modeling for purposes of both skill
development and moral development.
 Number of Conditions Associated with Problematic Development
o Condition 1: extreme neglect and the outright abuse of the developing child
 Neither a strong ego nor a strong superego may be expected to develop under such
conditions.
o Condition 2: extreme permissiveness or unconditional warmth and affection
 While a strong ego may evolve, the superego will be weak except insofar as the parents
have incidentally demonstrated clear conceptions of “right” and “wrong.”
o Condition 3: patterns of child rearing in which the moral training occurs without a background
of warmth and affection
 Children from these families may be oriented to rules but may not possess a positive
orientation to people.
  In brief, over and over again, the major family of origin variables associated with youthful offending are
weak parental nurturance/caring and poor parental monitoring, supervision, and discipline
o those are the key parenting variables within risk assessments based on parenting in the family
origin.

2. The Immediate Environment, the Situation of Action, and the Psychological Moment
 strength of the general personality and cognitive social learning perspectives
o is that they recognize the importance of both:
 (1) the person in the immediate situation of action
 suggests the immediate causes of human behavior
 (2) background predisposition factors
 suggest what leads some people to circumstances in which the probability of a
criminal act may be high
 attempt to account for “criminality,” that is, to identify the factors responsible for
variation in criminal conduct over a broad time frame.
 psychodynamic theory
o recognizes the importance of the immediate causes of crime are both situational and personal
 Criminal acts are to be understood in the context of the person in immediate situations
o Figure 3.1
 presents a summary of the immediate causes of antisocial behavior according to
psychodynamic theory, wherein the person is represented by the superego, the ego, and
the id. The immediate environment may be distinguished according to the temptations
they provide and the external controls present.

3. Types of Offenders in Psychoanalytic Theory

 According to psychoanalytic theory, the possible routes to crime are many and diverse
 Mannheim (1965) – Types of Offenders in Psychoanalytic Theory
o The Weak Superego Type
 engage in frequent and serious criminal behavior because they lack internalized
representations of those behaviors that are punished and reinforced in conventional
society
  subject only to the need for immediate gratification and the demands of the immediate
external situation
 Indicators of a weak superego
 Reckless disregard for conventional rules and procedures
 Antisocial cognitions/procriminal sentiments (lack of a conscience)
 Little evidence of a life plan and weak conventional ambition (lack of an ego-
ideal)
 Little evidence of guilt (lack of a conscience)
 The early appearance of persistent and generalized conduct problems (the
superego is supposedly formed by the age of eight)
 Expressions of bravado, flirtatiousness, and exhibitionism (early conflicts
stemming from the seduction of the opposite-sex parent are unresolved)
 Conflict with authority figures (again, early conflicts and frustrations have not
been resolved)
 A basic separateness from other people that reflects essential isolation,
lovelessness, and a desperate loneliness.
 best known description of a “weak superego” type comes from Hervey Cleckley’s The
Mask of Sanity (1982), which is a classic work in the psychiatric/clinical tradition
 so influential and so closely tied to the image that his list of characteristics has
come to be known as the “Cleckley checklist for psychopathy.”
o The Weak Ego Type
 weak ego implies
 immaturity
 poorly developed social skills
 poor reality testing
 gullibility
 excessive dependence.
 the weak ego types are less under the control of superego than of the id and the
immediate environment
o The “Normal” Antisocial Offender
 offenders have progressed through the psychosexual stages of development without any
particular problems.
 Psychologically match the ideal of the full-functioning mature adult.
 mismatch with the ego-ideal is evident → The superego is procriminal as a result
of identification with a criminal parent, and the ego has incorporated a mastery of
criminal skills.
o The Neurotic Offender
 neurotic conflicts may translate into criminal behavior
 “criminal from a sense of guilt” - driven by an unconscious desire to be punished for past
crimes
 . An overactive superego may be seeking punishment for prior sins that, even if not
actually committed, were either contemplated or the focus of a wish-fulfilling fantasy.
 use criminal acts as a means of managing specific frustrations or emotional
disturbances, or as a way of impacting on disturbed family relations
o Other Types
 1. The psychotic and intellectually challenged are at risk for violations of the law. This
may be a logical extension of the incapacities that underlie definitions of being psychotic
or being intellectually challenged. If one is out of contact with reality or so intellectually
disadvantaged as to be unable to manage one’s affairs, illegal acts may occur as just
another of many transgressions of conventional rules.
  2. The situational offender responds to extreme and isolated circumstances such as
having stumbled upon the infi delity of a trusted spouse or being confronted with some
other particularly “unjust” or “enraging” situation.
 3. The perception of injustice is a particularly interesting route to crime within
psychoanalytic theory. Those who are persistently criminal as a result of a sense of
injustice also possess a hatred of their fathers. In brief, the state has been equated with the
hated father.
 4. Psychoanalytic thinkers, like most others who have attempted to map the routes to
crime, have attended to the role of alcohol and other drug use (and abuse). Some drugs
for some people may enhance motivation for crime and reduce internalized controls.
 5. The accidental offender may have stumbled into crime because of particularly
unlucky circumstances. Within psychoanalytic theory, even crimes of negligence or
“slips” may refl ect unconscious motivation
 Lombroso – 1800s
o Cesare Lombroso’s theory of atavism suggests that criminality is the result of primitive urges
which survived the evolutionary processes in modern-day human throwbacks
 Lombroso was the first criminologist of note to use the scientific method and one of the
first notable positivists
 Lombroso’s Theory of Atavism
 Atavistic individuals are throwbacks to a more primitive biological state
o Atavism: “A concept used by Lombroso to suggest that criminals are
physiological throwbacks to earlier stages of human evolution”
o Term derived from atavus, meaning “ancestor”
 Lombroso’s Study
o Studied and measured bodies of executed and deceased offenders as well
as examining living inmates to locate physical differences and
abnormalities
o Claimed to have found a variety of bodily features which predict
criminality
 Exceptionally long arms, large teeth, large ears, lacking ear lobs,
crooked nose, large amount of body hair, large lips
 Identified characteristics of particular types of offenders
 Implications of Atavism
o Atavism implies that offenders are “born criminals”
 bear a strong resemblance to the psychoanalytic concept of the
superego
 provided a list of psychosocial factors associated with born
criminality (to the content of questionnaires and rating scales
currently used in the prediction of recidivism)
 moral immaturity
 cruelty
 idleness
 vanity
 high tolerance for physical pain
 use of criminal argot
 the wearing of tattoos (the latter may be less relevant today)
o Lombroso also identified other categories of offenders
 Insane
  Mental and moral degenerates
 Includes alcoholics
 Criminaloids / occasional criminals
 Persons pulled into come crime by environmental
influences
 Criminals motivated by passion
 Those who surrender to intense emotions
 Female offenders
 Developed the masculinity hypothesis to suggest that
criminal women exhibited masculine features and
mannerisms
 Evaluation of Atavism
o Charles Goring
 evaluated Lombroso’s theory
 Compared prison inmates to university students, soldiers and
noncriminal hospital patients
 Found Lombroso’s theory to be unsound

