Piper 1
Piper 6
Piper 3
The Causes of Criminal Behavior
Sometimes when I was a kid, my mom would watch ?Criminal Minds? when I was in the room. Of course, my young mind did not quite understand what was going on but it still fascinated me. It fascinated me because in the show, they focused on the criminal instead of the crime itself. Years later, my mother gave me a book detailing the Jack the Ripper case and I was hooked immediately. Within the book, they proposed ideas of what might have caused his behavior and of course, they were all solid possibilities, but is there a main cause behind criminal behavior, and what is it?
The first article was written by Adrian Raine and was titled ?The Criminal Mind.? It gives details on how criminology …show more content…
Not long ago, scientists invoked genes or brain circuitry, hyper-activity or brutal parental discipline to explain such horrors as Charles Whitman?s rampage at the University of Texas to the Columbine High School shootings. Scientists now believe that its roots are planted in an individual?s biology, their psychology that reflects innate traits and experiences, and the larger culture. When behavioral genetics were in its heyday, one of its many targets were genes inclining people to violence?it just so happened that a family of Dutch sociopaths were what the scientists were looking for. Fourteen men in the family had committed impulsive, aggressive crimes, and in 1993, the scientists reported that all fourteen had an identical form of a gene on the X chromosome. Said gene makes an enzyme called MAOA (monoamine oxidase A), which breaks down serotonin and noradrenaline, both being brain chemicals, known as the ?violence gene.? There was a study done in New Zealand, however where scientists found that the gene link was not nearly as straightforward as the Dutch study had suggested. Robert Sapolsky, a neurologist, wrote, ?It would be so nice if there were a single gene or hormone or neurotransmitter or part of the brain that was it, the cause, the explanation? of violence (Begley). He added, ?But our behavioral biology is usually meaningless outside of the context of the social factors and environment in which it occurs (Begley).? This means that genetics and biology are not nearly enough to determine violence and its roots, we must move up one level, to psychology. Forensic psychologists have had some success at creating a profile of the ?typical?
Piper 6
Piper 3
The Causes of Criminal Behavior
Sometimes when I was a kid, my mom would watch ?Criminal Minds? when I was in the room. Of course, my young mind did not quite understand what was going on but it still fascinated me. It fascinated me because in the show, they focused on the criminal instead of the crime itself. Years later, my mother gave me a book detailing the Jack the Ripper case and I was hooked immediately. Within the book, they proposed ideas of what might have caused his behavior and of course, they were all solid possibilities, but is there a main cause behind criminal behavior, and what is it?
The first article was written by Adrian Raine and was titled ?The Criminal Mind.? It gives details on how criminology …show more content…
Not long ago, scientists invoked genes or brain circuitry, hyper-activity or brutal parental discipline to explain such horrors as Charles Whitman?s rampage at the University of Texas to the Columbine High School shootings. Scientists now believe that its roots are planted in an individual?s biology, their psychology that reflects innate traits and experiences, and the larger culture. When behavioral genetics were in its heyday, one of its many targets were genes inclining people to violence?it just so happened that a family of Dutch sociopaths were what the scientists were looking for. Fourteen men in the family had committed impulsive, aggressive crimes, and in 1993, the scientists reported that all fourteen had an identical form of a gene on the X chromosome. Said gene makes an enzyme called MAOA (monoamine oxidase A), which breaks down serotonin and noradrenaline, both being brain chemicals, known as the ?violence gene.? There was a study done in New Zealand, however where scientists found that the gene link was not nearly as straightforward as the Dutch study had suggested. Robert Sapolsky, a neurologist, wrote, ?It would be so nice if there were a single gene or hormone or neurotransmitter or part of the brain that was it, the cause, the explanation? of violence (Begley). He added, ?But our behavioral biology is usually meaningless outside of the context of the social factors and environment in which it occurs (Begley).? This means that genetics and biology are not nearly enough to determine violence and its roots, we must move up one level, to psychology. Forensic psychologists have had some success at creating a profile of the ?typical?