David Rowe Biology In Crime Summary

Criminologist David Rowe was one of the primary leaders in a movement to bring the discussion of biology back to criminal justice which occurred in the late 1990's before this both biological and individual traits were largely ignored by criminologists. Now biological and individual traits are influential in large part due to Rowe whom published a book titled “Biology in Crime” in 2002. In this work Rowe contends that genetic factors affect individual traits due to their impact on the central nervous system and autonomic nervous system and that their is a physiological relation to a heightened amount of violence when these systems are thrown off and their is evidence that criminals may have deficits in the per-frontal cortex of the brain and their is an association between low
serotonin levels and violence and that they same can be said for lower heart rates more prone to violence. This occurs possibly in an effort for those individuals to raise their serotonin and heart rates. Association between weak skin conductance/response to criminal disposition is measured by how much the fingers sweat. Rowe argues that a lack of fear may lead to people seeking out exciting things such as crime as a substitute to (in order to feel normal). Criminals have less brain activity in the pre-frontal lobe.
Murderers have less nerve cells in this area of the brain. Rowe does acknowledge that the environment does influence traits and contends that biological harms may be a function of environments being subjected to toxins, poor prenatal care, poverty or abuse may effect the mind. Glueck and Glueck examined the physique of delinquent boys bodies and found that there were more solid muscle bodies on delinquent boys who were also found to be more assertive as well as more likely to have less verbal intelligence and delinquents are more likely to disobey. Terry Moffitt says that a life consistent course-persistent offender start antisocial acts early and continue their waywardness into and beyond adolescence the developmental process begins with neurological deficits normal brain development is disrupted through pre or postnatal exposure to drugs, poor nutrition, injury, exposure to toxins, lack of stimulation, ect, resulting in psychological deficits. life developmental theory parents may have some of the defects and can't deal with a hard child. adolescence limited offends start and finish their criminality during the teenage
years. This is a very large group of individuals (almost all adolescents) thus during adolescence, LCP's often become popular because they are role models for the AL youth - AL's often offend in groups, while LCP's will offend alone. Although people have questioned whether or not there are more than two groups of offenders, research has shown support for Moffitts theory of life course persistent and adolescence limited offends.