4. Psychodynamic Thought and Recent Psychological Advances

 authors of this text do not believe that classic psychoanalytic thought represents the current state of
psychological knowledge.
o largely a matter of history in psychology although it remains alive and very hot in literary
criticism and the humanities.
o current psychology has concepts and procedures that have signifi cantly advanced, altered, and
successfully replaced the psychoanalytic perspective.
5. Reformulations of Psychodynamic Theory
 Sheldon Glueck and Eleanor Glueck (1950
o most important development in a psychodynamic theory of delinquency and crime
 accepted that underprivileged urban neighborhoods were criminogenic for young males,
but they also expected that the families and individuals residing in underprivileged areas
were far from being uniform in their attitudes and abilities
o “tentative causal formula”
 emphasized weak internal controls (a weak superego) resulting from poor parenting
practices and parental modeling, and temperamental/constitutional predispositions toward
the expression of aggressive energy and the pursuit of self- interest.
o Glueck and Glueck (1950: 281–282)
 Argued many theoried of their time we focused on a single factor and thus were not able
to thoughroughly explain crime
 There is a need for a multifactor approach to the study of crime causation
 provide their own summary of their perspective on male delinquency:
 Physically: Delinquents are essentially mesomorphic in constitution (solid,
muscular).
 Temperamentally: restlessly energetic, impulsive, extroverted, aggressive,
destructive.
 Attitudinally: hostile, defi ant, suspicious, stubborn, adventurous,
unconventional, non submissive to authority.
 Cognition: direct and concrete rather than symbolic, less methodical in problem-
solving.
  Familial: reared in homes of little understanding, affection, stability, or moral
fiber by parents usually unfit to be effective sources for emulation needed for the
construction of a well-balanced and socially normal superego.
6. Variations on Psychodynamic Themes in Control Theories
 Control theories are socialization theories.
o They are theories that focus upon how people come to develop strong ties to convention and
resist the temptations to steal and aggress
 Walter Reckless (1967
o suggesting that there were both inner and outer sources of control.
 The external controls were social pressures to conform, and the strength of these controls
would increase with a sense of belonging to anticriminal groups.
 These groups include the family, social clubs, schools, and religious organizations
o “Inner containment” is Reckless’s term for what psychologists call self-control, conscience, or
superego.
 Reckless listed five indicators of inner control:
 1. Positive self-concept that involves not only self-esteem but also seeing one’s
self as conventional as opposed to criminal;
 2. A commitment to long-range, legitimate goals;
 3. Setting realistic objectives; 4. High tolerance for frustration;
 5. Identification with lawfulness and respect for the law.
7. More Recent Variations on Psychodynamic Themes
 Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990)
o Self Control - “the tendency of people to avoid criminal acts whatever the circumstances in
which they find themselves” 
o Low self-control is a lack of that tendency.
 believed low self-control explained criminal acts and behavior across time, gender,
ethnicity, and crime types.
o believe that a child with low self- control is the product of “ineffective childrearing”
 Consistent supervision and discipline, coupled with affection, results in the proper
development of self-control.
o In order to instill self-control in children, four factors must be present
 Attachment of the parent to the child
 Parents must have concern for the welfare and behavior of the child
 Invest in the child
 Care for the child
o interesting issues
 was an opportunity to introduce antisocial attitudes, values, and beliefs as a trait,
Gottfredson and Hirschi chose not to do so.
 careful to qualify this element of low self-control by noting that people with low self-
control may well be charming and generous because they have learned how easily such
behavior generates rewards
8. Hirschi’s Self-Control Variation on Psychodynamic Theory
 Travis Hirschi (1969) set forth in Causes of Delinquency his social bond theory
o Divided criminological theories into three main perspectives:
o Control
o Strain
o Cultural deviance (differential association/social learning)
 Argued the three perspectives are incompatible and should be seen as rivals and tested empirically
against one another
 o Used survey research to obtain theoretical concepts and self- reported delinquency to test
theories
o Presented data showing the merits of his perspective and the comparative weaknesses of strain
and cultural deviance perspectives
 Focused on how an individual’s bonds to society influence decisions to break the law
 Controls originate and are sustained by the person’s bonds to society
 Discussed four elements of the bond
o Attachment
 Sensitivity to the opinion of others
 Cares about the wishes and expectations of others
 The internalization of norms (the conscience) lies in the attachment of individuals
to others
 Involves an emotional connection
 Relationships with parents most crucial
 Involves indirect control
 Psychologically present although not physically present
o Commitment
 Rational component—an assessment of the
 costs and benefits of crime
 Committed to conformity
 Fear of consequences
 People invest time, money, energy, etc. into conventional behavior and must take into
account the costs of deviant behavior
 Runs the risk of losing the investment in conventional behavior
 If uncommitted, have nothing to lose by committing crime
o Involvement
 Time and energy are limited
 “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop”
 Engrossment in conventional activities keeps a person too busy to find time to engage in
deviant behavior
o Belief
 Variation in the extent to which people believe they should obey the rules of society
 The less a person believes s/he should obey the rules, the more likely he/she is to
violate them
 When a person’s beliefs in the moral validity of norms are weakened, the likelihood of
crime increases
 Argues there is a common value system
 Advantages
o Overall, there is fairly consistent support for the general thesis that weak social bonds increase
the risk of being involved in criminal behavior
 Downfalls
o However, Hirschi’s claim that other theories are not empirically viable is incorrect
o Also, Hirschi does not examine how macro-social changes in society affect the strength of social
bonds for people in different sectors

