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Psychology - Forensic - Level 4 > Genetics and Crime > Flashcards

Genetics and Crime Flashcards

1
Q

Historian Legacy of Biological Theories of Character

A

Darwinian theory of natural selection first advanced in 1859.

Immediately translated into social Darwinism

Upholding rank order of society e.g. race, social class

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2
Q

Titanic v Lusitania

A

Titanic sank resulting in death of 1517 people.

Lusitania torpedoed by German U boat. death: 1198

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3
Q

Social Class

Titanic v Lusitania

A

Titanic: 1st class passengers / 2nd class secured preferential treatment for lifeboat access.

Lusitania: 1st class worst fare than 3rd class.

British passengers on Titanic died in disproportionate numbers because they queued compared to Americans elbowing.

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4
Q

Psuedo-Science & Eugenics

A

Darwinian theory of natural selection

“without any evidence, scientists concluded that human differences were hereditary and unalterable, and in doing so they precluded redemption because they imposed the additional burden of intrinsic inferiority upon despised groups. - Friedlander

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5
Q

Gregor Mendel

A

Genocide

Single genes responsible for phenotype / appearance - behaviour & morality.

e.g. Lombroso “improvidence of the savage and that of the criminal as well”

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6
Q

Criminal Atavism / Throwbacks

A

Criminals represented a reversion to a primitive or subhuman type of man characterised by physical features reminiscent of primates and early man.

Also stated criminals had less sensibility to pain, more acute sight, a lack of moral sense, including an absence of remorse, more vanity, impulsiveness, cruelty and tattooing.

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7
Q

Genetics to Genocide

A

Advances in science, medicine and welfare seen as acting counter to natural selection:

1) if natural selection was no longer able to eliminate inferiority then man would have to
2) if criminality is hereditary, then punishment would be a waste of time and effort, but elimination might be a way to eradicate crime from society - Weale 2001

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8
Q

Eliminating Undesirables

A

Strilisation:

Indiana 1899 mentally handicapped. 30 states followed.

Scandinavia
Germany
Sweden

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9
Q

US supreme court 1927

A

“It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those that are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principal that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting fallopian tubes”

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10
Q

Nazism

A

Eugenics provided Hitler with ‘respectable scientific support’.

Supported by research from some of Germany’s most prestigious scientific institutions.

Sterilasation law 1933 - doctors:

  • congenital feeble-mindedness
  • schizophrenia
  • manic depression
  • epilepsy
  • Huntington’s Chorea
  • Blindness
  • deathness
  • severe deformity
  • alcoholism

USA intelligence tests to diagnose feeble mindedness.

  • anti-social individuals confined to asylums, custody for habitual criminals and restricted rights of gypsies.
  • law for protection of German Blood
  • life unworthy of life: Binding & Hoche
  • 1939 mercy killings of incurables: starvation, injections, gas, experimentation.

Genocide

No understanding of mechanism by which behaviour could be inherited.
No attempt to study.

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11
Q

Scientific Method

A

Heredity v environment

Too simplistic

Need to differentiate between heredity, congenital and environmental.

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12
Q

Heredity and Environment

A

Genetics: DNA - Genes - Chromosome - Genome

Environment: all infleuences other than inheritance… environment includes prenatal events and biological events such as nutrition and illness, not just family socialisation factors. Plomin et al 2001

Interaction of genetic and environmental influences

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13
Q

Genetics Analysis

A

Molecular genetic analysis attempts to identify specific genes responsible for behaviours e.g. single gene disorders & QTL

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14
Q

QTL

A

Genetic influences on complex, common disorders are largely due to multiple genes of varying effect size that contribute additively and interchangeably.

Single gene in such a multigene system is neither necessary or sufficient for disorder.

Genetic effects involve probabilistic propensities rather than predetermined programming

Plomin 2000

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15
Q

Quantitative genetics

A

Estimates the extent to which observed differences among individuals are due to genetic differences of any sort and to environmental differences of any sort without specifying what the specific genes or environmental factors are.

Plomin 2000

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16
Q

Quantitative Methods

A

Animal breeding

Human Behaviour

  • adoption
  • twin
  • combo
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17
Q

Identical Twins

A

MZ twins are genetically identical sharing 100% genes

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18
Q

Dizygygotic twins

A

Genetically the same as normal siblings sharing 50% of their genes.

