Are criminals programmed to offend?
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The nature v nurture debate has been a hot topic in criminology for countless years. Are some people born with a criminal nature or do factors in their upbringing and environment shape them into criminals?
If the former is true, then could there be a way of identifying the criminals of the future while they are still young children?
And can they truly be held responsible for their crimes if they are biologically programmed to be anti-social?
At the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science earlier this year, two leading criminologists laid out the evidence which they believe points to some biological factors being involved in criminal behaviour.
Professor Adrian Raine, of the University of Pennsylvania, told the meeting that differences between men’s and women’s brains might explain why males commit far more crime than females.
A part of the brain which controls emotion – the orbital frontal cortex – is much bigger in women’s brains than in those of men, h...
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