Toward Social Learning via Frustration-Aggression

1. From Freud to Social Learning: Frustration-Aggression
 Frustration and Aggression, by Dollard, Doob, Miller, Mowrer, and Sears
o beginning of modern conceptions of aggression and criminality can be dated to 1939
 o viewed the correlates of criminality as indicators of frustration and/or as indicators of the
inhibitors of criminal behavior.
o The frustration-aggression hypothesis also had a major influence in the development of social
learning theory (next section)
o linked Freudian concepts with the methods and concepts of an emerging behavioral perspective
on human behavior:
 Aggression is always a consequence of frustration.
 All aggression is preceded by frustration, and frustration is always followed by
some form of aggression. Frustration is interference with a behavior sequence that
has a valued goal-response.
 Aggression is an act that has the goal of injuring another person.
 The strength of instigation to aggression (i.e., the amount of frustration) increases with:
 a) the strength of instigation to the frustrated response;
 b) the degree of interference with the frustrated response;
 c) the number of frustrations.
 The strength of inhibition of any act of aggression increases with the amount of
punishment anticipated as a consequence of that act.
 The instigation to aggress is strongest against the agent perceived to be responsible for
the frustration.
 The greater the degree of inhibition specific to the frustrating agent, the more probable
the occurrence of indirect aggression and/or displaced aggression.
 The occurrence of an aggressive act is followed by a temporary reduction in the
instigation to aggress (catharsis).
2. The Rise of Social Learning Theory
 Berkowitz (1962)
o revision of the frustration-aggression hypothesis called Aggression: A Social Psychological
Analysi
o A frustration creates a predisposition to aggression by arousing anger. Anger is a drive that leads
to drive-specific behaviors (i.e., aggression) in the presence of appropriate cues or releasers.
 A person displays violence if anger is high and/or if violent behavior has been reinforced
in the past.
 The aggressive person has learned to interpret a wide variety of persons and situations as
threatening or frustrating and has learned habits of aggression to these cues.
o This model, which we have only sketched here, is the basis for treatment programs that target the
control of anger
 The aggressive personality will differ from less aggressive people in the following ways:
 1. The number and variety of events defined as a threat and that arouse anger.
 2. The level of affective-physiological arousal, and the cognitions supportive or
not supportive of violence.
 3. The specific forms of aggressive behavior that have been reinforced in the
past, and the availability of alternative nonaggressive responses.

3. Megargee’s Algebra of Aggression

 Megargee (1982)
o provided a framework that incorporates the vast majority of the elements of psychological
research on aggression and criminality
 The variables associated with criminal violence are represented within broad categories:
o Instigation to aggression (A). The sum of all internal motivators. Some examples are personal
gains such as money, anger in response to frustration, and jealousy.
o Habit Strength (H). Behavioral preferences learned by rewarded experience and observation.
 o Inhibitions against aggression (I). The sum of all internal factors opposing an aggressive act,
including conditioned fear of punishment, learned attitudes and values, and identifi cation with
the victim.
o Stimulus factors in the immediate environment that may facilitate (Sa) or inhibit (Si) violence.
o Response competition. Other possible responses are subject to their own algebra and
nonaggressive responses may have a more favorable cost-benefi t ratio than the aggressive
response.
 the motivational factors must outweigh the inhibitory factors.
o occurrence of an aggressive act, then, depends upon the following formula:
 A + H + Sa > I + Si
 Instigation to aggression (A).
 Habit Strength (H).
 Inhibitions against aggression (I).
 Stimulus factors facilitating (Sa) or inhibiting (Si) violence.
 Response competition.

Class-Based Sociological Theory: Social Location, Social Reaction, and Inequality

 4 class-based sociological perspectives - each purport that social class of origin is a major source of
variation in illegal conduct at the individual level.
o anomie/strain theory
o subcultural theory
o labeling theory
o conflict/Marxist theory
 Note that:
o None of the class-based sociological theories are capable of providing images of crime and
offenders that can even begin to approach the predictive validity of the psychodynamic and
general personality and cognitive social learning models.
o There is no way that any fi nding regarding conventional ambition, conventional success, or
conventional failure does not relate to crime in a way that may be supported by some anomie
theorists.
1. Anomie/Strain Theory
 Anomie/Strain Theory & Robert Merton (1938, 1957)
o Core Assumption: lower-class persons were more likely to engage in criminal behavior than
middle- and upper-class persons. Thus, position in the socioeconomic system (that is, social
location) was said to account for a major portion of variability in criminal behavior
o Social condition or structure composed of two elements: Cultural goals and institutional
means
o Discprepancies: results in deviant acts due to two conditions:
 pressure to achieve culturally defined goals (strain)
 No available and legitimate means to achieve these goals
o Strain
 Pressure that individuals feel to reach socially determined goals
 Crime results from attempts to achieve legitimate goals through illegitimate means
o Anomie
 Disjunction (discrepancies) between goals and means
 pressure to achieve culturally defined goals (strain) but no available and
legitimate means to achieve these goals
 Different Modes of Adaptive Behaviours to Anomie
 Innovation (i.e., crime)
  retreatism (mental disorder and substance abuse among the real “down and out”
of society)
 rebellion (attempts to create a new social order on the part of the more able and
intellectual within the lower class)
 ritualism (the mindless grinding away of the working poor who have transferred
the dream to that of their children “making it”).
o Conceptualization of Criminal Behaviour:
 Criminal behaviour as an innovative route to the same rewards that conventional
employment would bring if only legitimate channels were available
 Crime was not the unsocialized expression of unbridled sexualaggressive energy but
rather an expression of socialized conventional ambition. Offenders were not “deviants”
but “innovators.”
o In summary, anomie/strain theory attempted to rid criminal motivation and criminals of all that
“rude psychoanalytic stuff.”
 Psychologically, a social location translation of frustration-aggression theory
homogenized the abilities and diversity of human beings and created a predictable image
of the person.
 General Strain Theory & Robert Agnew (1992)
o Strain Theory focuses on:
 Negative relationships with others
 Delinquency as the result of pressure by negative states such as anger and other negative
emotions as a result of negative relationships (Agnew,1992)
o The General Strain Theory groups several types of strains under three main categories. Each
category refers to the type of relationship with others.
 1) Strain as the failure to achieve positively valued goals:
 A) Difference between the aspirations/expectation and actual achievements:
Influenced by factors such as social class, intelligence, physical attractiveness,
physical ability, etc.
 B) Difference between the expectations and the achievements: These
expectations are created by the individual as ideal goals based on the
understanding of what he/she should be able to achieve
 C) Difference between just/fair outcomes and the actual outcome: This strain
is based on the individual’s understanding of what he/she considers fair
 2) Strain as the removal of positively valued stimuli from the individual
 Caused when a positively valued stimuli is removed and the result is delinquency.
 This criminal behavior may present itself as an attempt to prevent the loss of the
stimuli, obtain a replacement for the stimuli or as an act of revenge for the loss of
the stimuli (Agnew,1992).
 Examples of this strain are
o the loss of a close friend,
o end of a relationship,
o being laid off from a job, etc.
 3) Strain as the presentation of negative stimuli
 It is based on the actual or anticipated presentation of negative or noxious stimuli
 Examples of negative and/or noxious stimuli are
o physical and sexual abuse
o child neglect
o domestic violence
 o dangerous school
 Agnew’s General Strain Theory states that noxious stimuli could promote
aggression and other negative outcomes .
 Agnew explains that noxious stimuli could cause juveniles to engage in
delinquent behavior as a way to escape or avoid the negative stimuli, terminate
the negative stimuli or seek revenge against the negative stimuli
o Links between strain and delinquency
 Negative affect, especially anger, promotes the desire to correct a situation, making
delinquency a possible option
 Delinquency may be used to ease strain caused by the failure to achieve positively valued
goals
 Delinquency may be used to protect or retrieve positive stimuli
 Delinquency may be used as a tool to neutralize negative stimuli
 Delinquency may be used as a tool of revenge for the inability to achieve, protect or
retrieve positively valued goals (Agnew,1992).
o

