Criminal Behavior
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As part of any discussion on criminal justice, one is forced to confront the ultimate root question: what causes criminal behavior? There are two basic schools of thought on this subject. Greatly simplified, they boil down to "Nature versus Nurture" - that is, that criminality is either an inherent trait or learned behavior. Such discussions of criminal behavior tend to focus on the implications of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, combined with a healthy dose of Sigmund Freud's theories on psychology, as they relate to violent forms of criminality. Those implications are then pitted against social theory advocates, such as Karl Marx, who believe that family, peer, and society influences play the major role in shaping humankind's destiny. Without giving preference to either side of the argument, it is generally conceded by all that the social theorists' "Nurture" approach does more easily include nonviolent crimes such as fraud, embezzlement, and so forth. Yet, as science recently has proceeded to discover the powerful influences of hormones on human behavior, even the clearcut distinctions between violent and nonviolent criminality can be erased by the possible emergence of "behavior control" drugs that dampen "sociopathic" tendencies - whatever the root cause. It will be the purpose of this brief paper to identify a number of the declared "causes" of criminal behavior, and to describe those causes without passing final judgement.
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atural selection in terms of family dynamics:
Depending on differences in birth order, gender, physical traits, and aspects of temperament, siblings create differing roles for themselves within the family system ... disparate ways of currying parental favor ... which, in turn, improves a child's chances for survival. ... children use their brains to accomplish the differentiation and adaptation that [other] species took millions of years to achieve. ... Genetics supplies the equivalent of canvas and paints. The environment, which guides the process of individual development, provides the equivalent of the artist's brush strokes.
This emphasis upon environment and family parallels the social theorists' arguments that criminality is learned behavior. It is a well-recorded phenomenon that the child abuser will have come from a home environment where child abuse was the norm, not the aberration. A New York University study has found that young murderers are nearly twice as likely as ordinary delinquents to have been physically abused - and six times as likely to have seen violence in the home.
As a matter of social theory, criminality as a result of learned behavior has clear political implications - and, consequently, a c
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2156
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)
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