Introduction
In a nation where everyone has the opportunity to make something out of life, it is a puzzle why many Americans are in prison. In the Information age where a person has access to more knowledge about the folly of being involved in criminal activities and the negative impact of having a prison record, it is a mystery why there are still many who opted to lead a life of crime. The high crime rate continues to challenge social scientists and psychologists to find a way to prevent or at least curb the crisis. But since the modern age, many have attempted to not only discover a method preventing crime but also to find out the root-cause of criminal behavior.
There are various theories dealing with the causes of crime but for this study, two major theories will be discussed in detail. The first theory that will be analyzed is a subset of an environmental theory of crime causation which is known as the social structure theory. This theory asserts that the social environment plays a major role as to whether a child living in such conditions will grow up to be a criminal or not. The second theory that will be analyzed is a subset of the biological theory of crime causation which is known as the extra chromosome theory. This theory asserts that the extra chromosome in the genetic make-up of some individuals is the main reason why they are prone to commit crime.
Background
The claim that there is a high crime rate in the United States of America is supported by the following statistics. In a study of US prisons in the 21st century, found out that, “In 2003, 22 states and the federal prison system reported operating at or above capacity. The federal system was estimated to be operating at 39 percent, and overall the state systems were operating at 14 percent above capacity” (Clear, Cole, & Reisig 2005). This simply means that an increasing number of people turning into a life of crime and that the federal government is running out of facilities to rehabilitate them.
Michael Jacobson the former Commissioner of the New York City Department of Correction, the largest city jail system in the U.S. pointed out that America is experiencing a crisis in its criminal justice system. Jacobson added, “The United States now locks up a higher percentage of its population than any country in the world. The more than 2 million people who are incarcerated today make up roughly eight times the number in 1975” (Jacobson, 2005).
Many are saying that overcrowded prison is due to tougher laws. New policies were ratified due to the belief that habitual offenders must be locked up for good – that they may feel the full force of the law. But would it be better for all Americans if crime can be prevented?
In order to answer that query it must first be established that crime just like other social phenomenon has a root-cause. This is not hard to argue in society that believes in cause and effect. Therefore since the beginning of the scientific age, scientists in various disciplines came up with various theories regarding the causation of crime. It can be argued that there are two major groupings: biological and environmental. The biological theory of crime causation simply states that a criminal is born. While the environmental theory promotes the idea that a criminal is made – by various social forces such as the family, race, economy, etc.
The following is a list of subgroups that are linked to the two major theories described above (Wrobleski, & Hess, 2006):
Biological Theories
- Biochemical – Crime is a function of diet, vitamin intake, hormonal imbalance foodallergies.
- Neurological – Criminals and delinquents suffer from a form of brain impairment; braindysfunction is linked to antisocial behavior.
- Genetic – Delinquent traits are inherited. Also, the genetic make-up of the personinfluences his or her behavior. A good example would be the extra chromosome theory of criminal behavior.
Environmental Theories
- Social Structure – The conflicts and problems of urban social life control the crime rate. There are also those who accept that society expects something from them and yet they are well-aware of the fact that the do not have the means to prove that they are productive citizens and therefore they turn to a life of crime to attain respect in the community.
- Social Process – People learn to commit crime through exposure to antisocial behavior. This is especially true when deviant behavior is rewarded.
The Environment
For those who support the idea that criminals are not born but made, the task of proving that the environment plays a major role in criminal behavior will not be an easy one. This is because there are so many aspects of the environment that must be considered. Isolating these factors will be an impossible endeavor. There is no way that a scientist can devise an experiment that will isolate the natural environment from the social environment for instance. To separate the impact of the squalor of the living conditions from the impact of having an alcoholic father would be impossible. Thus, the general theory that the environment creates criminals is further broken down into a myriad of related theories.
If the root-cause of crime is not inherent in the individual then it simply means that the cause can be found outside the person. This means that if the problem is not genetic then it must be the environment. The next step is to find a correlation between location and crime. According to criminologists there is indeed a connection and they label this site as criminal places (Cassel & Bernstein, 2007). Studies have shown that most crime is highly concentrated in and around a relatively small number of such places. Criminologists assert that in the case of the United States, 10% of “criminal places” are consistently the site of about 60% of all crimes (Cassel & Bernstein, 2007).
This is the reason why most convenience stores are seldom hit by robbers while a few are favorites of stick-up men and they hit it again and again. This is also the reason why there are residential areas that are burglarized on a regular basis. Again, this is the explanation given why there are some bars that are the scene of violence while others operate without incident.
Taking a closer look at these “criminal places”, criminologists discovered that many environmental factors have been identified as contributing factors to crime and this includes, poverty, unemployment, the disintegrating family and drug and alcohol abuse.
But among all these, “Poverty is the pervasive, persistent, devastating threat to many of our nation’s families, particularly to youths. Poverty encompasses a host of problems, including overcrowded and unhealthy living condition in unsafe, crime-ridden neighborhoods; inadequate schools; limited access to healthcare; and single and/or teen parenthood” (Wrobleski & Hess 2006). Social structure theory is an example of an environmental theory that attempts to explain this phenomenon.
