Discuss The Biological And Sociological Theories Of Crime

Crime theories are still in a development stage; it is an evolutionary process that continues to this day. Crime is still a complex and misunderstood phenomenon with no concrete evidence when it comes to human behavior. Throughout time there have been endless amounts of crime theories, few of which revolve around biological explanations. We have Cesare Lombroso and the Positive School who thought that criminals were genetically different from the rest of the general population, that they were biologically aggressive, had criminal traits and/or born as criminals. There is also William Sheldon’s theory of body types, called the somatotype theory, that argued the mesomorph body type to be the most prone to commit crime or deviant behavior.

Sociological theories of crime contain a great deal of useful information in the understanding of criminal behavior. Sociological theories are very useful in the study of criminal behavior because unlike psychological and biological theories they are mostly macro level theories which attempt to explain rates of crime for a group or an area rather than explaining why an individual committed a crime. (Kubrin, 2012). There is however some micro level sociological theories of crime that attempts to explain the individual’s motivation for criminal behavior (Kubrin, 2012). Of the contemporary

Edward meets all the theories of sociological, biological, psychological, and social psychological. Sociological theory is crime results from social or cultural forces that are external to any specific individual, exist prior to any criminal act, and emerge from social class, political, ecological, or physical

There are different perspectives on explanations of criminal behavior such as Biological and Psychological explaining crime. The two perspectives have been considered exterior in criminology since majority perspective come from sociology. Sociology focuses on how law-abiding citizens become criminals and conventional lack of opportunity. Therefore the two perspectives had to take a back seat in history because they were seen as naive and not take serious. “Sociological theories cannot explain how one person can be born in a slum, be exposed to family discord and abuse, never attend school, have friends who are delinquents and yet resist opportunities for crime, while another person can grow up in an affluent suburban neighborhood in a two-parent home, attend the finest schools, have every financial need met, and end up firing a gun at a president” ” (Adler, Muller & Laufer, 1991).

Biological Explanations of Crime – Strengths and weakness Biological explanations of crime suggests that crime is due to the nature of an individual, this is highly controversial as it suggests crime is innate and not a cause of the environment. These theories suggest that criminals are born with criminal tendencies. This essay will discuss various biological explanations of crime and point out some strengths and weaknesses. Cesare Lombroso, whom established criminology as a science, founded this theory. He gathered facts in an empirical study and found physiological characteristics to identify ‘The Criminal Man’, these characteristics were; “head-size (circumference/diameter), non-symmetric facial features, sloping forehead, protruding jaw,

Both of these approaches portray the idea that criminals are different from the rest of us. Sociologists do not agree with any of these, and examine crime and deviance with the social context into consideration. attempt to examine questions like what makes the acts deviant or criminal? What are the causes of deviant behavior? Who commits these acts?

Crime can be described and analysed by many different types of explanations, mostly known as theories. Each explanation concentrates on different aspects that contribute towards the act of crime, academics however often disagree on which are the predominant reasons and explanations for crime (Ainsworth, 2000). Sociological theories concentrate on the surrounding social factors being an influence as to why crime happens, whereas biological theories however would look at the individuals biological make-up as an explanation of crime. This essay will be focusing on psychological explanations of crime, the essay will explore how they aim to explain the phenomena of crime. Through highlighting the main strengths and weaknesses an analysis will

The biological theories are essential to the criminal justice profession so that they won't assume that a person's genetic characteristics cause a person to commit a crime. However, there are born criminals and “these types of criminals are the most dangerous, and can be identified through his or her stigmata or identifying characteristics” (Akers, Sellers, See, & Kieser, 2013, p. 10). Biological theories are the bases for severe criminal behavior mostly found among people who are born with an innate impulse to commit a

The second theory I would like to discuss is the Strain theory. The strain theory basically states that crime breeds in the gap, imbalance, or disjunction between culturally induced aspirations for economic success and structurally distributed possibilities of achievement. The theory assumes fairly uniform economic success aspirations across social class and the theory attempts to explain why crime is concentrated among the lower classes that have the least legitimate opportunities for achievement. It is the combination of the cultural emphasis and the social structure which produces intense pressure for

This biological theory views inmates as inferior and individuals with genetic abnormalities that dictate their behaviors and often have tendency’s to engage in criminal behavior. The theory states that some individuals have poor genealogy with high dispositions towards crime and that any change to a person’s biology is nearly impossible. This raises the question, are we able to identify individuals as criminals before they commit crime? If we cannot change them in incarceration and their future

The first theory refers to the Psychological Theory There are several fundamental assumptions, that are common for all the psychological approaches to criminal behavior. These are the following: The individual is the primary unit of analysis. (Individual human being is considered to be responsible for acts he/she conducted), Personality drives behavior within individuals, because it is the major motivational element.Crimes can result

In contrast, there are a range of sociological theories that attempt to explain the cause of crime. One example of this is the ‘Structural Strain Theory’ developed by functionalist Robert Merton. This functionalist view states that societies are branded by both culture and social structure. Culture creates goals for people in society whilst social structure supplies (or fails to supply) the means for people to achieve those goals. In a well-integrated society people attempt to achieve these goals in an acceptable and appropriate way according to the explicit and implicit rules of that society. Therefore the goals and means in this society are balanced, however when an imbalance occurs, this is what causes deviant behaviour transpire. One paradigm that explains this theory is people who aspire to be economically successful (goal) will get a job to earn money (appropriate means of reaching that goal) and this type of person is called a conformist. However someone from a lower class who may not have the opportunity to receive a good education in order to get a job therefore they will surpass the acceptable means of reaching this goal. Therefore they are more likely to conduct deviant behaviour to reach this goal e.g. theft and this type of person is called an innovator according to Merton due to their acceptance of the cultural

There are four top social risk factors believed for the involvement of crime. Parental behavior plays a large role in a child’s risk of involvement of crime because of the parent’s influence on a child’s development (“Social Risk Factors for Involvement of Crime”). Poor parenting in supervision, maltreatment of a child, or if the parent is a

Researchers have also looked at criminal behavior from a genetic aspect. In fact, "behavioral genetic research has show that genes influence individual differences in a wide range of human behaviors -cognition, academic achievement, personality and temperament (including such traits as aggression and hostility), psychopathology, and even vocational interests and social attitudes" (Meadows, 2010, P.16). There may in fact be a connection between how an individual is wired and the behavior that results. This does not necessarily mean that some individuals are inevitably going to become a criminal. However, some individuals may simply have a greater tendency "to be more aggressive and thus less likely to control emotions absent some type of positive interventions" (Meadows, 2010, P. 16). Furthermore, genetic research looks at the heritability of certain disorders and specific genes that

First off, there have been ample amounts of disapproval in relation to the general theory of crime, because many scholars feel that Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990) failed to include the