2. Subcultural Perspectives in the Bold Sociological Mode

 Matza (1964) was among social scientists who became concerned that subcultural theories were: (1)
overpredicting delinquency among the young lower-class males, and (2) not even attempting to account
for the delinquency of occupants of other social positions
o it was clear that the delinquent cultures were diffi cult to identify except by examining personal
attitudes and personal behavior
o hypothesized that there was a “subculture of delinquency” not bound by the limits of geography,
age, sex, race, or class. Therefore, we are all surrounded by a subculture of delinquency
 Sykes and Matza (1957)
o less inclined than subcultural theorists to accept the image of the delinquent as one committed to
criminal values.
o suggested that delinquents know that certain acts, if detected, will be punished. However, they
are enabled to act antisocially by engaging a set of verbalizations that function to say that, in
particular situations, it is “OK” to violate the law (referred to as “techniques of neutralization”).
o Note that these verbalizations may be used prior to action and are considered causal. Their use is
not limited to deflecting blame or controlling guilt after an offense has occurred.

A General Personality and Cognitive Social Learning Theory of Criminal Conduct

 The major psycho-social-
biological factors that
influence and maintain
criminal behavior are
schematically summarized
o Recognizes that
there are multiple
routes to
involvement in
illegal conduct
 GPCSL theory gives salience to what we call the Central Eight risk/need factors – all interact to product
criminal behaviour
o Dynamic Factors
 Dynamic factors - This is important for two reasons:
 1) assessing dynamic risk factors with multiwave assessments over time permits
the monitoring of changes in offender risk, and
 2) these criminogenic needs serve as appropriate
 the Central Eight risk/need factors are consistently observed across the meta-analytic
reviews
 more recent research with general offenders, youthful offenders, mentally
disordered offenders, racial minorities, and drug offenders have not found this
distinction between the Big Four and Moderate Four.
o Recidivism
 Recidivism indicators
 early involvement
 an extensive history
 a variety of antisocial activities (property plus violent offences)
 rule violations even while under supervision (e.g. parole violations)
 Errors in Assessing Recidivism
 major error in risk assessment is to score seriousness of the current offense as a
risk factor → not a major risk factor, but an aggravating factor in sentencing
o Antisocial Personality Pattern (APP)
 involves at least two relatively independent dimensions
 self-control and a lack of planning (low impulse control)
 negative emotionality (in the sense of irritability, feeling mistreated, and being
antagonistic)
 Two means of trait measures of APP
 assess these predispositions as relatively stable, enduring factors
 assessed as acute dynamic factors (highly important in a GPCSL understanding of
variation in criminal activity; i.e. angry outburst)
o Weak Predictors
 personality research is also very helpful in identifying factors that have very little to offer
in understanding individual differences in criminal activity
 These weak noncriminogenic factors include
o happiness, self-esteem, sociability, feelings of anxiety and worry, and
psychopathology
o Judgement and Decision Making
 The major sources of variation in judgments of appropriateness and the decision to act are
 a combination of the immediate environment
o facilitators
o obstacles to criminal conduct
 many of the Central Eight risk/need factors.
 the decision to act criminally becomes very likely if
 the attitudes and cognitions held by the person are supportive of criminal behavior
 there is social support for the behavior (either perceived and/or direct assistance)
 there is a history of having engaged in criminal behavior
 the person has relatively stable personality characteristics conducive to antisocial
conduct (e.g. cognitive emotional states such as anger and poor self-control)
 The Learning of Criminal Behaviour
o GPCSL assumes that all behavior, including criminal behavior, is learned. Having identified the
major social and interpersonal sources of criminal conduct (i.e. the Central Eight), the question
then becomes how is criminal behavior learned within these settings?
 The answer lies in the principles of learning, and here the concepts of rewards and costs
are fundamentals.
 Types of Control: Additive and Subtractive Events
 Additive Events
o Additive events (rewards/costs are introduced, extended, or augmented)
 Additive rewards are consequences that add something pleasing
to the environment (e.g. delivering praise to a child for a valued
act)
 Additive costs augment or add something unpleasant (e.g. a slap
on the face for an unwanted kiss)
 Subtractive Events
o Subtractive events (rewards/costs are withdrawn, postponed, or
diminished)
 Subtractive rewards are consequences that remove something
unpleasant (e.g. the chances of an assault recurring will increase if
the assault was successful in stopping someone from behaving
undesirably)
 Subtractive costs remove pleasantness (e.g. feeling sick after
drinking excessively). The point to remember is that a reward leads
to an increased likelihood of the behavior reoccurring while a cost
decreases the chances.

