Penology Essey

NAME: SANDU Alexandru-Daniel
A panopticon over some criminological theories
In the last two centuries, we have witnessed attempts to objectivize and explain the
phenomena of the surrounding world from a scientific point of view. Mankind has made
tremendous gains from scientists who, with dedication, erudition, and thirst for knowledge,
have contributed to the development of knowledge and the power of understanding. These
things also apply to the field of criminology where, over the course of 3 centuries, the
researchers have made tremendous advances in trying to find a pertinent and thorough
answer to questions such as "Why do people commit crimes?", "Which are the most
important factors that influence people to commit crimes? " or "What makes people
abstain/refrain from committing crimes?".
The volume of information and ideas that are trying to answer these questions is
enormous, so I am trying to systemize the information in the following way:
1) First, I will start with the presentation of the two godfather to who marked the
transition from the metaphysical (philosophical) explanations of the school
classical to the scientific approach, based on data collection, studies, research
and experiments; this way, I will make a brief description of Lombroso and
Durkheim's ideas because they both agreed that the "criminal man" is not the
exclusive result of biological or social factors, and secondly, both have considered
crime to be a normal social event in a normal society.
2) I will further analyze the profile of this type of criminal from a psychological
perspective (based on Eysenck's personality theory); next I will address the
physiological studies of Kretchmer and Sheldon, and lastly I will present a series
of neuroscience findings on neurotransmitters and neuropsychology.
3) In the last part I will present a series of specific features of persons suffering from
an anti-social personality disorder (=psychopathy) in an attempt to build a profile
of the “born criminal” that we can meet (without realizing) in our daily
interaction with people.
I shall begin with a brief introduction of the positivist school which tried to contradict
the classical school’s ideas which claimed that crime was the product of free will and human
reason. The beginning of the 19th century marked the first annual crime statistics which
were published in France in 1827.1 One of the most representative figures of this new
school of thought was Andre-Michel Guerry (1802-1866) who was considered amoung the
first “scientific criminologists”. In essence, Guerry was mainly interested in the criminal
statistics (since he was appointed director of ciminal statistics for the French Ministry of
Justice), and his studies were directed towards the relation between crime and poverty. His
findings were unexpected from a theoretical point of view, because he found out that
1
George B. Vold, Thomas J. Bernard, Jeffrey B. Snipes - Theoretical Criminology-Oxford University Press, USA
(1997), p.27
higher crime rates was associated with the wealthiest region of France (in terms of property
crimes, but only half of the rate of violent crimes) the main factor being opportunity: in the
wealthier provinces was more to steal.2 Furtheron, he correlated the statistical data
available on the reading and writing abilities of all young men and found that, the rate of
violent crimes were the highest in the regions where people were most educated (75% of
young men).3
The hermeneutic interpretation of a text usually begins with the relevant
characteristics of the societies in which the philosopher/jurist/politican wrote and then he
moves to the issues raised by political life corresponding to the social and economical
factors. Apart from this, it is important the nature and limits of the normative vocabulary
available that would lead us in the attempt to find the answear to the questions singled out
and discussed. Therefore, according to Quentin Skinner, in order to understand and discover
the past societies, we have to understand their mentalities, attempt which becomes
impossible if political ideas are discussed only at a level of abstract thinking, unmatched by
any of their contemporaries. The authors concludes by emphasizing the importance of
finding the right equilibrum between political history and political ideas that seek to explain
the political behaviour, in order to build up a more realistic picture of how political thinking
emerged and developed in various forms.4
Thus, a brief presentation of 19th century thinking is necessary to better understand

some aspects that may appear strange and unusual today. Back in the days, when the free-
will spiritual explanations of crime were dominant, a deterministic/scientific explanation of
the causes of criminality were considered a heresy that necessarily implied atheism. Under
the influence of the theological explanations of St. Thomas Aquinas, people were taught
that, under the God-given “natural law”, observed through the eyes of faith, humanity had a
natural tendency to do good rather than evil, therefore, people who commit a crime also
commit a sin, this way harming their esential “humanness” (their natural tendency to do
good).5 As we can see, there was no science or objective explanation in the spiritual
explanation of crime that formed the basis of the criminal justice policies in Europe until the
classical school was found.