If genetic factors are important for a trait, identical twins must be more similar than fraternal.

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19
Q

Non-shared environment

A

Variance not explained by heredity and shared family environement including measurement issues.

Family environment not shared by family members.

Environmental influences affecting development operate to make children living together no more alike than children living apart.

Outside family environment e.g. peers, schooling.

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20
Q

The Krays

A

Both contracted Diphtheria.

Reg quickly recovered but Ron remained weak.

Ron almost died from heqad injury in a fight with brother in 1942.

Believed to suffer from paranoid schizophrenia and died in Broadmoor hospital.

21
Q

What is criminal?

A

Actus non fecit reum nisi mens sit rea

An act does not make a peron guilty unless the mind be guilty.

A criminal act need a voluntary, proscribed act by a person who acted deliberately, with intent, with knowledge that the act was illegal.

22
Q

Who is criminal?

A

Serious offenders represent 1% population

2% males commit 70% crime

Appears to be a concentration of crime within certain individuals

Is this concentration the result of environment or genes?

Mechanism of inheritance.

23
Q

Is Personality Inherited?

A

Animal studies

  • lab mice
  • domestic dogs
  • Russian foxes

Human studies

  • twin
  • parent/child studies
24
Q

Russian geneticist Dmitry Belyaeve Farm-fox experiment

A
  • selected for low flight distance
  • tame v aggressive
  • physiological changes in the systems that govern body’s hormones / neurochemicals
  • saw retention of juvenile traits by adult dogs, both morphological and behavioural
25
Q

Plomin et al 2000

A

“Genetic results for personality traits assessed by self-report questionnaires are remarkably similar, suggesting that 30-50% of variance is due to genetic factors. Environmental variance is also important, but hardly any environmental variance is due to shared environmental influence” (Plomin et al, 2000)

26
Q

Personality disorders

A

Traits that cause significant impairment or distress

PD is regarded by person as part of who they are

Long term impairments that date from childhood.

DSM-IV 10 PD’s

ASPD most researched genetically due to relevance to criminal behaviour

27
Q

Personality disorders percentages

A

Common to community 4-11%

Offender populations
78% remand
70% in prison pop

Rates differ by offence type:

  • 26% non-violent
  • 50% of violent
  • 33% sexual
    68% sexual-violent offenders
28
Q

General problems with earlier studies

A

sampling must be based upon complete series of Twins

Zygosity must be reliably determined

Concordance tells of genetic and shared environment

29
Q

Norwegian Twin Study (Dalgard & Kringlen 1976)

A

Twin register of 66000 twins X referenced with criminal register yielded 205 pairs of male twins

Zygosity typing = blood & serum

49 MZ & 89 DZ

Using strict concept of crime:
41% MZ & 26% DZ concordant

30
Q

Danish Twin Study (Cloninger et al, 1978)

A

Register 3966 twins

Criminality: police & penal registers

Zygosity: questionnaire and serum

31
Q

Summary of Twin Studies

A

Early studies reported ery high concordance

but

  • flawed - sampling, zygosity and concordance.

Later studies, more experimental control, varied concordance. But still there are potential problems with environmental assumptions.

32
Q

Adoption Studies

A

Genetically unrelated people living together

Similarity - environment
Differences - Genetics & NSE

Genetically related people living apart

Similarity - Genetics
Differences - Environment

33
Q

Findings from Danish Adoption Study (Mednick et al, 1984)

A
  • strong genetic effect
  • gene / environment interaction i.e. adoptive parents’ criminality had no effect of offspring unless biological parents were also criminal
34
Q

Swedish Adoptees Criminality (Bohman et al, 1982)

A

862 men adopted <3 yrs old
Placement homes had to be non-criminal & non-alcoholic. No info on birth parents was given to adoptive parents.

Criminal: suspended or actual prison / heavy fine.

Petty offences: criminal biological fathers more likely to ave criminal sons.

BUT

Violent offences: alcoholic fathers more likely to have violently criminal sons. This suggests an interaction as alcohol and criminality more likely to be present in violent rather than nonviolent offences.

