biological theories of crime

Question 1

what 4 biologocal theories are there

Answer 1

-lombrosos atavistic features
-sheldons somatotypes
- xxy theory
-twin/adoption studies

Question 2

what did lombroso believe

Answer 2

that people are criminal and you can identify them from their features

Question 3

what are some examples of atavistic features

Answer 3

• strong jaw
• heavy eyebrows
• thick lips
  -large ears
  -bloodshot eyes
  -curly hair

Question 4

what was lombroso’s research

Answer 4

he studied the facial fatures of 383 dead criminals and 3839 living criminals
he concluded that 40% of criminals had atavistic features

Question 5

what number of features did men and women need to have to be classed as criminals

Answer 5

women = 3 +
men = 5 +

Question 6

what did sheldon believe

Answer 6

he believed that criminal behaviour was linked to a persons physique

Question 7

what 3 types of somatotypes aare there

Answer 7

• endomorph
• ectomorph
• mesomorph

Question 8

what is an endomorph

Answer 8

they have a round phsique and are soft and fat and have difficulty losing weight

Question 9

what is an ectomorph

Answer 9

they are thin and fragile

Question 10

what is a mesomorph

Answer 10

they are muscular and athletic people

Question 11

which somatotype is most lokely to be criminal

Answer 11

mesomorph

Question 12

what was sheldons research

Answer 12

he rated 200 students and 200 criminals and found that crimals had the highest rates of mesomorph body types

Question 13

what is the XYY theory

Answer 13

where a man has an extrax Y chromosome because of a random error occuring in the sperm formation whilst making him

Question 14

what did jacobs find in her research

Answer 14

she exmained 198 scottish prisoners and using the karyotyping methods she found thst 3.5% of the prison population had the XYY syndrome compared to only 1% had it in the scottish general population

Question 15

what case study is linked to the XYY theory

Answer 15

john wayne gacy- he was a serial killer who killed over 30 young men. he had the extra y chromosome

Question 16

why do we use twin studies

Answer 16

to compare genetic and environmental influences, identical twins share 100% of the same dna so we use them to see if the would act the same in situations

Question 17

what is a concordance rate

Answer 17

the chance that 2 people share the same characteristic, traits or behaviours if one of them is exhibiting a behaviour

Question 18

what is the supporting research for the twin studies

Answer 18

christiansen studied 3586 twins in denmark, he found that monozigotic twins had 52% concordance rate between them if one was a convicted criminal whereas dizigotic twins had a lower ate of 22%

Question 19

why do we use the adoption studies

Answer 19

to see if environmental factors influence criminals

Question 20

what is the supporting research for adoption studies

Answer 20

hutchings and mednick-found a higher percentage of adopted boys with criminal covictiond had biological parents with criminal convictions to

mednick et al- repeated the study with 4000 adopted Danish men and found no significant relationship between criminal convictions of adoptive parents and their adopted children, but a significant correlation between the number of criminal convictions of the biological parents and their offspring.