Luckly, there was major reform in the 16th and the 17th century which developed
around the “social contract” thinking. Social contract philosophers, and others like Hobbes
or Machiavelli who promoted the doctrine of realism, suggested that human beings pursue
their own interest without caring about whether they hurt anyone else. Therefore, the
result would be a continous state of war of each against all, where no one is safe because all
poeple only look out only for themselfs. In an attempt to answear the question “What
would be the proper way to put an end to this situation?”, Hobbes claimed that, the state of
2
(1997), p.29
3
(1997), p.27
4
Quentin Skinner – The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, Vol.1, 1978, p.x-xii
5
(1997), p.29
war would end if everyone agrees to the social contract and to grant the state the right to
use force to maintain the contract.6 Hobbes theory was based on natural and rational ideas,
which opposed the dominant spiritualistic approach. These new concept were widely
accepted by the intelectuals of the day (the 18th century) but the politcal groups that ruled
over the Europe held that their power to apply punishments (which in most cases were
excesive and cruel punishments - a detailed and very concise description of how criminal
justice was organized in France in the 18th century is offered by M. Foucault who, in the
debut of his work Discipline and Punish, presents Damien's condemnation, the regicide of
king Ludovic) is based on the spiritual explanations of crime, that was seen as manifesting
the work of the devil.
In this context, is should not surpise us that a scientist like Adolphe Quetelet
affirmed his belief in God and the individual ability to freely choose in the force of the causal
factors, even though his theories and explanations were founded on scientific, empirical and
statistical evidence (the deterministic approach). Quetelet should be remembered for his
view on the causes of moral defectiveness, which could be corrected by cultivation of
virtues such as rational and temperate habits or more regulated passions. Furtheron, he
claimed that, since young men were not taught this virtues, it is more likely that they will
commit crimes. Therefore, he suggested that, the only way to bring them back on the good
path or to make him not take the wrong path is to “enhance moral education and to
ameliorate social conditions to improve people’s lives”. At this point, it should be noticed
that Quetelet recommended only “specific moral education”, because his studies suggest
that increased “general” education in itself did not reduce crime, since educated people had
the tendency to commit more violent crimes, while those with less education would commit
more crimes against property.7
His statistical analysis reached the same conclusions as Guerry’s, since he found out
that, places with more poverty and more unemployment had less crime, while opportunities
offered by wealthier cities “might attract vagabonds who hope to find impunity by losing
themselves in the crowd”.
Apart from the meta-analysis and his philosophical thought, Quetelet was amoung
the first to suggest that crime is an inevitable feauture of social organization (idea which
was also emphasized by Durkheim), saying that “crimes (..) seem to be a necesarry result of
our social organization. Society prepares the crime, and the guilty are only the instruments
by which it is executed”. If we add his view that moral defectiveness was revealed in
biological characteristics, particularly the appearance of the face and the head, we might
conclude that he gave birth to the first multifactorial explanation for the crime etiology per
se. This determnistic approach made him a direct predecessor of C. Lombroso.
