theories of crime (wjec level 3 criminology) exam 2023 with 100% correct answers

xyy theory (jacobs) - xyy syndrome is where men have an extra y chromosome - xyy men are said to be more aggressive and violent - jacobs argued that this was true as xyy men are overrepresented in prison populations (15 per 1000 in prisons, 1 per 1000 in general population) twin studies (lange & christiansen) - is crime a heritable trait? - testing the concordance rates of criminal activity between mz and dz twins - lange - mz twins had higher concordance rates than dz twins - christiansen - concordance rates were highest in mz male twins and lowest in female dz twins adoption studies (hutchings & mednick) - is crime biological (parents) or nature (adopted parents)? - hutchings and mednick - higher proportions of boys with criminal convictions had biological parents with convictions too - mednick - no relationship between criminal activity and adoptive parents and children atavistic features (lombroso) - born criminal - criminals had atavistic features (e.g. high cheekbones and large ears) - found that 40% of criminal acts were accounted for by atavistic characteristics somatotypes (sheldon) - endomorphs - sociable and relaxed (fat and soft) - ectomorphs - introverted and restrained (thin and fragile) - mesomorphs - aggressive and adventurous (muscular and hard) - mesomorphs most likely to commit crime brain abnormality (raine) - damage to the pre-frontal cortex can change an individual's behaviour - raine studied pet scans of impulsive killers - damage to the pre-frontal cortex was found in the criminals neurochemicals (scerbo & raine) - brain's chemistry can be influenced by diet - low levels of serotonin can cause higher aggression - scerbo and raine (found low serotonin levels in anti-social individuals) - steroids make people violent and increase testosterone social learning theory (bandura) - people learn by watching others' behaviour - bandura's bobo doll experiment - 3 groups (one given an aggressive role model, one given a non-aggressive role model, one control group) - observational learning can take place in the family, in subcultures and media - james bulger case and the child's play 3 theory