WEEK 46
- ‘Essential criminology’: Hoofdstuk 4 en 5
- Hoorcollege 1
- Werkgroep 2
Hoorcollege 1 - Biological and psychological theories of crime
Early biological theories of crime
Basic Assumptions:
- Crime is “in the blood” - certain criminal behaviors are inherited, innate, and genetic
- Classical theory unintuitive and unscientific – any study of criminal behaviour cannot
assume all humans are the same
- The key to understanding crime is to study the criminal actor, not the criminal act
- Criminals as specific ‘kinds of people
Historical context:
- Mid 16th Century → Natural philosophy blurring with astronomy, astrology,
and proto-scientific enquiry
- Giambattista Della Porta: philosopher, mathematician, alchemist, thespian, and
member of the Accademi dei Segreti (Academy of Secrets)
- De humana physiognomia (1586): a systematic treatise on physiognomy →
the study of judging human character and moral qualities from physical
appearance, especially facial features.
- Studied the cadavers of criminals to determine the relationship between the human
body and crime.
- Early 19th Century → medical empiricism and the rise of natural sciences
(biology, anatomy etc.)
- Franz Joseph Gall and Phrenology: the shape of the skull reflected the development
of the brain
- Bumps or depressions on the skull could reveal personality traits, intelligence, and
predispositions (including to criminality).
- Charles Darwin (1859): evolution and natural selection
- Biological determinism: (criminal) behaviour determined by innate biological factors
rather than environmental influence or choice.
Italian school:
- 19th century
- Lombroso: professor of forensic medicine and psychiatry
- The Criminal Man (1876): criminals as hereditary throwbacks to less developed
evolutionary forms.
- Atavism: “the condition in which characteristics that have previously disappeared in
the course of evolution suddenly recur”
- Criminals can be identified by physical abnormalities or ‘atavistic features’
- “The born criminal”
,Lombrosian impact:
- Positivist Criminology: Examination, counting, and classification of ‘defects’
redirected the study of criminality from philosophical speculation into empirical
science based on scientific measurement.
- Drew attention to the criminal individual.
- Established criminology as its own, distinct scientific field.
- Initiated longstanding debates surrounding biological, environmental, and social
factors in explaining crime.
Lombroso’s continued influence:
- United States in 1865: rapid social transformation following conclusion of Civil War,
with abolition of slavery and large-scale immigration leading to crowded conditions in
urbanizing cities.
- Calls for population control (eugenics) to prevent reproduction and degeneration.
- The Jukes (1877): tracing of 709 family members to examine criminal heredity and
‘degenerate families’
- Environmental factors identified but overlooked in favour of genetic determinism
- The American Criminal: An Anthropological Study (Hooton, 1939): comparison of
14,000 prisoners to 3,000 noncriminals
- “Criminals were organically inferior” due to inherited features, including physical
differences such as low foreheads, compressed faces, etc.
Critical reflection:
- “Unscientific, simplistic and monocausal”
- Critical methodological weaknesses such as poor sample selection and inadequate
measurement criteria
- Failure to control for factors such as unreported delinquency, social class, and
criminal justice agency bias.
- Reinforce class, gender, and especially racial stereotypes.
- By excluding hidden crime, crimes by women, occupational crimes, and crimes of the
powerful, and relying on samples of convicted offenders, body-type theories say
more about who is likely to be processed through criminal justice agencies than
about what causes crime.
Contemporary Biological Perspectives
Twin studies:
, - Christiansen, 1977
- Testing heritable criminality through use of the Danish national twin register
- Sampled over 3500 twin pairs
- Findings persisted even among twins who were separated at birth and raised in
different social environments.
Biosocial Criminology:
- Crime is best understood by examining the interaction between biological factors and
social environments, rather than treating them separately.
- Rejects both biological determinism (crime as “in the genes”) and pure social
constructivism (crime as only the product of environment).
- Genetics, neurophysiology, evolutionary psychology + family environment,
socioeconomic conditions, opportunity structures = crime.
- Gene–environment interaction (G×E):
- Biological predispositions may only express as criminal behaviour under certain
social conditions (e.g. childhood maltreatment, stress).
- Gene–environment correlation (rGE):
- People’s genetic traits can influence the environments they end up in (e.g.,
impulsive individuals may seek risky peers).