About Cesare Lombroso were written whole libraries and shed tons of ink. From the
start I must mention that I respect and admire his work and in some aspects I feel a special
6
Richard Tuck - Natural Rights Theories. Their Origin and Development-Cambridge University Press (1979),
p.123-126
7
(1997), p.31
esteem for his ideas, but his whole "scientific" construction is, in my opinion, an ideological
tool used to punish the iredentionist tendencies of his time. What made me come to this
conclusion is the way he explained the etiology of the rebels and revolutionar behaviour
who called for violent social changes in the 19th century Italy. History tells us that brigands
actions were not politically motivated, but rather that they were trying to preserve regional
autonomy against the imperialist power of the new government in Rome. At this point, it
has to be reminded that during his early-age period, Lombroso he was a liberal supporter of
Italian unification who later became a member of the Italian Socialist Party. Therefore, as a
patriot and a beliver in Italian unification, it is easy to see why Lombroso condamned
brigands actions, even though they were directed towards preservation of the political
status. Furthermore, Lombroso used his theoretical construction when he claimed that
“brigands exhibited anomalies typical of savages” denouncing the atavistic quality of their
violent crimes. More bizarre are his ideas on how to treat the promoters of revolutionary
ideas, who had the courage to oppose political power even in a barbaric way since he
appreciated the role of courageous leaders in overthrowing absolutist monarchy in an
attempt to promote “a new era of political soveregnty”. Furtheron, the unifying spirit of the
lombrosian ideas on this matter suggest that his theoretical foundation might have been
only a ideological instrument since some of his belifes were driven by political interests.
Evidence that supports my opinon lies in the prejudices he addressed about how to punish
the political criminals considered by Lombroso as “blessed with pleasing physiognomies
unscarred by anomalies”, therefore they seem to “pose little social danger”. It remains an
open question about the evidence that led Lombroso to the idea that citizens trying to
maintain intact sovereignty are worse and more dangerous than people driven by
revolutionary ideas and momentary passions but I suspect there is a great deal of
subjectivism, lack of impartiality and inequity in his explanations and opinions. What
seemed to me striking was the ease with which he used his theoretical construction to
justify a series of actions based on other political reasons.8
If we are to describe the people with atavistic inclinations, we could say that “with
mankind some of the worst dispositions which occasionally without any assignable cause
make their appearance in families, may perhaps be reversions to a savage state, from which
we are not removed by many generations”.9 The only problem is that this quote doesn’t
belong to Lombroso, but to Ch. Darwin who, in his book On the Origin of Species, further
developed the idea that, humans are the same kind of creatures as the rest of the animals,
except that they are highly evolved and developed. Also, we should remember Darwin as
the final breaker of the spiritualist, free-will thought of the Medieval times.10 As we can see,
the paternity of the “atavist man” hyphothisis dosen’t belong to Lombroso since he
followed the evolutionary theories of Ch. Darwin’s ideas and linked them to criminality, but
8
Cesare Lombroso – The Criminal man - Duke University Press, Year 2006, p.20-21
9
Charles Darwin – Descent of man - Penguin Classics, Year 2004, p.137
10
(1997), p.33
it should be remember as the founder of positive school of criminology which attempted to
search for the causes of criminal behaviour using the multiple factor causation formula,
which combined psychological explanations with the sociological approach and the
biological determinism.
As he advanced in age, Lombroso’s work became more complex in an attempt to find

the crime etiology. In the fifth edition of his book he included a lot of explanations regarding
the climatic influences or the impact of economical changes while on the other hand he
developed the concept around pshysical and anthropological studies claiming that there are
three major classes of criminals: 1) the born criminal – the one that must be understood as
the “atavistic” reversion to a lower and primitive evolutionary form which constitutes one
third of the total number of offenders; you wouldn’t expect such radical thought from a
person with the reputation of Lombroso but he advocated the death penalty in the case of
born criminals convicted for a series of bloody crimes and for members of organized gangs
who threatened state security. Moreover, he claimed that “society need have no pity for
born criminals who were programmed to do harm”, people that are “atavistic reproductions
of not only savage men but also the most ferocious carnivores and rodents”. As a matter of
fact, we are witnessing a more accelerated type of natural selectionat proposed by the
social views of the Darwinist theory.11 2) insane criminals – idiots, imbeciles, paranoiacs,
people suffering from epilepsy etc.; 3) criminaloids, a large general class without specifical
physical characteristics or recognizable mental disorders, but who are suffering from
emotional disorders such that under certain circumstances they may indulge in vicious and
criminal behaviour. In fact, the criminaloids and pseudocriminal are the subgroup of a
larger category entitled occasional criminal, which Lombroso described in the fourth edition
of Criminal Man.12 13
Why Lombroso should be seen as one of the titans of the Criminology’s evolution on
the path of becoming a scientific discipline? Even though Lombroso theories were too
simple and naive, we can not contest that Lombroso was amoung the first criminologists to
search for the causes of crime. On the one hand, Lombroso tried to turn the study of crime
into a science that draws conclusions from empirical data and clinical studies (Lombroso’s
approach focused on measuring and observing the bodies of his patients), launching himself
on an intellectual trajectory that was against classical school of thought. His ambitions was
to incorporate empirical methods in his studies, Lombroso leaded the intellectual
movement of the late 19th century which launched a pertinent and well-founded critic
against Beccaria’s abstract philosophy and the explanations offered by the adepts of the
natural law school.
