The Concept of Biosocial Theory in Criminology

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The criminological theory that we are going to discuss in this paper is called Biosocial. This specific theory came to its current prominence during the last decade, when it was becoming increasingly clear to criminologists/law enforcement officials that the purely sociological (environmental) outlook on the origins of crime can no longer be considered thoroughly legitimate. One of the reasons for this is that through the same period, the sociological theories of crime have grown heavily affected by the discourse of political correctness, which resulted in diminishing their practical value rather substantially. As Walsh and Mueller noted: “Most sociological theories of crime ignore the moral culpability of the flesh and blood creatures who commit crimes and to indict society for its own victimization. Everything and everybody, or so it seems, is responsible for crime except those who actually commit it” (306). Another contributing element, in this respect, proved to be the fact that as time went on, there has been more and more scientifically sound evidence accumulated in support of the idea that there is indeed a link between the particulars of one’s biological makeup and the concerned person’s likelihood to become a criminal. For example, according to Wright and Cullen: “Meta-analytic analyses of heritability studies show that antisocial behaviour is roughly 50% heritable, whereas specific studies find that antisocial behaviour” (246). Consequently, this development resulted in forcing some criminological theorists to realise when it comes to designing the policies of crime prevention, legislators must proceed doing it within the combined methodological framework of both: biology (genetics/neuroscience) and sociology. Hence, the definition of the Biosocial theory in criminology: “It is an emerging interdisciplinary perspective that seeks to explain crime and antisocial behaviour by recognizing the potential importance of a host of factors including genetic factors, neuropsychological factors, environmental factors, and evolutionary factors” (Beaver and Walsh 4). Among the theory’s main conceptual provisions can be named the following:

People’s tendency to lead a socially integrated lifestyle, as well as anti-social urges (leading to crime) in some individuals, are predetermined by the very logic of evolutionary selection. The rationale behind this idea has to do with the fact that, as many studies indicate, one’s willingness to live as the society’s integral part increases the concerned individual’s chances to propagate its genome. In its turn, the measure of his or her social adaptability is reflective of this person’s varying capacity to conform to the adopted code of behavioural ethics within the society. The capability in question is defined by the morphological (structural) subtleties of his or her brain.
Even though most people do not realize it consciously, the actual purpose of their existence is strongly ‘biological’- just as it happened to be the case with all mammals. That is, it is ultimately concerned with ensuring that there are plenty of nutrients (food), with spreading genes (sex), and with trying to attain a social prominence (domination). (Rocque, Welsh and Raine 210). The process of a person striving to reach these objectives is controlled by paleomammalian cortex (also referred to as the ‘limbic system’) inside his or her brain. For as long as the workings of one’s paleomammalian cortex are concerned, it is absolutely of no importance, whatsoever, whether he or she goes about tackling these aims in a lawful or criminal manner – all that matters is that the person’s genome is successfully passed to the next generation. Due to being highly socialized creatures, most people are able to exercise rational control over their atavistic urges, originated in the limbic part of a brain – this is the price humans pay for being allowed to qualify for social inclusion. However, some individuals appear incapable of controlling their limbic sphere. As DeLisi pointed out: “For most of us, our frontal cortices and the executive functions therein stifle the limbic suggestions. But for others, there is insufficient cortical control of the limbic messages” (168). As a result, these people are naturally predisposed towards crime – their irrational desire to achieve instant gratification, with respect to the mentioned biological objectives, proves much stronger than their fear of being turned into social outcasts, because of it. This, in turn, explains the phenomenon of the so-called ‘natural born criminals’ – the individuals known for the sheer strength of their criminal mindedness.
The surrounding socioeconomic environment has a strong effect on the formation of people’s sense of self-identity, which in turn causes them to adopt one or another stance in life. Therefore, it is thoroughly appropriate to suggest that the external factors of influence play as much of a role in bringing about one’s criminal attitudes, as it happened to be the case with the person’s neurological/genetic makeup. However, unlike the sociological theories of crime, the Biosocial theory does not refer to the external environment in terms of a ‘thing in itself’, quite independent from the affiliated people’s spatially stable tendency to address life-challenges in one way or another. Rather, it refers to the environmental factors of influence on one’s attitude towards crime as such that should be discussed in close conjunction with the essence of his or her innate psychological leanings. The reason for this is that, according to the Biosocial paradigm in criminology: “Environments are not purely social, but rather are biosocial entities affected by genetic propensities (Beaver and Walsh 10). People do not merely exist within a particular socioeconomic environment, but they also act as the main driving force behind its continual transformation.