Social structure theory argues that the conflicts and problems of urban social life significantly impact the crime rate. Proponents of this theory stress that aside from the commonly attributable factors to crime such as overcrowded housing, high illiteracy rates, drug addicts living in the neighborhood, etc., there is another single important factor and it is the desire for success as defined in the American Dream. According to criminologists, “The American Dream is a broad cultural ethos that entails a commitment to the goal of material success, to be pursued by everyone in society, under condition of open, individual competition” (Wrobleski & Hess 2006).
When the main goal is money, pushing everything into the background, people will begin to think that nothing is more important than getting rich and therefore poor people from the ghettos as well as rich people living in gated communities will not hesitate to commit crime. Yet again there is a problem with this theory since not all poor and illiterate individuals end up behind bars.
Biological Explanation
For many decades criminologists believe that criminality is linked to biology. According to Vito, Maahs, and Holmes the reason why this mindset is prevalent in the early part of the 20th century can be explained by the fact that most of the criminologists in that era were physicians (2006). Thus, there was a time when physical features are enough to condemn a person. When scientific tools began to improve, biological theories explaining crime also became sophisticated. One popular example is the extra chromosome theory. Anderson provides the scientific basis for this theory:
…humans carry their genetic material in their chromosomes which are found in the nucleus of every cell in the body. Each chromosome consists of strings of genes. The human species has 46 chromosomes in 23 pairs. Twenty-two of the pairs are somatic and one pair are sex chromosomes … The sex chromosomes are noted as XX if you are female and XY if you are male (Anderson, 2007).
It was discovered that some individuals have an extra chromosome; for instance some females have an XXX structure while some males have an XXY structure, also known as Klinefelter’s syndrome (Vito, Maahs, & Holmes 2006). In 1965 Patricia Jacobs discovered that the incidence of the XYY disorder was 20 times higher among inmates in a Scottish prison than in the general Scottish population (Hunter & Dantzker 2006).
She also found out that the extra chromosome cause the males to be unusually tall, aggressive, and violent (Vito, Maahs, & Holmes, 2006). In 1969 Lawrence Hannel was acquitted of murder after using extra chromosome theory as part of his defense (Hunter & Dantzker 2006). In 1966 Richard Speck murdered eight nurses and then went on to use the same theory for his defense. This time it did not work. It was later discovered that Speck did not carry an extra chromosome.
In later year the popularity of the above-mentioned theory began to wane. Aside from the unreliability of scientific tests as seen in the case of Speck there was another more important reason why criminologists abandoned the extra chromosome theory. Extensive research revealed that most violent offenders did not have the XYY structure. This simply means that if the extra chromosome is the root cause of crime then the abnormality should be evident in most criminals. Since this is not the case there is a need to look somewhere else.
Conclusion
It is understandable why the first generation of criminologists would focus on biological factors as the main cause of crime. After all it is easy to see antisocial behavior in families, in certain communities and in certain geographical areas. There are families of alcoholics and there are well-documented examples of sons following the criminal exploits of their fathers. A sophisticated theory that sought to explain the seemingly hereditary aspect of crime is the extra chromosome theory. But this was dismissed later due to the lack of consistency and the fact that not all violent criminals carry the extra chromosome in their genetic make-up.
Thus other theories began to be developed and when social science began to become popular in the West, criminologists began to focus on the impact of the environment on criminal behavior. This was further strengthened by the fact that high crime rates are evident in certain areas where poverty, high illiteracy rates, and single parents seem to abound. But it is difficult to isolate environmental factors therefore different yet related theories were developed to address this issue.
On of the most popular is the social structure theory that not only attempts to explain criminal behavior in terms of social factors such as poverty but also by stating that social values exert tremendous pressure upon individuals so that they are ultimately forced to perform deviant behavior. Proponents of this theory assert that the American Dream, the need to succeed is partly to be blamed as to why the poor as well as the rich will not hesitate to break the law as long as they can get ahead of others.
The debate whether criminals are born or made will go on for some time. While others say that there is no use in trying to separate the environmental factors from the biological factors. There are many criminologists who believe that the, “…relationship between genes and the environment is often viewed as synergistic; the genes alone won’t cause the behavior, nor will the environment alone” (Wrobleski & Hess 2006). For now there is nothing wrong with this view.
References
Anderson, G. (2007). Biological Influences on Criminal Behavior. FL: CRC Press.
Cassel, E. & D. Bernstein (2007). Criminal Behavior. 2nd ed. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Publishers.
Clear, T., G. Cole, & M. Reisig. (2005). American Corrections. Belmont CA: Thomson Wadsworth.
Hunter, R. & M. Dantzker. (2006). Crime and Criminality: Causes and Consequences. New York: Criminal Justice Press.
Jacobson, M. (2005). Downsizing Prisons: How to Reduce Crime and End Mass Incarceration. New York: New York University Press.
Vito, G., Maahs, J. & R. Holmes. (2006). Criminology: Theory, Research, and Policy. MA: Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
Wrobleski, H. & K. Hess. (2006). Introduction to Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice. CA: Thomson Wadsworth.