 Person Factors Producing Individual Response in Relation to Types of Control

 There are no universal rewards and costs that work for everyone in all
situations.
o What may be a reward for one person may be a cost for another.
o What may be a powerful reward for one individual may mean little for
another.
 This depends on a range of person factors
o genetic disposition and capability (e.g. the rewarding power of cocaine
may be dependent on the presence of certain neuro-receptors)
o cognitive functioning (e.g. a cost occurring days later requires the ability
to think in the long term)
o human development (e.g. a cookie is more effective than a dollar for a
one-year-old)
 o state conditions (e.g. scolding is less effective when the person is
intoxicated then when the individual is sober).
 There are many physical and cognitive characteristics of the person that
influence the capability to respond and learn. Sometimes these person factors are
o permanent (e.g. brain damage)
o sometimes they are transitory (e.g. developmental and maturational
changes)
o sometimes they are acute (e.g. intoxication; feeling mistreated in a
particular moment in a particular situation).
 Density of Additive and Subtractive Events
 variations in the probability of occurrence of criminal behavior are a positive
function of the signaled density of the rewards for criminal behavior and a
negative function of the signaled density of the costs for crim
 probability of criminal behavior is also a positive function of the signaled density
of the rewards for prosocial behavior and a negative function of the signaled
density of the costs for prosocial behavio
 rewards for criminal behavior outweigh the rewards for prosocial behavior and
there are few costs for criminal behavior, then criminal conduct is the likely result
 impact of altering the density of rewards and costs is greatest at the intermediate
levels and less so at the extremes of very low or very high densities (adding one
more reward or cost to a behavior that already has many rewards or costs will not
make much of a difference)
 Sources of Additive and Subtractive Events
 Antecedents and consequences arise from three major sources:
o (1) the actor – personally mediated events
 The strength of personally mediated influence is maximized when
the person has high self-control skills and when personal
cognitions and attitudes are either supportive of criminal behavior
(likelihood of criminal behavior) or supportive of prosocial
behavior (likelihood of prosocial behavior). Personally mediated
control is weakened when cognitions are neutral
o (2) other persons – interpersonally mediated events
 The strength of interpersonally mediated influence increases with
adherence to the relationship and structuring principles. The
relationship principle states that if the other is respected, valued,
and liked, the effect of interpersonal influence is enhanced. The
structuring principle states that the direction of the influence is
determined by the procriminal versus prosocial nature of the
other’s cognitions, expectations, and behavior. A high-quality
relationship with a person who is neutral toward crime will have an
intermediate impact on criminal behavior
o (3) the act itself – nonmediated or automatic and habitual events
 Nonmediated influences are relatively automatic as a function of
the act itself and primarily reflect a history of reinforcement for the
target behavior. Through repeated and heavily rehearsed
associations of other stimulus events with reinforced behavior, the
stimuli may also come to exert automatic control. Thus, for
example, simply thinking of a significant other may influence the
occurrence of behaviors preferred by the other or the ingestion of a
drug produces sensory change
 A Glimpse at the Evidence Supporting GPCSL and the Central Eight
 o Resource Note 3.3
 The pattern was clear. Lower-class origins and personal distress were minor risk factors
compared to the other sets of variables. This was true for males and females, whites and
blacks, and for younger and older persons. The pattern was evident whether cross-
sectional or longitudinal research designs research were used and whether criminal
behavior was defined by self-report or by official records. Whatever way you look at the
findings, attitudes/associates and antisocial personality pattern/history were most strongly
correlated with criminal behavior

Summary
 In the context of GPCSL, crime cannot be understood without understanding whether the personal,
interpersonal, and community supports for human behavior are favorable or unfavorable to crime. It is
not sufficient to highlight the accumulation of rewards and satisfactions (strain theory and subcultural
theory) and the imbalance of social power (labeling and conflict/Marxist theories). It is also not
sufficient to highlight the external and internal controls on criminal behavior. Both motivation and
control must be considered within the context of person factors in order to understand criminal behavior.

Worth Remembering
 1. Historically, sociological criminology has been a dominant force in theories of criminal behavior.
Some of the theories placed the individual’s location in the social hierarchy as the cause of crime.
However, the evidence shows that social class is a minor correlate of criminal conduct.
 2. Other criminological theories have taken on a more social-psychological approach. Self-control,
procriminal associates, and procriminal attitudes were seen as more important than social location.
 3. A General Personality and Cognitive Social Learning (GPCSL) theory postulates eight major
risk/need factors called the Central Eight. They are 1) criminal history, 2) procriminal attitudes, 3)
procriminal associates, 4) antisocial personality pattern, 5) family/marital, 6) school/work, 7) substance
abuse, and 8) leisure/recreation. The effect size for the Central Eight risk/need factors is larger than for
social class and personal distress.
 4. GPCSL assumes that criminal behavior is learned in accordance with the principles of learning and
behavior is under antecedent and consequent control.
 5. Variation in criminal behavior is a reflection of the density of signaled rewards and costs for criminal
and noncriminal alternative behaviors.
 6. The sources of signaled rewards are personal, interpersonal, and nonmediated.
 7. A major feature of the GPCSL is the strength of its implications for the design of prevention and
rehabilitation programs.
 Chapter 4: The Biological Basis of Criminal Behaviour
Heredity and Crime
1. The Search for a Crime Gene
 For those interested in criminal behavior, the XYY chromosomal aberration has attracted the most
attention
o Jacobs, Brunton, Melville, Brittain, and McClemont (1965)
 suggested a link between an extra Y chromosome and violent behavior.
 Enthusiasm over these findings spawned not only the expected court defense of the “gene
made me do it”, but also some drastic measures such as screening male infants and high
school students for the extra Y chromosome
 biased samples of institutionalized, often intellectually handicapped males
o Later research well-designed epidemiological studies found that having an extra Y chromosome
was largely irrelevant.
 First of all, the incidence of XYY is extremely small
 Second, in order to ascertain that it was the extra Y chromosome and not just simply
having any extra
 chromosome that accounted for differences in criminal conduct, the researchers
compared the XYY men to men who had an additional X chromosome (a condition
known as Klinefelter’s syndrome, which is characterized by male genitals but often with
sterility, breast enlargement, and intellectual retardation).
Group
Study XY XYY XXY
(Normal)
Denmark 9.3 (4096) 41.7 (5/12) 18.8 (3/16)
(Witkin et
al.)
Scotland 11.6 (7/60) 29.4 (5/17) 11.8 (2/17)
(Götz et al.)

