Criminal behavior and characteristics: a study

¶ … conundrums that societies have to face is to address the following issue: in the development of children and juveniles into productive members of society, which plays a more important role: nature or nurture? This debate will perhaps, never end. In the early part of the twentieth century, nature was supposed to win out. The execrable notion of eugenics, where criminals, homosexuals and some of society's misfits were sterilized so that they would not pollute the gene pool was popular. Some prominent people of the time subscribed to this idea and it was practiced in Europe for a while. After the 1950s, a new ideation came about: that children, at birth, were a blank slate or tabula rasa. (Pinker, 2002) This meant that children could be nurtured depending on their environments. One of the extreme cases of nurture over nature was when boys were raised as girls and vice-versa, with deleterious effects. This is because researchers realized that an instinctual component exists, which causes boys to be boys and they could not be raised otherwise.

The nature vs. nurture idea is important in assessing criminal adults and their childhoods. Do genes play an important role in criminal behavior; that no matter how well a child was raised, he or she would commit crimes if he or she had a genetic predisposition to criminal behavior? Or if that child was raised in a nurturing household, then the criminal tendencies might be subdued? This essay explores what the researchers have to say on this issue. The consensus seems to be that genetic and chemical conditions result in criminal behavior. This however, does not mean that children from homes where emotional and physical abuse takes place come through unscathed as productive adults. Most researchers believe that both factors contribute, albeit unequally.

What constitutes criminal behavior? or, what are the signs that a child is likely to indulge in criminal behavior as an adult. Sociologist and psychologists agree that aggressive and impulsive behavior is a reasonable sign of possible future criminal behavior. This predicted behavior does not include adult crimes committed by juveniles. Childhood antisocial behavior has been formalized by clinicians and psychologists into three behavioral disorders, which have become evident only in recent times: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Conduct Disorder (CD), and Oppositional Defiance Disorder (ODD).

The first is characterized by a lack of being able to pay attention, sit still and impulse control. ODD is characterized in early childhood, where the child is irritable, argumentative and hard to control. ADHD and ODD are forerunners of CD which involves a child not showing any respect to behavioral propriety. After the age of eighteen these three behaviors if not corrected or checked develop into Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD) (Holmes, Slaughter and Kashani, 2001), where the juvenile or young adult first begins to show signs of sociopathic behavior. Impulsiveness and aggression, as mentioned above are characteristic of all these disorders.

Population genetics type studies were used to explain the genetic component to predisposition to criminal behavior. The first study is for twins. Identical twins are supposed to be genetically identical). Fraternal twins are genetically the same as siblings. A study of identical vs. fraternal twins and their criminal records would indicate that genes are responsible for criminal behavior. Two studies which measured the criminal behaviors of fraternal vs. identical twins showed conflicting results. (Joseph, 2001; Tehrani and Mednick, 2000) One showed that identical twins were more likely to have criminal behavioral traits vs. fraternal twins. The other study did not show that fraternal twins were more predisposed vs. identical twins. It merely showed that the differences between the two sets were not statistically significant. In attempting to address the nature vs. nurture question: one confounding issue is that twins, like most siblings are more likely to be raised in the same household and encounter the same environments and are typically raised in the same manner. But a study of identical twins raised in different households (raised by relatives) showed that criminal behavior was heritable.

Two studies in Scandinavia showed the effects of adoption on children of criminals, raised in traditional households where no members of the households were criminal. (Joseph, 2001; Tehrani and Mednick, 2000) in these studies, it was found that there were strong correlations between children of criminals and antisocial behavior. There were internal variations within studies. One study showed that adopted children of white collar criminals were more likely to be criminals than those of violent criminals. One of the reasons why firm determinations cannot be made as whether nature (genes) or nurture (environment) triumphs is because of these confounding issues. Clearly, none of these studies were longitudinal. They were not carried out over several years where criminal records of these children studied, as adults were obtained. The inferences drawn in all these studies were based on predictive behaviors characterized by impulsiveness, aggression and tendencies towards APD.

Genes are responsible for the creation of proteins and also signal the release of certain neurochemicals that are responsible for behavioral disorders. People with depression are often prescribed pharmaceutical products. An example of this class of products is serotonin reuptake inhibitors or SSRIs. Serotonin is association with feelings of euphoria. But the reuptake after the function is performed results in feelings of depression. SSRIs prevent this cycling. Abnormal secretion of serotonin is responsible for aggressive behavior. The same is with the neurotransmitter, dopamine. (Brunner et al., 1993) Several other neurochemicals individually or in concert with other chemicals have been shown to have strong correlations with criminal behavior. Each of these is dependent upon the genetic makeup of the individual.