Chapter 5: Biological Roots of Behavior

Major Principles of Biological Theories

This brief section serves to summarize the central features of biological theories of crime causation. Each of these points can be found elsewhere in this chapter, where they are discussed in more detail. This cursory overview, however, is intended to provide more than a summary—it is meant to be a guide to the rest of this chapter.

Biological theories of crime causation make certain fundamental assumptions. Among them are

The brain is the organ of the mind and the locus of personality. In the words of the well-known biocriminologist Clarence Ray Jeffery, "The brain is the organ of behavior; no theory of behavior can ignore neurology and neurochemistry."(1)

• 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/or between racially distinct groups.
• The basic determinants of human behavior, including criminality, may be passed on from generation to generation. In other words, a penchant for crime may be inherited.
• Much of human conduct is fundamentally rooted in instinctive behavioral responses characteristic of biological organisms everywhere. Territoriality, condemnation of adultery, and acquisitiveness are but three examples of behavior which may be instinctual to human beings.
• The biological roots of human conduct have become increasingly disguised, as modern symbolic 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. In other words, some human beings may be further along the evolutionary ladder than others, and their behavior may reflect it.
• The interplay between heredity, biology, and the social environment provides the nexus for any realistic consideration of crime causation.

Summary

Contemporary criminology has shown considerable reluctance to adapt the contributions of biological theories to an understanding of criminality. An objective understanding of any social phenomenon, however, requires clear consideration of all available evidence. Modern proponents of biological perspectives on crime and crime causation point out that the link between the social environment and human behavior is continuously mediated by the physical brain. Human activity flows from the human mind, and the mind is biologically grounded in the brain. The brain itself is apparently subject to influences from other aspects of the body, such as hormones, neurotransmitters, and the levels of various chemicals in the blood. Such realizations require only a small intellectual leap to the realization that other biological aspects of the human organism may play similar contributory roles in criminal behavior.

Unfortunately, however, for proponents of biological theories which seek to explain crime, the influence of the environment upon human behavior appears to be nearly overpowering, and studies purporting to have identified biological determinants of behavior have been thoroughly criticized on methodological and other grounds. For the time being, we must draw the conclusion that while biology provides both a context for, and specific precursors to, human behavior, biological predispositions for behavior in most instances of human interaction are routinely overshadowed by the role of volition, the mechanisms of human thought, and the undeniable influences of socialization and acculturation. Even so, any comprehensive approach to human behavior must give due recognition to the biological precursors of behavior itself.

Discussion Questions

Note: you may be requested by your instructor to e-mail the answers to these questions to his or her office. If so, be sure to add your name (or other identifying information) to your answers, since your e-mail address may not tell your instructor who you are.

Click here for e-mail homework form!

1. What are the central features of biological theories of crime? How do such theories differ from other perspectives that attempt to explain the same phenomena?
2. Why have biological approaches to crime causation been out of vogue? Do you agree or disagree with those critical of such perspectives? Why or why not?
3. What does the author of this book mean when he writes, "[o]pen inquiry requires objective consideration of all points of view, and an examination of each for their ability to shed light upon the subject under study." Do you agree or disagree with that assertion? Why?
4. What are the social policy implications of biological theories of crime? What U.S. Supreme Court case, discussed in this chapter, might presage a type of policy based upon such theories?

Notes

(1) Jeffery, Biological Perspectives, p. 298.

Back to Criminology Today Home Page
Back to Chapter Links

© Prentice-Hall, Inc. A Simon & Schuster Company Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458

Legal Statement