Criminality is influenced by diverse social factors and reflects social situation in a particular country. Also, critics and researchers underline that rates of criminality depends upon biological and genetic influences as drivers of antisocial behavior patterns. The relationship between biological and genetic characteristics and the life consequence of criminal behavior is observed for other events: life expectancy, mobility, automobile accidents, and suicide.
Biological influences on criminality are evident in sex differences between males and females. Sex of a person makes it possible to experience various life consequences. The belief that females, who are supposedly physically more weak, are mistreated more often is also inaccurate. Aside from rape, the only individual crime for which women are victimized more than men is robbery with contact. Men are twice as likely to be the victim of an assault or a robbery and 50 percent more likely to experience some crime of theft. Men are also the victims of strangers more than females. Some 72 percent of all personal crimes of violence against males involve strangers, compared with only 57 percent of the violent crimes against females. This connection holds for property crimes as well. Therefore, the idea that physically weaker people constantly fall prey to the criminal has no foundation in fact. Neither females nor older people are particularly prone to criminal victimization. On the contrary, they are considerably less likely to be victims than their counterparts. But, the lifestyles of these community groups may explain this fact better than their actual vulnerability to criminals (Wright et al 2008).
Human biology and genetics are the two personal attributes most closely tied to antisocial behavior. Heredity and race are also related. Contrary to what one might expect, the differences among groups are not dramatic. Blacks are more frequently victims of violence than others, while whites experience property crimes at higher rates than other ethnic and racial groups. For crimes of violence, robbery accounts for the higher rate experienced by blacks. Blacks are almost three times more likely than whites to be a robber’s victim. For property crimes, blacks are more vulnerable to purse-snatching and pocket-picking than whites, but whites experience higher rates of larceny without contact. This general pattern of oppression is consistent across ethnic lines. Individuals of Hispanic and African-American background are more prone to violent ill-treatment but less likely to suffer property crime than non-Hispanics (Beaver, 2008)
Genetic predisposition may lead to antisocial inclinations and increase a possibility of criminal behavior patterns. The cultural ties associated with family income, race, and ethnicity also affect with whom one associates and the places of those associations. Housing, transportation, privacy, and leisure-time factors are related to income as well as to racial and ethnic segregation. To the extent that crime varies according to place and event, individuals from different income levels and racial and ethnic groups will experience crime to varying degrees. The chances of criminal victimization appear to vary according to the time a person spends in public places, particularly at night, the proportion of time spent with non-offenders, and degree to which a person shares unique biological characteristics with offenders. The decrease in official statistics is accomplished by simply changing the techniques for recording complaints. When the same departments are faced with budget cuts and fierce competition for scarce resources with the fire department, sanitation workers, and other local agencies, indications that crime is increasing and law enforcement is imperative becomes socially advantageous (Wright et al 2008).
Researchers (Wright et al 2008) admit that the young, male, unmarried or divorced, and poor face higher risks of criminal victimization. According to researchers, individuals characterized by more than one of these variables have exceedingly high victimization rates. By biological age, individuals differ in mobility, exposure to others, and time spent outside the home. Very young children are not often exposed to criminal victimization because few activities involving that age-group occur outside the home. They are under the constant supervision and protection of an adult. This pattern begins to change when a young individual starts school. The individual spends greater amounts of time away from home with non-family members. With adulthood, lifestyle shifts again. Job and familial responsibilities buffer a person from antisocial environments. As one progresses through adulthood, mobility, interpersonal contacts, and the external world become more and more restricted. Fear of crime also increases with age, contributing to the further reduction in exposure to victimization as older adults avoid unsafe places (Beaver, 2008)
In sum, biology and genetic factors have a great impact on a person and his/her behavior patterns. Individuals from the antisocial families experience the highest rates of victimization for most crimes. Household larceny and motor vehicle thefts (where wealthy families are more likely to be victimized) are the two exceptions to this pattern. The biological factors lead to violent crime. This is true for all violent crimes except rape, where women from poor families are nine times more likely to be attacked than women from wealthy families. Another important difference among income categories is that poor individuals are much more likely to be seriously injured when robbed or assaulted than more affluent individuals. Still, genetic factors dominate among all social groups in spite of their income level.
References
Beaver, K.M. (2008). Biosocial Criminology: A Primer. Kendall/Hunt Publishing Co.; 1 edition.
Wright, J.P. Tibbetts, S.G. Daigle, L.E. (2008). Criminals in the making: Criminality across the life course, Sage Publications, Inc.