The foremost strength of the Biosocial theory in criminology is that it effectively removes the element of interpretational subjectivity within the context of how criminologists go about discovering what had prompted a particular individual to commit a crime. The reason for this is that, unlike most sociological theories of crime, it presupposes the possibility of establishing a dialectical link between the observable aspects of one’s anti-social behaviour and the quantifiable subtleties of his or her genetic makeup/neurological constitution. While referring to the discursive implications of the Biosocial theory’s implementation, Wright and Boisvert could hardly keep their excitement under control: “Imagine criminology not wholly reliant… on the multitude of tired, worn-out theories… where a reliance on abstraction was replaced by a reliance on the measurement of directly observable phenomena” (1228). In its turn, this contributes rather substantially towards ensuring the axiomatic soundness of the theory’s methodological apparatus. As a result, the Biosocial theory should prove much more of a practical asset in the field of law enforcement, as compared to what it is being the case with most sociological theories in criminology.

The theories another strength is that its conceptualization of crime is fully consistent with most recent discoveries in the fields of genetics, neuroscience, and sociology. According to the earlier quoted authors: “Biosocial criminology draws on a large body of advanced, technical knowledge about human genetics and biological processes” (Wright and Boisvert 1232). Therefore, the theory’s practitioners are able to obtain a number of systemic insights into what accounts for the interrelationship between the biological and environmental triggers of criminal mindedness in an individual. Consequently, this establishes some objective prerequisites for biosocial criminologists to have a holistic (all-encompassing) understanding of the evolutionary predetermined motivations of crime. It is understood, of course, that this will come in particularly handy for those criminologists that are on the line of designing crime prevention policies.

Finally, we can mention the fact that the Biosocial theory contains many clues as to what needs to be done to adjust the currently deployed penological paradigm in the West to be more consistent with the realities of a post-industrial living. One of these clues is concerned with the idea that when it comes to providing an offender with the circumstantially appropriate criminal punishment, the person’s genetic risk-factors should be taken into consideration.

There are, however, a few weaknesses to the Biosocial theory as well. Probably the main of them has to do with the high cost of handling and studying one’s genetic material, as well as obtaining high-quality tomographic images of his or her brain. The latter task is obstructed even further by the fact that the operational resolution of most contemporary tomographs is still not high enough. This, of course, significantly reduces the scope of biosocial research.

Among the theory’s pitfalls can also named its potential capacity to contribute towards the legitimatisation of crime as the unavoidable aspect of modern living, which in turn may result in increasing the emotional appeal of a criminal lifestyle. Moreover, some criminologists believe that the Biosocial theory of crime may result in activating people’s interest in eugenics – a development that could hardly be deemed fully appropriate, given the concept’s association with Nazism.

As it was implied earlier, the Biosocial theory in criminology is comparatively new and it will still take some time before it is recognised thoroughly legitimate. Therefore, there have not been many articles published on the subject of this theory as of yet. Moreover, as it appears from the available publications of relevance, their authors do not quite agree as to what should be considered the theory’s discursive significance. Whereas, some authors do subscribe to the idea that the theory’s practical deployment should prove beneficial to the cause of keeping the crime rate down, others argue that this cannot possibly be the case because the Biosocial outlook on crime does not correlate with the ideological canons of the currently enacted social policies in the West.

The earlier quoted article by Wright and Boisvert is probably the most supportive of the Biosocial criminological paradigm. According to the authors, its eventual emergence was predetermined by the exponential progress in the domain of biology – this alone can serve as a good indication of the theory’s validity. Throughout the article’s entirety, the authors refer to this theory as such that has been destined to reformulate the most fundamental principles of criminology as a scientific discipline. In particular, the Biosocial theory will make possible the methodological enhancement of the criminological pursuit as a whole: “We believe that it is time for a paradigm shift in criminology, and we are confident that a biosocial perspective is the answer” (Wright and Boisvert 1238). The reason for this is that, as the authors see it, the very availability of the Biosocial theory renders the rest of sociological theories hopelessly outdated.

In their article, Barnes and Boutwell advance essentially the same idea. According to the authors, the Biosocial approach to addressing crime is based on the well-established fact that the way in which people react to the externally applied stimuli is defined by the interplay of hormones in their bodies. What this means is that one’s behaviour is not quite as reflective of the concerned individual’s ability to make rational choices, as the adherents of sociological theories in criminology tend to assume. The authors consider it as the best indication that the Biosocial theory is indeed scientifically sound. Barnes and Boutwell show that one of the reasons why this theory continues to be treated with suspicion by some criminologists is that its conceptual provisions are being commonly misinterpreted. For example, contrary to the popular myth, the Biosocial theory does not single out the biological predictors of crime as the most influential ones. The authors applied a great effort trying to educate readers in this respect: “Biosocial criminology is not a one-size-ﬁts-all perspective… (it) necessarily assumes that human behaviour is the product of a complex arrangement of environmental and biological inﬂuences” (Barnes and Boutwell 1). This, of course, suggests that there is indeed much systemic integrity to the theory in question.

