Criminal Activity :: Comparative, Criminological Theory

This essay will compare and contrast various perspectives that focus on individual attributes against those that focus on aggregate characteristics of criminal activity. Criminological research has a long history of trying to explain the causes of crime. During its’ history, there have been various theories or schools of thoughts that have attempted to capture the essence of this field of study. There were various theories espoused by some of the early pioneers of criminological theory. For example, Beccaria thought that crime occurred when the benefits of committing crime outweighed the cost (Cullen & Agnew, 2011). Lombroso thought that crime was caused or determined; he placed a great deal of emphasis on deficiencies of a biological nature. He was a phrenologist, he looked to physical features such as a large jaw bone and protrusions on the skull to indicate criminal propensities (Cullen & Agnew, 2011). Lambroso’s work laid the ground work for the positive school of thought; it implied that criminals have no choice for their criminal activity. Later research also focused on individual trait attributes in relation to criminality, but refined the use of more scientific methods to draw their conclusions. These studies were called micro-level theories because their concern was identifying how individual characteristics are related to their involvement in crime. These theories acknowledge that societal factors interact with biological traits, which may in turn produce crime. Some of these traits include low verbal IQ, attention deficit disorder, risk seeking and poor social and problem solving skills (Cullen & Agnew, 2011). Data has suggested that to some degree crime is inherited, and that genes likely contribute to certain traits that are conducive to crime (Ellis & Walsh, 1997) Gene theory suggest that some genes could evolve that predispose an individual to take advantage of the unselfish cooperative behavior of others (Badcock, 1986) Heart rates were also said to have a bearing on criminal dispositions. There are studies that found lower resting heart rates to be associated with a greater crime rate. There was an additional finding that the prefrontal lobes may not work correctly in the brain of criminally predisposed individuals (Rowe, 2002) Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990) discovered that individual differences in self control predispose some people to criminal activity. These aforementioned facts point to how individual traits have a bearing on the commission of crime. Although there has been acknowledgement that individuals may have a biological predisposition to become criminals; nonetheless, some may still engage in very little criminal activity if they are raised in loving, supportive family environments.