- Interventions should address both biological vulnerabilities (e.g., mental health,
addiction treatment) and social risks (e.g., poverty reduction, better schooling).
Psychological theories of crime
Key assumptions:
- Biology looks at the body/genes; psychology looks at the mind, development, and
socialization - Criminals as “sick minds” rather than “bad bodies”
- Individual development through mental, moral, and sexual stages: Inadequate
processes or traumatic events (usually beginning in early childhood) cause
personality disorders, psychological disturbances.
, - These differences in mental functioning cause those affected to commit crime.
- Crimes are just one form of aggressive or antisocial behavior that violates certain
social and conduct norms that may also be a violation of legal norm.
- Reliance on scales, inventories, and questionnaires to identify and classify and
measure differences between ‘normal’ and ‘pathologic
Psychoanalytic:
- Crime is an expression of buried internal conflicts - traumatic events that occur during
childhood affect the unconscious component of the human mind.
- Id = primitive drives, impulses, seeking immediate gratification (e.g., aggression,
sexual urges).
- Superego = internalised moral standards, conscience.
- Ego = rational mediator between id and superego
- Crime emerges when the id dominates, or when the superego is
underdeveloped/overly punitive.
- Failure to form attachment with mother produces insecurity and lack of empathy for
others (Bowlby, 1951).
- Aggression as an adaptive mechanism to relieve stress (Healy & Bronner, 1936)
Trait Based:
- Criminal behavior originating not from the ‘unconscious’, but from deviant personality
traits incurred via the environment, brain injury, illness, drug abuse etc.
- Traits can stem from biological causes, linking with previous biological theories.
- Mask of Insanity (Cleckley, 1941): trait based definition of the psychopath: lack of
empathy and remorse, a grandiose sense of self-worth, antisocial behaviors like
manipulation, deceit, and impulsivity.
- Eysenck (1964): Criminality linked to three traits of unbalanced personality cluster:
- Extraversion (E): linked to under-aroused nervous systems; seek stimulation, thrill-
seeking.
- Neuroticism (N): emotional instability; prone to anxiety, anger.
- Psychoticism (P): aggressiveness, egocentricity, lack of empathy.
- ‘Essential criminology’: Hoofdstuk 4 en 5
- Hoorcollege 1
- Werkgroep 2
Hoorcollege 1 - Biological and psychological theories of crime
Early biological theories of crime
Basic Assumptions:
- Crime is “in the blood” - certain criminal behaviors are inherited, innate, and genetic
- Classical theory unintuitive and unscientific – any study of criminal behaviour cannot
assume all humans are the same
- The key to understanding crime is to study the criminal actor, not the criminal act
- Criminals as specific ‘kinds of people
Historical context:
- Mid 16th Century → Natural philosophy blurring with astronomy, astrology,
and proto-scientific enquiry
- Giambattista Della Porta: philosopher, mathematician, alchemist, thespian, and
member of the Accademi dei Segreti (Academy of Secrets)
- De humana physiognomia (1586): a systematic treatise on physiognomy →
the study of judging human character and moral qualities from physical
appearance, especially facial features.
- Studied the cadavers of criminals to determine the relationship between the human
body and crime.
- Early 19th Century → medical empiricism and the rise of natural sciences
(biology, anatomy etc.)
- Franz Joseph Gall and Phrenology: the shape of the skull reflected the development
of the brain
- Bumps or depressions on the skull could reveal personality traits, intelligence, and
predispositions (including to criminality).
- Charles Darwin (1859): evolution and natural selection
- Biological determinism: (criminal) behaviour determined by innate biological factors
rather than environmental influence or choice.
Italian school:
- 19th century
- Lombroso: professor of forensic medicine and psychiatry
- The Criminal Man (1876): criminals as hereditary throwbacks to less developed
evolutionary forms.
- Atavism: “the condition in which characteristics that have previously disappeared in
the course of evolution suddenly recur”
- Criminals can be identified by physical abnormalities or ‘atavistic features’
- “The born criminal”
,Lombrosian impact:
- Positivist Criminology: Examination, counting, and classification of ‘defects’
redirected the study of criminality from philosophical speculation into empirical
science based on scientific measurement.
- Drew attention to the criminal individual.
- Established criminology as its own, distinct scientific field.
