Are We Born Criminal? Exploring the Nature vs. Nurture Debate in Criminology

The question of whether we are born criminal has plagued criminologists since the field's inception. Italian lawyer Raffaele Garofalo, who coined the term 'criminology' in his 1885 publication 'Criminologia: Studio sul Delitto, Sulle sue Cause e sui Mezzi di Repressione,' argued that understanding the criminal mind required scientific study. Since then, theorists have grappled with the fundamental question: are we born criminal?

Cesare Lombroso, often dubbed the father of criminology, rejected the classical belief that crime was a personality trait. He proposed a theory of anthropological criminology, stating that criminality was inherited and could be identified through physical defects, signifying an atavistic, savage nature. In his influential work, 'L'uomo Delinquente,' Lombroso asserted that thieves could be recognized by their expressive faces, manual dexterity, and small, wandering eyes, while murderers exhibited cold, glass-like stares, bloodshot eyes, and large, hawk-like noses. Female criminals, he claimed, tended to be shorter, more wrinkled, with darker hair and smaller skulls than 'normal' women. This notion that physical appearance was linked to criminality was furthered by William Sheldon in 'Atlas of Men' (1954). He proposed a taxonomy for classifying human physiques, arguing that individuals could be categorized into three types - ectomorph, mesomorph, and endomorph - and scored within these categories to determine mental characteristics. Sheldon believed that muscular, athletic individuals were more prone to crime than taller, thinner individuals, whom he considered more intellectual. Despite their superficial appeal, these theories lack evidence and have been widely discredited.

Other early theorists laid the groundwork for the prominent 'labeling theory' in the 1950s and 1960s. This theory posits that negative labels assigned by society actually contribute to deviant behavior. Its origins can be traced back to Edwin M. Lemert, a sociology professor at the University of California. In 'Social Pathology: A Systematic Approach to the Theory of Sociopathic Behavior' (1951), Lemert introduced the concept of 'primary and secondary deviance.' 'Primary deviance' refers to initial acts that deviate from social norms, like a minor traffic violation or taking stationery from work. Individuals committing these acts are usually reprimanded and feel guilty enough to avoid repeating them. However, some commit further, repeated, or more serious acts - secondary deviance - and are labeled as criminals. Howard Becker further developed this notion in his 1963 publication, 'Outsiders,' claiming that society labels individuals as criminals to justify condemnation, while the deviants themselves use the label to justify their criminal behavior. Essentially, they commit further offenses because it aligns with their perceived identity. Critics of labeling theory argue that while the label might encourage later criminal behavior, it overlooks the potential influence of genetic or environmental factors that may have contributed to the initial crime.

Perhaps the most influential study is 'The Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development' (2013), which has been tracking the development of 411 males since 1961. Over the study's 50-year duration, psychologists interviewed the subjects nine times, focusing on their school attendance, employment, and fatherhood. The study found that a significant number of delinquent youths had criminal fathers. Under 10% of children from non-offending fathers became chronic offenders, whereas just under 40% of the offspring of criminal fathers went on to regularly offend. While this data, along with other similar studies, strongly suggests that criminal parents are likely to produce criminal offspring, it remains unclear whether this intergenerational deviance is genetically determined or largely due to the environment in which individuals are raised.

Numerous studies have also found a correlation between intelligence and crime. Moffitt et al. (1981) discovered that men with lower IQs were more likely to commit two or more crimes by the age of twenty. Denno (1994) also tested the intelligence of nearly 1,000 children at various points in their lives and found a consistent negative correlation between IQ and criminal behavior. However, others, such as Menard and Morse (1984), have argued that the association is too weak to be considered statistically significant. Regardless of the extent to which intelligence affects criminal behavior, it appears to be a factor, raising another question: are we born intelligent, and by extension, law-abiding? Researchers at the University of Queensland found that only up to 40% of intelligence is inherited, with the remaining percentage determined by environmental factors. If this is true, both nature and nurture play a role in the development of criminal tendencies.

One area of research exploring this hypothesis compares the behavior of identical (monozygotic) twins - sharing an identical genetic makeup - to that of fraternal (dizygotic) twins, who share, on average, 50% of the same genes. A literature review on twin studies and criminal behavior found that 60% of identical twins exhibited criminal behavior concurrently, whereas only one-third of non-identical twins displayed similarly related behavior. In 'The Minnesota Twin Family Study' (2002), researchers are currently comparing monozygotic and dizygotic twins who were both raised together and those separated at birth. The study has found remarkable similarities in those raised apart, strongly suggesting that genetics, not upbringing, determines behavior and personality. However, critics of the genetic connection argue that poor research methodology and design have distorted the findings, leaving us with little conclusive proof that crime is genetically determined.

So, are we born criminal? While research strongly indicates a certain level of genetic predisposition toward criminality, it's clear that upbringing plays a crucial role in the development of criminal tendencies. To blame our genes for criminal behavior willfully ignores a broader societal responsibility to ensure that the environment in which we are raised does not promote criminal behavior.