As I mantioned before, there has been a proliferation of the causes which Lombroso
tried to link to the criminal conduct. It is not well known but Lombroso increased the weight
of sociological factors as the causes of crime, taking the view that environmental factors
11
Cesare Lombroso – The Criminal man - Duke University Press, Year 2006, p.15
12
Cesare Lombroso – The Criminal man - Duke University Press, Year 2006, p.12
13
(1997), p.34
were significant to the etiology of deviance. In this sense, he probably followed his intuition
from the first edition of Criminal Man when he argued that “there is no crime which is not
rooted in multiple causes” and by the final edition he enumerated these social factors in
great detail. The conceptualization of the enviromental/social and biological forces (these
ideas were developed under the concept of moral insanity as a diagnosis of individuals who
perfomed depraved acts while remaining rational and logical, which in the third edition of
Criminal man became a key component of Lombroso’s theory of born criminal) which was
inspired by the early studies of Quetelet and Guerry (according to their studies, crime rated
remained steady over time, fact which suggested that crime is not an individual choice – as
opposed to the free-will doctrine – but is determined by social and biological factors)
determined Lombroso to declare that crime was “natural” rather than a product of free
choice, and that “it would always remain a part of the human experience”. If we accept that
crime is a normal social event, that appears in any society, we will have a better
understanding of the social approach inspired by the studies of Emil Durkheim. 14
EMIL DURKHEIM
The end of the 18th century was marked by one of the most important event in
human history: the French Revolution of 1789. This turning point into the human history
brought rapid and major changes in the French society in terms of impact on human
thought and values. Under this circumstances, 19th century thinkers made some efforts to
construct a rational society out of the ruins of the traditional one by providing a rational,
scientific analysis of the monumental social changes. In his attempts to follow these aims,
Auguste Comte developed a new field of study called sociology which tried to reestablish
the social solidarity that has been substantially disintegrated in French society.
While in some aspects like the reaction against the classical assumptions that
humans were living in a contractual society where they are able to make free and rational
decisions, Durkheim vision was similiar to Lombroso’s. Durkheim focused more on society,
it’s organization and development. He came-up with the concept of anomi (the breakdown
of social norms or rules; the etymology of the word comes from the greek word anomos=
=lawless.
Durkheim found the causes of crime in the rapid social changes accompanied by the
modernization process and the changes involved in industrialization. He analyzed these
factors in his first major work, De la division du travail social, where he described these
processes as part of the development of the primitive „mechanical” form of society into a
more advanced „organic” form. The mechanical form of society could be interpreted as an
replication of the communist idiology because it attempts to build the solidarity of the
society on the uniformity of its members, who lived under identical circumstances, did
identical work and hold identical values. Moreover, he attributed to the rule of law the
function of maintaing and enforcing the uniformity of the members of the social group by
14
(1997), p.36
repressing any deviation from the norms and values of the time. Durkheim came up with
another concept called the collective conscience which represents the uniformity of all the
members of the society and the totality of social likenesses. Therefore, in this type of society
the solidarity will come from the pressure for uniformity exerted in varying degrees and
forms (the strongest of them are the cirminal sanctions) against diversity and wrongdoers.
