Sean Morris

The Biological Factors of Crime

While we typically use the terms “bad to the bone” or “bad blood” as a figure of speech for someone we don’t like, it turns out that the terms might be more literal than what one might assume.  Recently the new science in the world has allowed for studies to be done into the biological factors of a criminal's body to determine what factors can cause someone to become a criminal.

Some of the research that has been found into this subject involves chromosomes. Essentially what chromosomes are threadlike strands of DNA in the cell that carries the genes in a linear order. Alternations in the chromosomes are part of what can lead to disorders in the body like down syndrome. In regards to how this relates to criminal behavior is that having an an abnormal number of chromosomes can be causation for a dictator. With some diseases that are further added in their toxicity based upon environmental situation some people can become a powder keg of crime waiting to go off. Alternatively it becomes up to the legal defense team to prove that their is a direct correlation between the disease and the actual crime, otherwise it's just spectral

Another biological factor that becomes a component into crime is addiction. Addiction is basically and typically when someone takes a certain kind of drug that activates the reward centers of the mind so much so that people have an insatiable desire to recreate and keep that “reward” going. Within the biological underpinnings of this condition is a trait that causes addiction to happen  more due to inheritance from a family member, most likely a parent. However the law will still arrest and prosecute individuals but without seeking any medical assistance for them.

In conclusion the law and neuroscience are still a road from which much distance must be traveled on. While we need to prosecute people who break the law to ensure a more productive society, we must also know when the prisoner of the system may be just as much a prisoner of his body.

Rudy Giuliani ran for mayor of New York City back in 1993, where he implicated a method to help crime decrease. Throughout his campaign, he wanted voters to ultimately be in safer area, because rape had risen and so did murder and robbery. Giuliani made a theory which was called the “broken windows”. This was an analogy in which if a window was broken and went unfixed, then sooner or later the rest of the windows would be broken. Which connects to the fact about if small criminal acts slip through, then more and more crimes will take place. Therefore we should snip the problem in the bud. After winning the election and continuing to use this method, in 1996, the New York Times had plunged for the third straight year. By 2010, violent crimes in New York had plunged seventy-five percent.

There was many more reasoning behind the decrease of violence, besides a change in political tactics. One of the tomes on criminology, were that when the economy is on a rise, then the crime is low, but when the economy is suffering then the crime rates rise again. Another time was based on demographics, which pertained to young men, that read, “As the number of young men increases, so does crime.” This was not the case for New York, because even though the number of men increased, crime rates still continued to decline. Karl Smith, a professor of public economics and government at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, said, “If it spreads along lines of communication, he says, the cause is information. Think Bieber Fever. If it travels along major transportation routes, the cause is microbial. Think influenza. If it spreads out like a fan, the cause is an insect. Think malaria. But if it's everywhere, all at once—as both the rise of crime in the '60s and '70s and the fall of crime in the '90s seemed to be—the cause is a molecule.”  Smith continued to make advances on the real problem and the real solution. He had a good way of categorizing epidemics in a way that each crime could fit into each. It was a very interesting way in the way that it made seem that the way things were spread was because of a certain type of thing.

In another article, “Causes of Crime - Social and Economic factors” there were epidemics about how economy problems were involved with crime, and it was. The University of Chicago's Department of Sociology, which was formed in 1892, did a focus on city problems and how they could lead to criminal behavior.
There was an overwhelming decrease in popular cities such as New York City when the economy was doing good. This shows that when people are doing good in their pockets, they won`t want to still from other people`s pocket.

Usually in neighborhoods where there is more green, meaning trees, grassy fields, lawns, flowers, and plants, people feel safer. For example, in a  2008 study of the 100 largest metropolitan areas, meaning urban and suburban areas, violent crimes in the city was at about 2,100, in comparison to in suburban areas at about 1,000. This shows that crime in urban areas is more prevalent than that of suburban areas. But why? It could simply be the reaction to seeing nature and serenity, and the pleasant smells and atmosphere that promotes a safer lifestyle and environment. This being in comparison to say an urban area, where there are factories, busy streets, odd smells, limited greenery, and noise. Also, the closeness of everyone and everything contributes sometimes to feelings of being trapped, especially in living communities, in comparison to how each suburban house is separate. In all, its is a common consensus that suburban areas lead to lower crime rates, however, what more is there to this?

Research studies over the years has questioned whether it’s due to one's genetic makeup of someone that causes them to be involved in criminal activity or if it is due to the environment in which an individual was raised in. It has been concluded that genes and one’s environment both play a significant role in one’s desire to participate in criminal activities. Various studies and lab experiments have led to this conclusion. In all, criminal behavior is defined by social and legal institutions, meaning science and biology do not play a role in defining what criminal activity is.