Nevertheless, there are also a few articles that criticize the Biosocial theory on a number of different accounts, with the authors going as far as denying much credibility to the very Biosocial principle. For example, according to Carrier and Walby, the Biosocial theory’s emergence should be seen as yet another attempt to revive the ‘Lombrosian myth’ in criminology, in the sense of legitimising the idea that there are indeed ‘natural born criminals’ and that they can be identified as such by having their DNA thoroughly analysed. The authors consider this idea morally inappropriate. They also do not like the fact that the Biosocial theory does not contain any provisions with respect to the continually transforming semiotic essence of the notion of crime. Their verdict is rather harsh: “Biosocial criminology must be viewed as an attempt to cement the Lombrosian project: it is an effort to imprison criminology in an aetiological space where the ontological status of crime goes unquestioned” (Carrier and Walby 5).

In their yet another article, Carrier and Walby came up with even more critical remarks regarding the Biosocial theory. According to the authors, the practical deployment of this theory will result in undermining the validity of many widely applied legal principles that enable the continual functioning of the judiciary system in Western countries. The reason for this is that the theory’s somewhat behaviourist conceptualisation of crime calls for the abandonment of retributive punishments, while being unable to provide any workable alternative to them. Carrier and Walby also stress out that the Biosocial theory pays very little attention to the effects of the currently prevalent ideological discourse on the legal conventions concerned with identifying criminality: “Biosocial criminology seems to exhibit… inability to understand that the epistemologically sound criminological object is not crime nor criminality, but criminalization” (101). Thus, there are some controversial qualities to the theory in question.

It appears that many of the Biosocial theory’s conceptual provisions can indeed be used to influence law enforcement policies in the US. For example, we can mention the theory’s claim that one’s chances to end up becoming a criminal can be inferred with respect to the particulars of this person’s ‘brain wiring’ or genetic makeup, on one hand, and the specifics of the affiliated social environment, on the other. When assessed through the methodological lenses of the Sociological paradigm of crime, the first part of this claim will appear misleading – the common assumption is that no other factors play a role in setting a person on the path of crime, but solely the environmental ones. In their turn, these factors are seen external to what account for his or her individuality. Hence, the sociological dogma – residing in the ‘ghetto’ will necessarily predispose one towards crime. As a result, the government allocates funds for the infrastructural improvement of ‘bad neighbourhoods’ while hoping that this would cause crime rate in the concerned areas to drop. However, the expected effect most commonly never takes place. The Biosocial theory contains clues as to why this is being the case – people affect the surrounding environment to a much stronger degree than they are themselves being affected by it. Therefore, the objective of making crime-ridden neighbourhoods safer should not be referred to as such that represents much value of its own, as many ‘sociological’ criminologists tend to do. Instead, it should be seen interconnected with yet another societal objective of encouraging residents to lead a biologically cautious (with respect to their sexual preferences and eating habits) lifestyle.

Study

The 2009 study Neighborhoods and Genes and Everything in Between: Understanding Adolescent Aggression in Social and Biological Contexts by Hart and Marmorstein exemplifies how the Biosocial theory can be used for defining the research model’s format. In this study, the authors aimed to test the validity of their hypothesis that adolescents residing in urban, racially heterogeneous, and child-saturated (ethnic ‘ghetto’), are much more likely to exhibit delinquency/aggression than their non-associated peers. The study’s another objective was to confirm/refute the cause-effect relationship between the presence of the polymorphic gene MAOA in the participants’ DNA and their heightened likelihood to indulge in aggressive behaviour. The study’s methodological format is best defined as a qualitative research inquiry. While through the study’s empirical phases, Hart and Marmorstein surveyed 90.000 participants (high school students, grades 7-10). After having subjected the obtained data to the correlation analysis, the authors were able to confirm the validity of the earlier mentioned hypothesis: “The results of this study indicate that neighbourhood urbanicity, child saturation, and racial heterogeneity are associated with adolescent aggression” (Hart and Marmorstein 969). Hart and Marmorstein also succeeded in specifying the role of the genetic factor in creating the objective preconditions for adolescents from the described residential areas to be tempted to indulge in delinquency. According to the study, polymorphisms in MAOA do exert strong influence on the functioning of the affected person’s monoamine system, which in turn results in causing the shortage of ‘happiness-inducing’ neurotransmitters in his or her brain – hence, naturally prompting this individual to exhibit anger along with delinquent attitudes. As it was suggested by the authors, “MAOA polymorphisms contribute to social sensitivity through neurological mechanisms in the limbic area of the brain… Adolescents with the short (MAOA) allele tend to experience high levels of distress culminating in aggression” (Hart and Marmorstein 965). What is particularly valuable about the study is that it contains a number of the evolutionary (Biosocial) insights into the phenomenon of delinquency in youth. Apparently, the socioeconomic and demographic qualities of the ‘ghetto’ environment presuppose that the social dynamics within it are strongly affected by the Darwinian principle of the ‘survival of the fittest’. What contributes to the situation even more is that most ghetto-residents are ‘horizontally’ (communally) integrated into the neighbourhood’s social fabric, which serves as even more powerful incentive for youths to be willing to break the law as something that is expected to help them to achieve self-actualisation.