o Most recent research

 the incidence of XXY is very low, less than 1 percent
 no differences in criminal offending between the men with an extra Y
chromosome and the men with an extra X chromosome
 XYY had higher crime rates than normals (p < .01), but crimes were nonviolent
and not serious
 Both XYY and XXY had lower IQs (p < .05); IQ was related to crime: intellectual
dysfunction
 Even with restricted height range, taller men were less likely to have a criminal record
 SES was unrelated to criminal behavior
 although an interesting story, falls into the trap of oversimplification and genetic
determinism
 many genes operating on the expression of behavior, and this is in interaction with
the environment.
2. Intergenerational Crime
 “Crime runs in families” – high-consensus inference of casual observers
o intergenerational criminality from a number of studies in developmental criminology
 thought that transmission applies
 equally to boys and girls
 across three generations
o however, do not necessarily mean that there is genetic transmission of criminality
 Other factors are also important
  parental monitoring and disciplining practices
 having a father with a poor work record
 living in poor housing
 official police and court processing
 Another explanatory factor is “assortative mating.
 likelihood that antisocial individuals tend to cohabit with procriminal partners or
that antisocial children tend to be raised in dysfunctional, strife-ridden families all
point to the influence of the environment rather than genes in the criminality of
the children.
3. What Twin and Adoption Studies Tell Us about Nature and Nurture
 to better separate the influences of heredity and the environment on the development of criminal
behaviour, investigators have turned to the study of twins and adopted children.
 twin MZ research can tell you a great deal about potential specific environmental causes since genetics
and, to some extent, general environmental experiences (i.e. the equal environments assumption) are
held constant.
o Researchers have called this the counterfactual model of causality since instead of using twins
to understand the effects of heredity, we are trying to understand the effects of the environment
a. Twin Studies
o Studies of Twins and Criminality
Study Zygosity Concordance
1929 MZ 77%
(Lange) DZ 12%
pre-1967 MZ 55%
(Eysenck) DZ 13%
post-1968 MZ 46%
DZ 27%
 Lange (1929)
 Lange found that the similarity/concordance rate for MZ twins with respect to
criminality was 77 percent and only 12 percent for DZ twins
 Problems with Study
o Nazi Germany influence on purpose of study
o Serious methodological problems.
 Caspi, Moffitt, Morgan et al., 2004
 do the mothers genetically transmit hostility to the children, explaining the
aggressive behavior, or does the aggressive behavior of the child produce a hostile
reaction from the mother, thus ruling out heredity?
o The first important finding was that the mothers did not treat each twin
similarly. Many times, one twin would be described positively and the
other negatively (the correlations between twins were 0.65 for positive
attributions and 0.06 for negativity).
o Second, negative emotions expressed by the mother predicted aggression
in their child.
o Thus, the researchers concluded that it was the mother’s treatment and not
heredity that explained the child’s aggressiveness
b. Adoption Studies
o Purpose in Relation to Criminal Behaviour
 criminal futures of adopted children are analyzed in relation to
 (a) criminal history of the biological parents
 (b) criminal history of adoptive parents
  (c) particular combinations of criminality in the biological and adoptive parents.
 The assumption is that if the rate of criminality among adopted children is higher for
those who have a biological parent with a criminal record than for the adoptees with a
noncriminal biological parent, then heredity has an effect.
o Mednick, Gabrielli, and Hutchings (1984)
 tabulated the conviction rate of male adoptees in relation to the criminal convictions of
their biological and adoptive parents
 very small genetic effect (r = .03 based on calculation of x2)
 adoptees raised by noncriminal parents but who had criminal biological parents were at a
higher risk of being convicted than adoptees from noncriminal biological parents and
raised by noncriminal foster parents (20 percent vs. 13.5 percent)
 Follow up: Mednick, Gabrielli, and Hutchings (1987)
 focused on what they called chronic (i.e. life-course-persistent) offenders.
o Chronic offenders were defined as having at least three prior convictions.
 They represented 4 percent of the sample but were responsible for 69 percent of
all the crimes
o Burt and Simons’s (2014)
 call for ending heredity research.
 one may agree with them, as it is now well-established that almost all personality
traits are influenced by genetics
 However, agreeing still means that we can use twin and adoption studies to
explore possible environmental influences on criminal behavior.
 saw epigenetic research as the future
 it is unclear if epigenetic research, particularly with respect to the neuroscience of
criminal behavior will lead to advances similar to medicine or whether too much
is expected
o Walters (1992)
Type of Study Weighted
Effect Size
Family Pedigree .26
Twin .21
Adoption .07
 concordance rate for the adoption studies decreased significantly from the rate found in
the twin studies, but it was not zero.
o John Malouff, Sally Rooke, and Nicola Schutte (2008)
 Found higher heritability was associated with the severity of the problem.
 Being female or having a diagnosis of a conduct disorder (a feature of the life-course-
persistent offender) had higher heritability then being male or the absence of a conduct
disorder
o Barnes, Beaver, and Boutwell (2011)
 the more infrequent/severe type of offender (i.e. the female offender and the career
criminal), the stronger the genetic influence
4. The Nature-Nurture Interaction
 Moffitt et al. (2011)
o Exploring the nature-nurture interaction can proceed on two levels representing the biological
systems that underlie criminal conduct
 There is the molecular genetic level
 There is a higher level of the behavioral markers
o listed a number of behavioral markers indicative of biological system processes that may interact
with environmental factors
  Sensation-seeking
 High energy
 Low self-control
 Emotionality
 Callousness
o The general message is that the expression of genetic and biological factors is often dependent
upon the right environmental conditions
o Moffitt’s Developmental Theory
 Close inspection of crime rate trends over the life-course indicate that there are two types
of offenders:
 Adolescent limited offenders: antisocial behavior is temporary and situational
 Life-course persistent offenders: antisocial behavior is permanent and stable
 Timing and duration of offending is critical aspect between the types of offenders—stable
v. unstable antisocial behavior
 Defining the Life-Course Persistent Offender
 Underlying trait that begins at very early age and continues throughout life and
underlies a variety of problem behaviors
o Age 4: biting and hitting
o Age 10: Truancy and shoplifting
o Age 16: Sell drugs/steal cars
o Age 22: Robbery and rape
o Age 30: Fraud and child abuse
 Persistence of other problem behaviors throughout life: Drug addiction,
homelessness, unstable relationships, domestic violence, and mental illness
 Factors Related to Life Course Persistence
 Difference exists in individual differences in neuropsychological functions of
infant nervous system
o What can cause these differences to occur?
 Disruption in fetal brain development/brain injury
 Maternal drug use
 Poor nutrition
 Exposure to toxic agents
 Birth complications
 Lack of stimulation and affection
 Abuse/neglect
 Results in neuropsychological deficits (temperament, behavior
development, and cognitive abilities)
 LCP Interaction in Environment
 Reactive interaction-react to environment with their style
 Proactive interaction-select or create environment to support style (e.g., selecting
similar mate)
 Cumulative consequences-underlying trait sets downhill path in motion
 Contemporary consequences-impact of trait on environment
 Why do LCP fail to desist in their offending?
o Fail to learn conventional prosocial alternatives due to rejection and lack