Regarding environment, however, this is not simply limited to the type of actually environment one is living in, meaning what the outside looks like, the more in depth environment, meaning the household and family environment can factor even more into how a child is influenced. Research has concluded it is the family environment that essentially factors in a child’s superactivity. With family risks or triggers for a bad environment being poverty, a child’s education, how the parent’s choose to raise their child, and how the family functions as a whole. Unsurprisingly, researchers discovered families who lack solid communication skills with one another and have weak bonds and connections throughout the family have been linked with children’s development of aggressive behavior, eventually leading to criminal behavior. A solid conclusion for a families turn out is with a family that lacks financially or mentally to properly raise their children and punish them for doing room are more likely to have an environment that influences the behavior and mindset of those who participate in criminal activity and delinquent behavior. In conclusion, one can understand that not just the overall environment, meaning the city, or suburban, or rural areas has an influence on how criminal activity is promoted, but the actual environment of how a child is raised is the larger factor in determining an individual's criminal mindset and behavior.

Sources:

http://www.personalityresearch.org/papers/jones.html

https://gspp.berkeley.edu/assets/uploads/research/pdf/p66.pdf

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline

Adolescents, Crime and Brain Development.

Ghani  is a friend of my mom’s. When he was fifteen years old he and another friend of his came from New York to Philadelphia to work with a drug gang. His friend and he were put inside of an abandoned house where they were locked in a room and sold drugs through a slit in the door, and they were brought food and water through the slit in the door. They were trapped, desperate, and fifteen years old and their brains weren’t thinking about the consequences of their actions, so when the next person came to the door they killed him so they could escape. Ghani and his friends were both tried as adults as many teenagers are even though that shouldn’t be the case. There is no doubt that what Ghani and his friend did is wrong, but should they have been tried as adults?

The rational region (frontal lobe) of a teen’s brain won’t be fully developed until the age of twenty-five. The frontal lobe contains a region called the prefrontal cortex which lets us organize our thoughts, anticipate consequences, plan, and control impulses. “The frontal lobe undergoes far more change during adolescence than at any other stage of life.” It is also the last part of the brain to develop, which means that even as they become fully capable in other areas, adolescents cannot reason as well as adults. Under development of rational thinking causes teens to rely on emotional parts of the brain, rather than the frontal lobe.”  A scientist who studies adolescent brains explains, “one of the things that teenagers seem to do is to respond more strongly with gut response than they do with evaluating the consequences of what they’re doing.” Ghani and his friend didn’t kill the man out of act of violence, they killed him based on emotion. They felt trapped. They were trapped! Unfortunately our legal system doesn’t recognize that that teenage are more likely to do mindless thing because they lack rational thinking.

"Adolescence, Brain Development and Legal Culpability." Juvenile Justice Center. N.p., Jan. 2004. Web. 7 June 2016.

Since the beginning of criminology, police officers and detectives have been trying to come up with  methods of detecting lies, stories and fibs. .It wasn't until the early 1920’s polygraphs have been used as an interrogation tool with criminals. The US law enforcement and federal government agencies such as the FBI and the CIA have been using them. This test works in a easy way, when someone lies it makes your heart race. It makes you pant, it drives up your blood pressure and in some extreme cases it makes you drip sweat. A polygraph machine detect lies by looking for signs of these physiological changes. But to often there have been times where the these test don’t actually work. Scientist have been coming up with ways that enhance and improve the way these test work by using neuroscience.  

“Scientists believe that a lie is made up of two parts: a person must create the lie and also withhold the truth”

After 9/11 the American government has become highly interested in procuring a sure-fire method of spotting liars. The American military has a whole department, the Department of Defense Polygraph Institute the need for a better test came along. These proponents believe the future impact of neuroscience “will be inevitable, dramatic, and will fundamentally alter the way the law does business” In this case there’s always going to be people who agree with polygraph test and people who think it’s a whole bunch of crap. Using neuroscience, scientist have come up with ways to use Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to looks inside the brain instead of tracking outside measures of anxiety like changes in pulse, blood pressure or respiration. fMRI’s get the point straight across, you ask a question and if you lie the test shows it. Detection accuracy was claimed to be as high as 90% compared to a purported 70% for polygraphs making them more reliable and fast moving. There would be no need to use lawyers that would switch up your words and evidence. While some see this the best thing that could happen, and a bridge to a whole new world of lie detection and criminology others think this is just a waste of time.