Drukheim also suggested that „there cannot be a society in which the individuals do
not differ more or less from the collective type”.15 Thus, on the contrast, the organic society
advanced some ideas according to which social social solidarity it’s not based on the
uniformity of the individuals, but on the diversity of the functions of each part of the
society. Furtheron, Durkheim claimed that in all societies there is a stage of progression and
interaction between the mechanical and organic structures, therefore, no society must be
interpreted as totally one or the other. Customs and law have a different function in this
type of society since their only aim is to regulate human interactions and provide restitution
in case of wrongful transactions or conduct (concepts shared by the idealist doctrine).16
One of the most intriguing aspect of his work is related to the idea that crime is
„normal” in the sense that, without crime, society would be pathologically overcontrolled.
Therefore, a society without crime would be one in which the constraints of the collective
conscience were so rigid that no person would get the chance to oppose them and this will
prevent the possibility of progressive social change and improvement. Durkheim also made
some interesting analogies and raised a few intriguing ideas by saying that social change is
possible only if the contrains of the collective conscience is opposed, giving Socrate, Jesus,
Gandhi or G. Washington as examples of personalities who were persecuted despite having
only noble and humanitarian goals. On the other hand, one must remember Durkheim as a
liberal and idealist thinker since his philosophy was deeply rooted into the ideas of
originality, freedom of expression or freedom of individual growth since he claimed that „To
make progress, individual originality must be able to express itself. In order that the
originality of the idealist who dreams transcend his century may find expression, it is
necessary that the originality of the criminal, who is below the level of his time, shall also be
possible. One does not occur without the other”. Further he tried to remove prejudices and
change the society's negative conception of criminals (as we have shown, sometimes the
most "odious" criminals may in fact be the most inverse supporters of positive changes)
taking the view that „contrary to the current ideas, the criminal no longer seems to be a
totally unsociable being” but that „he plays a definite role in social life”; following this line of
thought he added that the drop in crime rate is not always a reason for self-congratulation
because it could also mean that the opportunities for progress have been reduced. To
conclude, we must be grateful to Durkheim for giving us a wider perspective on crime and
ciminals, since he demonstrated that political power plays a major role in defining
wrongfull/criminal behaviors that can be attributed to visionaries with revolutionary and
altruistic ideas thus ending the chanches for progress and evolution. Kai T. Erikson shared
15
Emil Durkheim – Rules of Sociological Method – Free Press, Year 1982, p.70
16
(1997), p.125-126
these ideas when he concluded that „When a community calibrates its control machinery to
handle a certain volume of deviant behavior it tents to adjust its legal definition of the
problem in such a way that the volume is realized”.17
Durkheim argued that the demands and rules of the society are constructed in a way
that a certain number of people will not be able to fulfill them. He suggested that this
enables the large mass of people who fulfill the demands to feel a sense of moral
superiority, since they will get the opportunity to identify themselves as good and righteous,
opposing the morally inferior transgressors who fail to follow rules and norms. Therefore,
criminals and deliquents play an important role in the maintenance of social solidarity since
their „inferiority” allows the rest of society to feel superior and to strengthen the solidarity
amoung the members of the social group. Durkheim belived that, since criminal sanctions
are the strongest tool to mantain social solidarity, a society without crime would be
impossible because, even if all the conduct that are presently defined as criminal will no
longer occur, the lagislator (and in general, the institution entitled with laws enactment) will
place new behaveior in the crime category. Therefore, crime as a formal-legal concept is a
powerfull instrument used by the State in order to maintain it’s power over the citizens and
to exert pressure for conformity against the diversity.18
Another piece of Durkheim’s theory is to be found in a concept called the state of

inadequate regulation anomie which is the result of inadequate regulations leading to a
variety of social maladies. In his book The dividion of labour in society, he argued that the
rapid changes in moral values and rules caused by industralization destroyed the traditional
solidarity based on uniformity. Further, he advocated that these fast changes didn’t offer
enough time for the institutional mechanism to find a proper way according to which the
new social interactions and economic development should take place. For instance, he gave
the example of strikes and labour violence as an indicator of the incapacity of the state to
offer a solution for labour disputes. The ethical perspective of his belives had been clearly
stated when he affirmed that, over the previous 100 years, French society had deliberately
destroyed the traditional sources of regulations for human apetiites, since France became a
laical state where religion almost completely lost its influence. In the meantime, the laissez-
faire policy of noninterference in business activities gave way to the freedom of apetites
that were the driving forces not only of the French revolution, but also for the a chronic
state of anomie.19
One of Durkheim’s main argument is that in period of transition from mechanical
society to the organical form, the severity of punishment will drop and the repression will
become less violent due to the fact that a great variety of new behaviours will be tolerated.
