Theories Of Criminology

Crime is an issue affecting us directly or indirectly in our everyday lives and we are surrounded by it constantly. Although criminal acts are often disturbing they are hugely fascinating and when such violent crimes occur, we seek answers. Regardless of how severe the crime is, we strive to know what the cause was and why it happened. Unless we have a clear reason it is challenging to put it behind us.
The debate regarding criminality being a result of nature or nurture has been a topic of discussion both within criminology and outside of it for decades. Criminologists brought forward theories attempting to address and explain this paradox, and explanations for crime included psychological, sociological, economical, biological reasons, amongst
There is a sympathetic nervous system which prepares body for situations where it might need to flee a threat and it’s job is to increase stimulation, arousal and increase blood pressure. These systems work in the way that they let the brain know exactly what is happening and therefore send instructions from the brain that allow the muscles and orgasms to respond. When it comes to the brain a part called the hypothalamus controls our motivated behaviour such as sex drive or hunger, it also plays a part in maintaining a connection with the autonomic nervous system in order to receive information about the function of our internal organs which helps to improve their regulation. However its most important job is to assess levels of hormones in our body and to send that information further to the pituitary gland which then directs the function of the other glands in the endocrine system which is involved in the regulation of our responses. Many genes could affect the human brain functioning which can result in either reducing or increasing the chances of people learning certain behaviour
When it comes to personality disorders the “symptoms” first appear in children, although according to Holmes et al (2001) some of the more prominent disorders do appear to have a relationship with adult behaviour later in life.
For instance, Oppositional Defiance Disorder (ODD) which is one of the disorders shown to have a relationship with adult behaviour is made up of characteristics such as irritability, argumentativeness and noncompliance, and once a child grows older, these characteristics remain with them and often turn their behaviour for even worse as they begin to engage in vandalism, stealing, aggression etc. (Holmes at al., 2001). With that in mind, some children actually develop other disorders, a frequent pair is ODD developing into conduct disorder, as established by Morley & Hall (2003)
Moreover there are additional studies based on families, twins and adoptions which support the idea that there is a genetic component linked to criminality as discussed by Tehrani