- Initiated longstanding debates surrounding biological, environmental, and social
factors in explaining crime.
Lombroso’s continued influence:
- United States in 1865: rapid social transformation following conclusion of Civil War,
with abolition of slavery and large-scale immigration leading to crowded conditions in
urbanizing cities.
- Calls for population control (eugenics) to prevent reproduction and degeneration.
- The Jukes (1877): tracing of 709 family members to examine criminal heredity and
‘degenerate families’
- Environmental factors identified but overlooked in favour of genetic determinism
- The American Criminal: An Anthropological Study (Hooton, 1939): comparison of
14,000 prisoners to 3,000 noncriminals
- “Criminals were organically inferior” due to inherited features, including physical
differences such as low foreheads, compressed faces, etc.
Critical reflection:
- “Unscientific, simplistic and monocausal”
- Critical methodological weaknesses such as poor sample selection and inadequate
measurement criteria
- Failure to control for factors such as unreported delinquency, social class, and
criminal justice agency bias.
- Reinforce class, gender, and especially racial stereotypes.
- By excluding hidden crime, crimes by women, occupational crimes, and crimes of the
powerful, and relying on samples of convicted offenders, body-type theories say
more about who is likely to be processed through criminal justice agencies than
about what causes crime.
Contemporary Biological Perspectives
Twin studies:
, - Christiansen, 1977
- Testing heritable criminality through use of the Danish national twin register
- Sampled over 3500 twin pairs
- Findings persisted even among twins who were separated at birth and raised in
different social environments.
Biosocial Criminology:
- Crime is best understood by examining the interaction between biological factors and
social environments, rather than treating them separately.
- Rejects both biological determinism (crime as “in the genes”) and pure social
constructivism (crime as only the product of environment).
- Genetics, neurophysiology, evolutionary psychology + family environment,
socioeconomic conditions, opportunity structures = crime.
- Gene–environment interaction (G×E):
- Biological predispositions may only express as criminal behaviour under certain
social conditions (e.g. childhood maltreatment, stress).
- Gene–environment correlation (rGE):
- People’s genetic traits can influence the environments they end up in (e.g.,
impulsive individuals may seek risky peers).
- Interventions should address both biological vulnerabilities (e.g., mental health,
addiction treatment) and social risks (e.g., poverty reduction, better schooling).
Psychological theories of crime
Key assumptions:
- Biology looks at the body/genes; psychology looks at the mind, development, and
socialization - Criminals as “sick minds” rather than “bad bodies”
- Individual development through mental, moral, and sexual stages: Inadequate
processes or traumatic events (usually beginning in early childhood) cause
personality disorders, psychological disturbances.
, - These differences in mental functioning cause those affected to commit crime.
- Crimes are just one form of aggressive or antisocial behavior that violates certain
social and conduct norms that may also be a violation of legal norm.
- Reliance on scales, inventories, and questionnaires to identify and classify and
measure differences between ‘normal’ and ‘pathologic
Psychoanalytic:
- Crime is an expression of buried internal conflicts - traumatic events that occur during
childhood affect the unconscious component of the human mind.
- Id = primitive drives, impulses, seeking immediate gratification (e.g., aggression,
sexual urges).
- Superego = internalised moral standards, conscience.
- Ego = rational mediator between id and superego
- Crime emerges when the id dominates, or when the superego is
underdeveloped/overly punitive.
- Failure to form attachment with mother produces insecurity and lack of empathy for
others (Bowlby, 1951).
- Aggression as an adaptive mechanism to relieve stress (Healy & Bronner, 1936)
Trait Based:
- Criminal behavior originating not from the ‘unconscious’, but from deviant personality
traits incurred via the environment, brain injury, illness, drug abuse etc.
- Traits can stem from biological causes, linking with previous biological theories.
- Mask of Insanity (Cleckley, 1941): trait based definition of the psychopath: lack of
empathy and remorse, a grandiose sense of self-worth, antisocial behaviors like
manipulation, deceit, and impulsivity.
- Eysenck (1964): Criminality linked to three traits of unbalanced personality cluster:
- Extraversion (E): linked to under-aroused nervous systems; seek stimulation, thrill-
seeking.
- Neuroticism (N): emotional instability; prone to anxiety, anger.
- Psychoticism (P): aggressiveness, egocentricity, lack of empathy.