Some strong critics against this argument have been raised, saying that more developed
societies were characterized by even more severe punishment while simple societies had
17
(1997), p.127
18
(1997), p.128
19
(1997), p.129
lenient punishments. Furtermore, it was added that the modern way of social organization
in big cities prepared the path for violent and sever punishments, while on the contrary,
rural areas in Western societies were characterized by a high degree of tolerance. (Steven
Spitzer - “Punishment and social organization”). Perhaps Durkheim was influenced by the
tendency of European societies to become less severe at that time, due to the reforms
introduced by Beccaria and other classical theorists.
Research and empirical data has proved that some of Durkheim’s arguments are
wrong since new findings such as Bennett analysis of fifity-two nations from 1960-1980
showed that the rate of economical growth significantly affects theft or other property
related crimes but not homicide, refuting the Durkheimian hypotheses. Nevertheless,
Durkheim should be considered one of the first theorist of the economical theory of crime
since he linked the economical inequalities with the increase in criminal behaviour and the
criminaliation by criminal justice agencies. Also it should be remembered that one of the
arguments of the economical theorist was that the increase in property crime should be
associated with increasing opportunites that industrialization and urbanization provides.
M.K.MERTON
It has been said that Durkheim had a great influence over Robert .K. Merton’s
theory, who applied some of his concepts to the U.S society. In one of his most famous
work, Le Suicide, we may find some of the ideas that guided Merton’s research when
Durkheim affirmed that “No living being can be happy or even exist unless his need are
sufficiently proportionated to his mean. In other words, if he needs require more than can
be granted, or even merely something of a different sort, they will be under continual
friction and can only function painfully. In his attempt to adapt Durkheim’s theory to the
Americal society, Merton shifted the focus from rapid social changes to the realtively stable
social conditions that were associetated with the higer overall crime rates in the American
society. Merton used the term social structural strain to describe these social conditions.
Apart from this, it should be noticed that, while Durkehim descrbied anomi as a breakdown
in the society’s ability to regulate the natural appetites of individuals, Merton argued that
these appetite were normal and they originate in the culture of the society to which the
person belongs, and in the same time, the social structure of the society acts as a limit to the
ability of certain groups to satisfy those appetites. Therefore, he advocated the idea that
crime is the result of the pressure exercised on certain persons to engage in nonconformist
conduct in order to find a way to satisfy their passions and appetites.20
Merton’s explanaitions regarding the American social structure may be divided in
two subgroups: one refers to cultural goal inspired by the American society and the second
is related to the institutional means which might be used by all individuals who are expected
to follow the cultural goal. Therefore, we have and interdependency relations because, as
20
Rober K. Merton – Social Theory and Social Structure, Free Press, Year 1968, p.6-7
we will see, one cannot exist without the other, and in cases where these two concept go
against each other, anti-social conduct should be expected.
