The Making
and Unmaking of a Criminal
influences behavioral development, and found environmental factors such as coercive parenting styles, physical and sexual abuse, neglect, and family conflict are related to antisocial behavior. For example, research has shown that trauma during childhood can lead to aggressive or even criminal
Many experts argue that inheriting a particular gene doesn’t necessarily predispose someone to a life of crime— but add in an abusive or violent childhood or another negative environmental factor and that risk greatly increases. behavior. Dr. Kendell Coker, assistant professor of forensic psychology at The Chicago School, has conducted research on the relationship between trauma and delinquent behavior among inner-city minority youth. In one study that explored the association between these two concepts, he found youth who are exposed to more trauma have poorer social problem-solving skills, which in turn is related to higher delinquency. “Trauma has been shown to have a large impact on youth, and it can also lead to criminal behavior, but not because the kid all of a sudden sees something bad and they go bad,” Dr. Coker said. “It’s because they start to see the world as a hostile place and their source of protection wasn’t there when they needed it, so they feel like they need to protect themselves. A lot of juvenile misconduct happens in social situations. Juveniles are more susceptible to peer
pressure and they don’t think about the consequences of their actions.” In an effort to understand the extent to which both environment and genetics impact antisocial behavior, numerous twin and adoption studies have looked at the traits and personalities of identical and fraternal twins raised in the same and separate environments (identical twins share all of their genes while fraternal twins share 50 percent of them). Studies also looked at adoptees, and whether they exhibited similar traits to their adopted parents. Results have varied. Some research found evidence that genetics determined antisocial behavior while other studies concluded environmental factors played a stronger role. Still other research has found that an interaction between genes and environment predicts criminal behavior. British psychologist Francis Galton initiated the first twin studies in the late 19th century. Considered a pioneer of behavioral genetics, Galton’s research led to the exploration of the nature vs. nurture debate. His interest in heredity was inspired by his cousin Charles Darwin’s book about evolution, The Origin of Species, as well as his belief that intelligence and other “human mental abilities and personality traits” were passed down through heredity. His ideas represented the beginnings of the eugenics movement, which aimed to remove “undesirable” people from the gene pool—a movement that gained popularity in the United States in the early 20th century, but ultimately hindered research into the links between biology and criminal behavior. Are Genetics to Blame? Spurred in part by racist attitudes toward large waves of immigrants arriving from Asia and Southern and Eastern Europe, eugenics researchers believed if they could control which human genes were passed on, they could eradicate conditions and traits including mental retardation and learning disabilities
(or “feeblemindedness,” as it was called), physical disabilities, criminality, epilepsy, and alcoholism, which were considered a drain on public resources. At the time, a limited scientific understanding of heredity was based on research of dominant and recessive genes in plants, and the notion that if animal breeders could select desirable traits for their livestock, the same idea could apply to humans. The Eugenics Record Office was founded to compile genetic information from families, but the data was ambiguous and collected by many individuals who had their own prejudices about what made someone fit to reproduce. While no scientific data confirmed the heritability of most traits, there was widespread support for the movement that led to institutionalization policies and forced sterilization laws. In 1907, Indiana became the first of 30 states to legalize involuntary sterilization. Although the eugenics movement was scientifically discredited after revelations of Nazi experiments on Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and other groups during World War II, the last state law was not repealed until 1981. In that time, estimates of up to 70,000 men and women underwent forced sterilizations and thousands were institutionalized against their will. Despite the declining credibility of eugenics, researchers continued efforts to link biology and criminality, and some unethical research practices persisted in the 1960s and 1970s. For example, the “Supermale” syndrome posited that men with an XYY chromosome pattern were thought to exhibit aggressive and antisocial behavior. Although subsequent research invalidated this idea, many newborns, juvenile delinquents, and prisoners were screened for the extra chromosome without consent, leading to further stigmatization for a condition that ultimately had no scientific basis. But since the completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003,