Sunday e-mail 7th July
What do we mean by the causes of crime?
How heartening it was to read everyone’s responses to Wednesday’s post on Lombroso and his theory of crime. I enjoyed sharing that great material with you and it makes me happy to know that you enjoyed reading about it. This reinforces my belief that Lombrosian theory is one of the most interesting topics in the whole of Criminal Psychology. I love giving lectures about it. Nothing is so guaranteed to get a laugh from a crowded lecture theatre as a picture of the Criminal Ear.
By the way, if you haven’t yet read the post, you can find it right here. You’ll like it!
Lombroso, and indeed the whole Italian School, sort of lend themselves to lecturers who prefer to play for laughs. I would confess to feeling as guilty as anyone, but I can’t see why I ought to feel guilty. Here at Crime & Psychology, we never confuse seriousness with solemnity.
But let’s not forget the great contribution Lombroso and his Italian School made to Criminology. They were among the first to conceive of it as a science, with everything that implies.
What do we mean by ‘everything’?
Ah, well, there’s a question. Fear not – I shan’t wade into deep philosophical waters here. But I shall point out that Lombroso was asking a deceptively difficult question: ‘Why do certain people commit crime?’ The question is very similar to another one: ‘What are the causes of crime?’
To ask ‘Why did Fred commit that crime?’ seems not so very different to asking ‘What caused Fred to commit that crime?’ That fact has exciting implications.
One of the vital features of science is that it allows us to discover the causes of things.
At this point, the psychologist asks, ‘What exactly do we mean by a cause?’ Causes come in various sizes, shapes, and colours. Did Fred inherit a ‘criminal gene’ from his parents? If so, maybe that’s the cause of his crime. Was he feeling resentful at an unjust world? Maybe that’s the cause. Did he just feel a bit hot and fed up? Maybe that’s the cause. Were the frontal lobes of his brain on the blink? Maybe it was that. And so on. And so on.
An answer on one level does not preclude an answer on another. Here’s what I mean by that: It’s possible that Fred’s frontal lobes were malfunctioning because he was too hot and fed up and he was hot and fed up because of the unjustness of the world, which he felt keenly because of particular genes he’d inherited from his parents - and so on and so on.
In 1985, the psychologist Paul Willner wrote about the psychological syndrome, depression. He asked this question: ‘Is depression a biochemical abnormality or an agonising subjective experience?’ His answer (of course) was that it was both. Experiences do not reduce into biochemical abnormalities. In order to explain any psychological phenomenon, Willner figured, we need four levels of explanation.
And so here is this week’s bullet list:
· Biochemical – we can explain anything in Psychology by finding out which chemicals were being synthesised in the brain, employed, or taken up. Maybe by increasing the level of a neurotransmitter like dopamine we change a person’s behaviour and make them more law-abiding.
· Physiological – increased dopamine production will have knock-on effects: it changes the level of activity in certain parts of the brain (or certain chemical pathways). You may know that there are psychologists who choose to study the levels of activity in different areas of criminals’ brains.
· Cognitive – by this, we mean, basically, thinking. Changes in the activity of certain physiological pathways naturally affect the way the person thinks. Perhaps with more active frontal lobes, the person can repress their criminal urges more successfully.
· Experiential – feeling happier and more law-abiding, perhaps the person’s life becomes more pleasant, making them less irritable and resentful and therefore less likely to commit crime.
None of these levels provides a better explanation than any other. Psychological causes are not mutually exclusive.
More on Lombroso this week, Crime & Psychology fan! Meanwhile bash a bright blue button below. Belt it like a bongo! It helps keep this newsletter going.
This is an interesting post (again :)).
You make a comparison between two similar questions. I agree that they are indeed similar:
‘Why do certain people commit crime?’ The question is very similar to another one: ‘What are the causes of crime?’
Yet I think this may push people to try and answer them differently. The first implies that there is a "certain" person who is of a certain "kind" who commits crime. Hence if Christian and Lucas were in the same situation, Christian may crime while Lucas may not. To me this suggests that there may be internal causes for crime and thus possibly even ways to identify individuals who are more likely to commit crimes based on genes/ears/skulls/face archetypes/etc...
The second question to me points to looking at external causes which may have internal consequences (i.e. changing a person level of dopamine). In this case it seems it would be more likely for Lucas and Christian to both commit a crime if they were in the same circumstances or for both of them not to commit a crime.
I wonder whether these are formulations that were used by historial actos. The ways in which they describe research programs often betrays underlying assumptions about possible causes and possible methodologies... It may be worth thinking about what questions certain groups asked and then look at both the methods they used and the kinds of hypothesis they pushed forward.
I am likely reading to much of a difference here...
It’s like asking what makes it a Caesar salad. Or a martini.