35
Q

Summary of Adoption Studies

A

Evidence of genetic effect

Evidence for environment / gene interaction

No evidence for shared environmental effect

Evidence for a need to differentiate crime type

36
Q

Antisocial Personality

A

What is criminal?

Antisocial behaviour e.g. lying, cheating, stealing.

APD - chronic indifference to & violation of the rights of others.

Psychopaths when believed to be a mental illness.

Sociopaths when assumed to be caused by social conditions.

Diagnosis more common in men.

37
Q

ASP Studies

A

Twin studies MZ 50% and DZ 22%

Adoption study found familial resemblance mainly due to genetics.

38
Q

Meta Analysis of Twin & Adoption Studies

A

Meta analysis: combines studies to calculate overall effect sizes.

46 twin & adoption studies of anti social behaviour

Shared environmental 24%

Genetics 40%

Non-shared environmental 36%

39
Q

Warrior gene - Monoamine oxidase A aka MAO-A

A

Association between a rare 2R repeat and an increase in the likelihood of committing serious crime or violence has been found.

Version of gene that a person carries may determine or at least significantly influence the impact of childhood experience of violence.

40
Q

Psychopathy

A

50-75% offenders are ADP.
15-25% psychopathic.

“self centred, callous, remorseless person profoundly lacking in empathy and the ability to form warm emotional relationships with others, a person who functions without the restraints of conscience (Hare 1993)

Famous psychopaths: John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, Richard Ramirez, Ian Brady

41
Q

Genetic Research: Blonigen & Colleagues 1

A

Twin study: 165 MZ & 106 DZ twin pairs.

Found “substantial evidence of genetic contributions to variance in the personality construct of psychopathy” - Blonigen et al, 2003.

42
Q

Genetic Research: Blonigen and Colleagues 2

A

188 MZ & 101 DZ male twin pairs
223 MZ & 114 DZ female twin pairs

Interpersonal-affective (fearless dominance) & antisocial (impulsive antisociality) traits of psychopathy are equally and substantially heritable with each accounting for roughly half of the total variance in both men and women.

43
Q

Genetic Research on Young People

A

3687 UK 7yr old twin pairs found that 70% of the individual differences in antisocial behaviour & callous/unemotional traits were accounted for by genes. (Viding, et al 2005)

1090 Swedish 16-17 yr old twin pairs.

“a genetic factor explains most of variation in psychopathic personality (Larrson et al).

44
Q

Twins Early Development Study

A

Indicated that within early-onset group there are at least two etiologically distinct groups of children.

Antisocial behaviour in 7yr children with callous and unemotional traits is under strong genetic influence.

Whereas AS behaviour in children without such personality traits is primarily environmentally mediated.

45
Q

Psychopathy: Genes and Environment

A

Genetics dictate brain function.

Psychopaths show unusual brain wave patterns on EEGs. Have low HR&CS.
Perform unusually on cognitive tests.

Environment interacts with predisposition: Good environment leads to white collar criminal / shady business.

Adverse environment leads to criminality.

Violent environmental leads to violent criminality.

46
Q

M’Naughten Rule

A

“Capable of distinguishing between right and wrong”

If not the law accepts that he is, because of his nature, less open to its power.

47
Q

Genome Project & Future Research

A

Human Genome Project has decoded the human genome.

Freely available for research.

Future possibilities include genetic investigation of criminal populations.

Screening? Prevention?

48
Q

Ethics

A

“One day, we may be able to use genetic analysis to predict far in advance that someone is destined to develop a severe and dangerous personality disorder. Would such a child then be marked out for indefinite imprisonment on reaching adolescence?” (Turner, 1999)

“XYY speculation resulted in Johns Hopkins University, with financial backing from the National Institute of Mental Health, conducting XYY screening in juvenile detention facilities and in black ghettos. Plans included releasing the results to juvenile courts and correctional agencies. Testing children in public schools and day nurseries were other target areas.” (Nassi & Turner, 1976)

49
Q

Dangerous and Severe Personality Disorder Programme

A

DSDP programme aimed at people who have committed a violent or sexual crime and have been detained under the criminal justice sysem or current mental health legislation.

Use of a twin study sample that will allow us to look at relative importance of genes and environment will lay the foundations for future molecular genetic research that can identify specific genes which will promote early screening and preventative inverventions.

Psychology - Forensic - Level 4 (8 decks)

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