Thus, we can positively identify three indications of the discussed article does operationalize the Biosocial theory’s research model. Probably the most notable of them has to do with the fact that in their study Hart and Marmorstein decided to combine two seemingly incompatible research methodologies – genetic research and sociological inquiry. This correlates well with the popular view on Biosociology as probably the most interdisciplinary of all criminological theories.

The study’s prominent deployment of DNA-research serves the purpose of promoting biological determinism, commonly referred to as the main discursive hallmark of the Biosocial theory in criminology (Rafter 40). The authors have taken it even further – they made a deliberate point in linking a seemingly insignificant genetic marker inside one’s DNA to this person’s presumed predisposition towards delinquency (and consequently crime). The authors’ move, in this respect, is consistent with the presumed ‘neo-Lombrosian’ quality of many of the Biosocial theory’s conventions.

The study adheres to yet another conceptual provision of the Biosocial outlook on crime, concerned with the idea that one’s biologically defined predisposition to indulge in antisocial behaviour is highly individual and that it should not be assessed outside of the affiliated environmental context. The study’s name correlates with this idea perfectly well. In full accordance with one of the theory’s discursive postulates, Hart and Marmorstein’s study shows that ordinary citizens play no lesser of a role in the formation of the surrounding social environment than the high-ranking governmental officials. The study’s main finding also has a strong biosocial sounding to it – whereas, one’s continual exposure to poor environment may indeed result in encouraging him or her to grow disrespectful towards the law, the person’s decision to break it is most commonly ‘gene-activated’.

The study implies that there is a systemic quality to the relationship between just about everybody who share the same neighbourhood, reflective of the principle “whole is greater than the sum of its part”. This explains the discursive significance of the study’s finding that: “changes in aggression levels in adolescence are associated with changes in neighbourhoods” (Hart and Marmorstein 972). Apparently, there is a strong synergetic interconnectedness between the society and its members. This conclusion is fully consistent with the Biosocial theory’s sociological provisions that presuppose the full appropriateness of evaluating the essence of transformative dynamics within the society, as being reflective of the most basic Darwinian principles of evolution. Thus, there is indeed a good reason to consider the discussed theory rather enlightening.

References

Barnes, John, and Brian Boutwell. “Biosocial Criminology: The Emergence of a New and Diverse Perspective.” Criminal Justice Studies: A Critical Journal of Crime, Law & Society 28.1 (2015): 1-5. Print.

Beaver, Kevin and Anthony Walsh. “Biosocial Criminology.” Ashgate Research Companion to Biosocial Theories of Crime. Ed. Kevin Beaver and Antony Walsh. Surrey: Ashgate Publishing, 2011. 3-17. Print.

Carrier, Nicolas, and Kevin Walby. “Ptolemizing Lombroso: The Pseudo-Revolution of Biosocial Criminology.” Journal of Theoretical & Philosophical Criminology 7.1 (2015): 1-45. Print.

DeLisi, Matt. “The Limbic System and Crime.” Ashgate Research Companion to Biosocial Theories of Crime. Ed. Kevin Beaver and Antony Walsh. Surrey: Ashgate Publishing, 2011. 167-181. Print.

Hart, Daniel, and Naomi.Marmorstein. “Neighbourhoods and Genes and Everything in Between: Understanding Adolescent Aggression in Social and Biological Contexts.” Development and Psychopathology 21.3 (2009): 961-973. Print.

Rafter, Nicole. “H. J. Eysenck in Fagin’s Kitchen: The Return to Biological Theory in 20th-Century Criminology.” History of the Human Sciences 19.4 (2006): 37-56. Print.

Rocque, Michael, Brandon Welsh, and Adrian Raine. “Biosocial Criminology and Modern Crime Prevention.” Journal of Criminal Justice 40.4 (2012): 206-312. Print.

Walsh, Anthony and David Mueller. “Social Class and Criminal Behavior through a Biosocial Lens.” Ashgate Research Companion to Biosocial Theories of Crime. Ed. Kevin Beaver and Antony Walsh. Surrey: Ashgate Publishing, 2011. 306-327. Print.

Wright, John, and Danielle Boisvert. “What Biosocial Criminology Offers Criminology.” Criminal Justice and Behavior 36.11 (2009): 1228-1240. Print.

Wright, John, and Francis Cullen. “The Future of Biosocial Criminology: Beyond Scholars’ Professional Ideology.” Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice 28.3 (2012): 237-253. Print.

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The Concept of Biosocial Theory in Criminology

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