Scientist believe the fMRI machines will only confuse results  “In theory, it takes more neural activity to lie than tell the truth because you have to construct a narrative, so the extent of neural activity can be relevant in determining whether you’re lying,” said Andrea Roth, an assistant professor at Berkeley Law.  In order to image an area where there is activity, a thought has to be made, and an image taken a couple of seconds afterward (because the oxygen conversion is not instantaneous). Stanford University’s Anthony Wagner decided to do a test where laboratory studies involve instruction to tell a low-stakes lie about an action they recently performed. However, in the real world, lies are self-generated, often high risk and emotionally charged, and lie detection may occur years after the event in question. This process must be repeated a couple of times to be able to filter out false positives. In the end there is no hard data to show that we can actually detect lies with great accuracy. We would all love it if neuroscience could distinguish between these true and false memories until then cops and detective will still to polygraph test.

fMRI’s are not a perfect science, and they have a long way to go before they can be perfect. I feel like with a good mixture between the test, lawyers and great evidence court cases will be easy to solve and won’t be hard to put people behind bars. There’s going to be a lot of work done and a lot of time put in before we can get anywhere to a point where test can really tell who’s lying and who’s telling the truth. We shouldn’t treat fMRI’s as if it’s the only thing that can and should be used in the court, we should seen more like another piece of evidence that could be icing on the cake to completely the case.

Let's say a truthful man was at the bank and he saw a robbery take place right in front of his eyes. Would you rely on that man for information about what they recall during that instance? I would expect this truthful man to tell the story as the way it happened and according to the article on Eyewitness by Hal Arkowitz, Scott O. Lilienfeld, jurors also heavily rely on information provided by eyewitnesses. Eyewitness testimony is a trusted source of information and has been that way for a long time. However, study has shown that eyewitness testimony might not actually be a reliable source of information. It’s apparently not a rare case that during these types of situations, people recall the wrong information. In 1984, a man named Kirk Bloodsworth was charged and sentenced to nine years in prison because the statements given by five eyewitnesses were very heavily weighted during the session. Years later, DNA testing proved him to be innocent.

Psychologists have found that when people recall memories, they’re alway changing the details of it. In the famous Lost in the Mall experiment, the subjects recalled information more detailed as time passed and 48% of what the subjects stated were false. It’s easy for our brains to implant memories that never occurred. Elizabeth Loftus, a cognitive psychologist, worked endlessly to prove how memories could be so distorted and richly wrong. She’s experimented numerous times implanting memories and studying its results, she states that sharing these information to learn how to prevent memory implant is better than covering it up. It has been reported that “73 percent of the 239 convictions overturned through DNA testing were based on eyewitness testimony.” Cases involving conviction of innocent people are 70% of the time rooted from eyewitness misidentification according to John Bohannon’s article on Science magazine. It is crucial that the justice system adjust and reconsider eyewitness testimony looking at these research and statistics.

There is the misconception about how the memory works and this truly creates our society to rely on eyewitness information causing many complications especially in our justice system. I think there needs to be more research and experiments completed to understand exactly how and why that occurs. As Loftus has stated, we need to work to protect ourselves from misleading preconceptions and uncover as much information about it as possible. Doing that will allow right judgement on cases like Kirk Bloodsworth.    

Sources:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/18/health/lifeswork-loftus-memory-malleability/

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-the-eyes-have-it/

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/12/eyewitness-testimony-may-only-be-credible-under-these-circumstances

The insanity defense is an excuse defense used in criminal trials. It means that the defendant was not or could not be responsible for their actions either during the time of the crime or permanently. One of the first cases of pleading insanity was in Auburn, New York. William Freeman was wrongfully accused of committing a theft. When they found the right man he still implicated Freeman in the theft and so Freeman fled jail. He was convicted of theft and escape and at the age of 16 he was sentenced to five years of labor at the state prison. After continuously insisting upon his innocence he was beaten in the head with a piece of wood by a guard. This left him mentally impaired. Shortly after Freeman was released a farmer and his family were murdered. Freeman was able to get a lawyer who was willing to make a case for insanity because he believed the mental state of the defendant should be taken into account. The court found him guilty saying that he was perfectly sane. Freeman died in his cell and an autopsy showed definite brain deterioration so the insanity case actually should have been sufficient.

The first viewpoint is that the insanity defense does not hold water. It is extremely difficult to figure out whether or not someone should be held responsible for their actions. It was pretty clear in the case above because after the autopsy it was definitely shown that there was brain deterioration. But in modern day cases, especially because the insanity defense is more widely known, it is hard to tell whether the claim should excuse the crime. For example, there have been cases of pedophilic behavior being the side effect of a brain tumor. Is that person then responsible for their actions or was it solely the tumor? There is significant neuroscience to back up the fact that the mental stability of the defendant often can remove a level of responsibility. There is a part in the brain called the orbiofrontal cortex which controls things like reasoning, impulse control, social integration, morals, etc. So when that area of the brain is damaged the result can be sociopathic behavior. So the science does support the insanity defense.

On the other hand, the science isn’t always perfect and there are still a lot of unknowns. In the case of a man who had a brain tumor and started watching child pornography when he was at home, the question was raised as to how much he could control his impulses. After all, he wasn’t watching it at work. Also, he didn’t tell anyone which raised further questions; maybe this is something he had already felt and the tumor brought it out. It becomes very subjective. The other societal issue is, even though it may have been out of their control at the time the damage was still done. The man supported the child porn industry. So what is the best way to handle an insanity defense? Should it take away the responsibility and punishment?