ATS1281 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Psychoticism, Neuroticism, Reality Principle
8 May 2018
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UNDERSTANDING CRIME: LECTURE 3
Positivist Criminology
What is Positivist Criminology?
• Whereas classical criminology believes that everyone has the potential to offend,
positiist riiology assues that there is a distitio etee the oral ad
the deiat, ad attepts to study the speifi fators that gie rise to deiat or
criminal behaviour (White et al. 2012:75)
• Defines crime as a natural phenomenon – offending is believed to be part of
soeoes ature, theres soethig itrisi to the individual that makes someone
more likely to offend than others
• Focuses on the pathology of the offender – what causes these individuals to commit
rie, eed to idetify these risk fators i order to address the
• Deteriis as opposed to free ill – people are not making their own choices,
rather people are a product of their biology, psychology and personality.
Origins of Positivist Criminology
• s Phreology Moeet peoples skulls
• Loroso as the father of oder riiology proposed that there is such a thing
as the or riial – criminals were less evolved than non-criminals, was racist
and sexist, collected skulls of former criminals and colonised people from around the
orld ad opare the to those of oral o-riials
• Sheldos Soatotype theory – relates to a persos ehaiour to shape of
their body
• Endomorph, mesomorph, ectomorph – majority of criminals were
endomorph and mesomorphs
• Early theories are wildly discounted today – thats ot to say that iologial
positivism itself is to be fully discounted.
What do we know about the Biology of Criminals (Biological Positivism)?
Family Studies
• Examine criminal families for similarities and differences between relatives (multiple
generations of criminals)
• Example: Cambridge Study of Delinquency (David Rowe and David Farrington 1997)
• Over 40 years
• 397 families in the study
• 50% of convictions in the area were attributed to just 23 families
• 75% of convicted parents had a convicted child
Twin Studies
• Look at the similarity between behaviours between identical and non-identical twin
pairs (eg. Christiansen 1977)
• Identical twins tend to display the same type of behaviours (criminal and
non-criminal behaviours)
• Non-identical twins do not tend to display the same type of behaviours
Adoption Studies
• Track the development of siblings who have been separated from an early age
• Example: Crowe (1974)
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Twin studies: look at the similarity between behaviours between identical and non-identical twin pairs (eg. christiansen 1977) Identical twins tend to display the same type of behaviours (criminal and non-criminal behaviours: non-identical twins do not tend to display the same type of behaviours. Adoption studies: track the development of siblings who have been separated from an early age, example: crowe (1974, 2 groups of adopted children, biological mothers had a criminal record (experimental group) . 50% of adoptees had a criminal record by the time they were 18: biological mothers had no criminal record (matched control group) 5% of adoptees had a criminal record. See hernstein and murray (1994: argued that people with limited cognitive skills are more likely to be involved in crime, eg. Implication is that there is a need to consider iq in relation to sociological theories (see weeks 4-6) There are two main psychological theories of crime: psychoanalysis//discounted theory, personality theories.