of opportunities
o Become ensnared in deviant lifestyle
  Intervention
 Underlying trait underlies deficiencies in temperament, developmental
milestones, and cognitive abilities
 Interaction with environment creates the antisocial personality and is fixed
(according to Moffitt) before 18 years old
 Therefore, treatment is difficult after this point
 Adolescent Limited
 Statistically, it is rare for individual to refrain from crime during adolescence
 The defining characteristic for most adolescents, however, is the lack of
consistency in their offending
 Why do a few not get involved in delinquency during adolescence?
o No maturity gap: Late puberty or access to opportunities
o Personal characteristics that exclude from networks Few opportunities for
mimicking
 Explaining AL Behavior
 Motivation: Duration of adolescence has lengthened, forcing those in the age
group to delay their entry into adulthood
 Social mimicry: When one species adopts the social behavior of more successful
species to obtain access to a valuable resource
o Valuable resource=Mature status and the power and privilege that comes
with it
o LCP become influential in the peer structure—delinquency that was
stigmatizing as a child is not normative group behavior because it provides
an avenue to the valuable resource
 Reinforcement: The negative consequences that result from delinquency “fit”
with need and desire to rebel
 Explaining AL Desistence
 At the end of adolescence, motivation wanes because of the change in
circumstance—entry into adulthood
 Exempt from cumulative and contemporary continuity, so opportunities and
acceptance is not an issue
 Delinquency for these adolescents is considered normative rather than abnormal
 Best adjusted adolescents appear to be those who have experimented and been
responded to with consistent and reasonable discipline
5. Neurophysiological Factors and Crime
 biological factors generally, and neurophysiological factors specifically, do influence criminal conduct.
 Neurophysiological Underarousal
o neurophysiological underarousal and the need for stimulation highlight the automatic,
nonmediated reinforcement potential of criminal behavior.
 That is, some offenders may engage in criminal acts not so much because of peer
approval or some type of self-reinforcement strategy but because the act itself feels good
o neurophysiological arousal hypothesis provides a plausible explanation for criminal behavior in
the absence of interpersonal or personally mediated controls.
 Difficulties in self-control and disturbances in neurophysiological arousal do not mean
that all hope is lost for the chronic offender.
o Amygdala and Limbic System
  What is so special about the amygdala, and is this tiny structure the possible center of all
that is evil and bad?
 Together with other nearby structures it forms a circuit called the limbic system.
o natural target for localizing anger and aggression in the brain.
o studies also showed that the amygdala is not totally responsible for
aggressivity and that other structures in the limbic system (e.g.
hippocampus, thalamus, etc.) were involved along with the amygdala.
o Prefrontal Cortex and Limbic System
 Violent behavior appears to depend on a combination of processes within the limbic
system and the prefrontal cortex
 criminal behavior displayed a fairly large relationship with measures of executive
functioning
 white-collar criminals have more gray matter thickness in their frontal lobes than the
average criminal
 There are not enough people with brain damage to these areas to explain the relatively
high prevalence of violent behavior
 Diffuse cerebral dysfunction affecting multiple sites of the brain plays the
predominant role in aggressive behavior
o Frontal Lobe and Limbic System
 For the life-course-persistent offender, it may be more than delayed neurological
maturation but actual impairment to the frontal lobe and limbic system
 findings have huge implications for the application of law with young offenders.
6. The Difficult, Impulsive, Sensation-Seeking Temperament
 temperamental traits
o many of which are important to an understanding of delinquency, especially the life-course-
persistent offender.
o Two interrelated temperamental traits are especially important
 high stimulation-seeking combined with low self-control.
 one thing to have a high activity level with an interest in experiencing life to its
fullest (a characteristic of many successful individuals), but if this energy level is
not controlled, then it can lead to problem
 negative emotionality
 negative emotionality are aggression (causes discomfort for others), alienation
(feels mistreated), and stress reaction (anger and irritability).
o Life-course-persistent offenders scored higher on negative emotionality
than adolescent-limited offenders.
o a subset of life-coursepersistent offenders (psychopaths) also showed a
callous-unemotional quality to their social interactions
 This temperamental characteristic is biologically-based, and it is as relevant to
girls as it is to boys.
 Moffitt’s Biosocial Model of the Life-Course-Persistent Delinquent
o self-control is learned through a combination of instructions, modeling, and the reinforcement of
prosocial behaviors and the punishment of inappropriate behaviors. Normally, punishment elicits
fear, which is a physiologically based emotion as indicated by increased heart rate, blood
pressure, and sweating (these indicators can also describe excitement and anger—it all depends
on how you cognitively label these feelings). Inhibiting the inappropriate behavior (i.e. self-
control) avoids the unpleasant fear reaction
 o The combination of a difficult temperament and the associated disruptive behavior of a child,
along with a high-risk family environment, produce the perfect mix for the creation of the life-
coursepersistent offender. In PCC, temperament is an ever-present characteristic of the
individual. For the development of criminal behavior, a temperament characterized by poor self-
control, high activity levels, and negative emotionality is very important. .
o Neuropsychological factors
 frontal lobe impairment - Another aspect of neurophysiological underarousal is how it
affects learning self-control.
 Language and IQ – In addition, delays in neurophysiological development affect
attention skills, verbal language development, and intelligence in general. Moffitt (2003)
has argued that adolescence-limited delinquents may suffer from a “maturity gap” created
by delayed neurophysiological development and the adolescent’s desire to be treated like
an adult.
o Temperament
 low constraint - high stimulation-seeking combined with low self-control
 negative emotionality - one thing to have a high activity level with an interest in
experiencing life to its fullest (a characteristic of many successful individuals), but if this
energy level is not controlled, then it can lead to problems
o Socialization
 family dysfunction – the major environmental risk factors are inappropriate parenting and
poor parent– child relationships
 The antisocial behavior of some people may be traced to the fact that they did not
receive the appropriate socialization training.
That is, they have normal neurophysiological arousal patterns, but either
their parents did not monitor their behavior closely enough or the parents
did not properly identify the antisocial behavior and consequently failed to
punish the antisocial behavior
 Neighborhood - If in a lower-economic area where crime is common, supports two most
predictable factors supportive of criminal behaviour (procriminal attitudes and
procriminal associates).
 Passive Avoidance Learning
o The learning of inhibition (i.e. self-control) to avoid punishment involves “fear reduction”; it is
called passive avoidance learning. Passive avoidance learning proceeds in this manner:
 1. The child contemplates an aggressive act;
 2. Previous punishment produces fear in the child (increased heart rate, blood pressure,
sweating);
 3. Fear, an unpleasant emotion, causes the child to inhibit the aggressive response in
order to escape from feelings of fear;
 4. The child no longer entertains the aggressive impulse, and the fear dissipates;
 5. The immediate reduction of fear reinforces the inhibition of the antisocial act.