From the beginning, Merton pointed out that the American culture is based on the
egalitarian ideology that offers to every citizen equal chances to achieve the cultural goal. 21
According to his view, culture point out the goals it deems that are worth striving for, goals
that vary from a culture to another. He pointed out that the American cultural goal is to
aquire wealth, therefore, accumulated wealth is equated with personal value and worth
giving the person a high degree of prestige and an important social status. On the opposite,
those who didn’t follow the cultural goal, may be stigmatized or marginalized even though
they might have other person qualities or abilities (like healthy moral values or recognition
for their studies and research) which other cultures may value.
The second aspect of the strain theory is connected to the approved norms also
knows as intitutionalized means which all individuals are expected to follow in pursuing the
culture goals. Furtheron, he claimed that the means approved by society are based on the
culture’s values which will rule out the most efficient methods for achieving the cuture
goals. For example, he mentioned the middle-class values (or the Protestant work ethic)
that guides American society on the road to succes and wealth, saying that these value are
defined by hard work, honesty, education and deferred gratification. Therefore, use of force
and fraud, which in some cases may be the most efficient method to achieve the culture
goals are forbidden.22 Nevertheless, he claimed that not all the members of society will be
able to achieve the goals of the culture but he emphasize the importance of providing some
intrisic satisfaction for all persons who participate in the culture; by anology, we can imagine
that all the members of a community will find a satisfaction from following the
institutionalized means (playing “the game” according to the rules dictated by the State)
rather than from achieving the goal (“winning the game”=becoming a wealthy person).
Therefore, it’s not if you win the game, it’s how you play the game and the satisfaction one
must feel from obeying the rules and playing in a fair manner.
These are the main conceptual lines of the strain theory. What happened in reality
was a completely different story since Merton corectly appreciated that the instituionalized
means offered by the American society were placed under a severe strain since it was
goverened by the dictum “It’s not how you play the game, it’s about whether you win”.
From this situation arises another problem, that the individual will think that
institutionalized means are little reward in themselves since adhering to the values and
methods proposed by the culture will result in little social reward unless the person
achieves at least a moderate degree of wealth as a result. Thus, the imbalance created by
over exaggerating the cultural goal without improving the reward offered by following the
social accepted pattern, will lead to frustration and anti-social behaviour. To conclude,
Merton used a cultural argument to explain the high rate of crime in American society as a
hole (he linked this fact to the “cultural imbalances” between the strong cultural forces that
valued the goal of monetary succes and the much weaker and less valued institutional
21
Rober K. Merton – Social Theory and Social Structure, Free Press, Year 1968, p.187
22
means of hard work, honesty and moral education) and the institutional argument to point
out the reason why lower classes in America have higher crime rates than upper classes.
Therefore, he used the social structure argument and not the the cultural argument, to
advocate the idea that the distribution of criminal behaveiour is the mirror image of the
distribution of legitimate opportunities since opportunities were relatively concentrated in
the higher classes and relatively absent in the lower classes.
How wouldd a person adapt to the socio-cultural strains? Merton argued that his
adaptation is influenced by the cultural goal and the institutionalized means which offer five
options to the individual in his pursue of the cultural goal.23 These are:
a) Conformity : followed by people who accept both the culture goals and the
institutional means. These are the kind of people that enjoy to play according to
the rules, even if they don’t get the chance of winning the game since they will
continue to strive to achieve wealth even if they will succed or not.
b) Innovation : are the type of people described by Durkheim when he advocated
the freedom of expresion and the need to support orginal and revultionary
thinking. In Merton’s view, these category of people retain their allegiance to the
culture goal (and they place a major emphasize on achieving it) but they cannot
succed by following the institutionalized means. Therefore, they will always find
a solution to aquire wealth through unapproved/illegal means, such as fraud or
misrepresentation. The classical school of though described this tendency in
human as “hedonistic” since this category of people would always choose the
most technically efficient methods of achieving their goals and happiness;
Merton partly agree with this hypothesis but argued that this sitution only
appears when the cultural goals were overemphasized to the point that the
norms broke down.
