Criminology



The Comparison between Developmental Crime Theory and Biological Trait Theory

Introduction

Life is full of changes. A person has to go through a great deal of courses throughout the life where he experiences changing perceptions and dynamic experiences which consequently affect the behavior of a person. This change sometimes results in better behavior while sometimes it ends up in worst behavioral deviations.

There have been a lot of theories proposed by psychologists to provide an in depth knowledge about the relationship among behavior, psychology, and biological aspects that lead a person towards committing the delinquent activities consciously or unconsciously. Psychologists have proposed numerous theories on criminology in order to analyze the behavior of offenders and to examine the reasons behind their logic of committing the criminal acts which may vary from person to person.

This study is carried out to compare the developmental theories of crime and the biological trait theory. Both the theories have somewhat similar approaches to identify the deviant behavior of the person. According to Kassin (2003), the biological trait theory describes the human personality through the measurements of traits. These measurements reflect the habitual pattern of behavior, emotions and thought. The biological theories give a profound understanding on the biological basis of human behavior that encourages a person to involve in criminal activities. The biological variables may include the age, gender, and the social status. All of these variables have the direct association with the offending probabilities.

The developmental crime theories describe the human developmental stages and their behavior in each stage. Such as according to Felson & Haynie in 2002, the puberty has a great connection with the crime as it represents to certain developmental changes. The adolescent who have entered into the puberty are found to be much involved in the drug crime pattern. This developmental theory defines the transition of a person from one stage to another stage and the impact of each stage over his behavior.

Discussion

Biological Trait Theories

According to the biological trait theory the criminals have the physical and mental traits that actually differentiate them from a normal person. Sheldon described the four biological traits such as Somatotype that represents the body type which makes the people vulnerable towards the delinquent behavior. Mesomorph represents the biological aspect as the athletic or the muscular which are more found to be aggressive. Ectomorph describes the tall and thin which are usually intellectuals. The final biological trait is Endomorph which represents the heavy and slow aspects.

This process can be defined as the personal characteristics make each person distinct through the different traits such as biochemical makeup, neurological condition and genetic code (Jeffery 2010). While the social environmental traits influence the behavior through the peers, parents, neighborhood and schools. Both the personal traits as well as environment develop the human behavior which results in a sound behavior or the criminal behavior.

The personal traits may involve the hormonal changes, abnormal levels of male sex hormones or androgens or testosterones which causes the aggression in the ...