Crime: A Failure or Success of Evolution?

 Evolutionary perspective – The sole purpose of genes is to “replicate” (using Dawkins’s word), and
genes use the body of the organism to succeed in a very competitive world (remember, there are other
organisms with their own genes wanting the same thing).
o Evolutionary theory is morphing into a developmental biology–informed theory of evolution in
which environmental influences are given equal billing to genetic influences.
1. A Failure in Evolution: The Caveman Awakened
 Lombroso’s theory of the atavistic criminal
o Three Findings based on observation occipital part of the brain located at the back of the brain
and responsible for vision looked like the brain of a rodent
 First, biologically the criminal has similarities more in common with lower-order
animals than the rest of the human race.
 Second, because of this biological backwardness, the individual is likely to behave like
an animal with few inhibitions.
 More to the point, the criminal is a biological throwback to an earlier evolutionary
stage (Lombroso’s theory of “atavism” means a reversion to the characteristics of
some remote ancestor).
 Finally, some criminals are simply “born bad.”
o Ativistic Criminal
 failure of successful adaptation and evolution to a higher level
 some success in reproducing because of aggressive sexual behavior (rape) and copulating
with those who were similarly malformed (i.e. assortative mating)
 Rushton (1988; Rushton & Jensen, 1993)
o Discussion of Rushton and Jensen’s views only to show that Lombroso’s work has had a long
legacy.
 proposed that there are racial differences in intelligence, temperament, social
organization (e.g. respect for the law, marital stability), and sexual restrainAsians are the
most advanced, followed by Caucasians, and then Blacks.
 these differences are explained by genetics and, by association, evolution.
 the higher crime rates observed among Blacks may be traced to their lower
intelligence, poorer sexual restraints, and social disorganization
2. Criminal Behavior as an Evolutionary Adaptation
 Quinsey and his colleagues
o suggested that there are actually two types of life-course-persistent offenders.
 The first is the LCP offenders described by Moffitt (1993)
 the child with neuropsychological problems, a difficult temperament, and poor
socialization experiences.
 The second is what Quinsey and colleagues (2015) call the psychopaths, who follow an
evolutionary adaptive, “life history” strategy.
 demonstrate few neuropsychological deficits, and their behavior reflects a
genetically determined strategy to maximize mating success.
o Women and Criminality from Evolutionary Perspective of Quinsey and his colleagues
 . Women would seek the “dad” who would commit to raising the child and ensure the
continuity of the genetic pool. Childrearing by a single parent runs the risk of the
offspring not reaching maturity and reproducing. Therefore, it is in the mother’s (gene’s)
best interest to choose a partner that helps her raise the children.

Three Closing Comments

 First, biological factors contribute to criminal behavior.
o It is not that biology determines crime but that the biological processes behind low self-control
and negative emotionality increase th
o e probability of antisocial behavior under the right environmental conditions.
o We may not yet be able to measure precisely the underlying biological processes, but we
certainly can differentiate individuals on the behaviors described
 Second, assessment and treatment interventions need to include biological considerations
o Neurobiological factors can predict treatment outcome
  However, these factors have not been integrated into structured offender risk instruments.
o We also know that biological factors can change as a result of treatment interventions, and more
research is needed to help us understand this nature-nurture interaction.
 Third, biological factors appear to play a greater role with the life-course-persistent offender.
o Evidence doesn’t support that CC is a produce of disadvantaged social environments.
o Why some children follow a path of chronic and violent criminality and others do not appears to
reside in biological differences.

Worth Remembering
 The environment influences how our biological predispositions are expressed in behavior
o There are many aspects to individuals that are biologically based—age, gender, race, and
temperament.
 However, just because certain factors have a biological basis does not mean that behavior
is predetermined.
o The path to crime, or to good citizenship, depends more on what happens as the individual grows
up than on what capabilities the individual was born with.
 A minority of youths account for most crimes.
o The majority of youthful males will engage in crime during adolescence but then stop in early
adulthood.
 Developmental criminologists refer to this trajectory as adolescence-limited.
o However, a small minority of youths will continue their criminal activity into adulthood.
 This trajectory is called life-course-persistent.
 There is a hereditary component in criminal behavior that interacts with the social environment.
o The findings from family lineage, twin, and adoption studies point to a genetic component to
criminal conduct.
 It is not criminal behavior per se that is inherited but temperamental characteristics such
as low self-control, sensation-seeking, and a negative emotionality that are inherited.
o A “difficult” temperament may predispose some to an increase risk of crime, but the
environment influences whether the predisposition translates into criminal behavior.
 Genes determine biochemical reactions, but the environment determines what you think
and how you behave.
 Other biological factors can play a role with some individuals, some of the time.
o A variety of biological factors (e.g. neurophysiological under arousal) have been documented as
risk factors in some individuals.
 These neurophysiological factors may be especially important with lifecourse-persistent
and violent offenders.
 Evolutionary explanations of criminal behavior have interesting implications, but the field remains
highly controversial.
o The idea that criminal behavior has an adaptive function underlies evolutionary perspectives of
crime.
 That is, the aggression and dishonesty of criminals have payoffs beyond immediate
gratification.
o Developmental biologists question the evolutionary perspective that genes are all important and
try to keep things in perspective by reminding us of the tremendous importance of the
environment