• Question: Are some people more likely to become criminal master minds than others? Is it in their genes?

    Asked by lisaloo to Claire, Kate, Matt, Rob, Sam on 24 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Sam Geen

      Sam Geen answered on 24 Jun 2013:

      People used to think that crime was related to your biology, and people tried to look for certain skull types that criminals had. But most of crime is social – if you’re very poor or maybe have a drug problem and need to keep buying drugs, you might steal to get money. Or maybe you’ve been badly treated as a child, and don’t care about other people getting hurt if you commit crimes against them.

      Certain criminals are psychopaths – people who don’t feel empathy for other people, and who might enjoy killing or hurting people. This can happen either because they had bad childhoods, or maybe because they have a problem with their brain. There’s a very good book by Jon Ronson called “The Psychopath Test” about him meeting psychopaths and doctors trying to find out why people are psychopaths.

      EDIT: My sister pointed me to this, about the biology of why some people might be criminals: https://www.readmatter.com/a/ghost-cell-epigenetics-violence/

    • Photo: Claire Lee

      Claire Lee answered on 24 Jun 2013:

      Yeah, I think it’s a combination effect. Your genetics do have a role, but two people with the same genetics but brought up completely differently would turn out to be completely different. I guess this is why combating crime is so difficult, because there are so many factors that could affect it.

      What if you treat somebody like something, do they end up becoming it? Let’s say you identify a bunch of factors that indicates someone is likely to be a criminal. Knowing this, your behaviour toward them automatically changes (you can’t help it mostly). Now, what if that person wouldn’t have turned to crime normally, but after feeling like he was being treated like a criminal for no reason, it drives him a bit crazy?

      Also there is the whole thing of what people actually believe is crime. The religious terrorists, for example, some of them truly believe they are doing their duty and what they are doing is not a crime 🙁 And it doesn’t even have to be that extreme… If I kill someone who is attacking my child, does that make me a criminal? If somebody steals a loaf of bread to feed their starving child, does that make them a criminal? Should the punishment be different to somebody who steals a loaf of bread but is not starving?

      hmmm… I think I asked you more questions than I answered!

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