What basic principles characterize biological theories of crime causation? How do such theories differ from other perspectives that attempt to explain the same phenomena?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Most biological theories of crime causation share a number of basic principles or assumptions. These include:

• The brain is the organ of the mind and the locus of personality.
• The basic determinants of human behavior, including criminal tendencies, are, to a considerable degree, constitutionally or genetically based.
• Observed gender and racial differences in rates and types of criminality may be at least partially the result of biological differences between the sexes and between racially distinct groups.
• The basic determinants of human behavior, including criminality, may be passed on from generation to generation – a tendency toward crime may be inherited.
• Much of human conduct is fundamentally rooted in instinctive behavioral responses characteristic of biological organisms everywhere.
• The biological roots of human conduct have become increasingly disguised because modern forms of indirect expressive behavior have replaced more primitive and direct ones.
• At least some human behavior is the result of biological propensities inherited from more primitive developmental stages in the evolutionary process.
• The interplay among heredity, biology, and the social environment provides the nexus for any realistic consideration of crime causation.

Biological theories differ from other theories in their focus on physical or biological, rather than psychological or sociological, explanations of criminal behavior.