c) Ritualist : in this category he included the person who wished to “play it safe”
and abide by all the cultural norms. These persons have achieved a minimum
level of success through the institutionalized means but they have no hope of
achieving anything better. This is the typical perspective of the “frightened
employee, the zelously conformist beureaucrat in the taller’s cage”
d) Retreatism : it involves the people who droped out the whole game due to
medical causes (like autists, psychotics or drug addicts) or social and economical
motives (vagabond, vagrants or pariah). Dropout etiology may be found in a
variety of causes, but the most common to the American society is due to the
competitive order where the frustrated, incompetent and handicapped
individuals cannot cope with the order and climate. Therefore, it is not the lack of
commitment to the culture or the unwillingness to follow the institutionalized
means, but the absence of real possbility and opportunities to achieve succes. It
may be said that the situation is similiar to the one found in “innovator”
category, but the difference consist in the lack of courage,ambition, a strong
character/personality and cunning.
23
e) Rebellion: the last type of adaptation describes the category of person who
ceases to function as a member of the existing society and begins to live within
an alternate culture. It is usual for this category to try to replace the values of
society with new ones by violent means, spiritual convictions or values steaming
from other areas. According to Cohen’s adaptation of Merton’s theory, rebellion
is a reaction directed only against middle-class values.
To sum up Merton’s work I shall indicate Messner and Rosenfeld view about
institutional anomi which they described as “a broad cultural ethos that entails a
commitment to the goal of material success, to be pursued by everyone in society, under
conditions of open, indidividual competition”. The American Dream may be a blessing for
some people, while for others, the pressure for monetary success is the road to frustration,
anger, anxiety or depression. Thus the structural deficiency of the American Dream utopian
view is the differences between the probability of acutally realizing the aspirations and the
mean avaialable to do so. All in all, maybe American society would benefit more from a
change in the public rethoric which, since America became a global power, placed an
overwhelming influence on the economic concerns. Promoting economic growth has been
dominated the political process and government policies under sofistry like “promoting the
general walfare” but perhaps “the general welfare” will have more to gain from cultivating
moral values and bringing education standards at the highest level.
CRIMINAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Criminal anthropology was the main instrument used to study all anatomical
features of the human body, that included all the features of the face or the shape of skull.
Lombroso was one of the first to perform autopsises on male criminals who had
characteristics similar to primitve humans such as asymmetry of the face, large jaws and
cheekbones,abonrmal teeth or asymmetry of the brain.24 He built up a prototype of the
„criminal man” who was not only predisposed to crime, but was also stigmatized by these
unusual physical traits. Alongside, Charles Goring’s study relied on objective measurements
of physical and mental characteristics in order to advance his theory of hereditary inferiority.
After comparing groups of different kind of criminals, Goring concluded that there were no
significant differences between one kind of criminals than another, with one exception
consisting in inferiority in stature and in body weight and height since criminals weighed
from three to seven pounds less and were one to two inches shorter than noncriminals of
the same occupational group. This differences were summed up under the general thesis of
hereditary inferiority. There were many controvercies around the physical differences
betwen criminals and normal people, but the weight of experts opinion was against the
existance of a physical criminal type.
However, in recent times, most of the modern work related to the physical
characteristics, now labeled as “minor physical anomalies” or MPAs was conducted by
24
(1997), p.43
Waldrop and Halverson (1971) who identified a number of minor physical anomalies
characteristic to the face,hand and feet; also, a high rates of MPAs has been linked to a large
number of behavioral syndromes such as Down’s syndome, schizophrenia, learning
disabilities or hyperactivity.25 Correlations were made between MPAs and personality
variables characteristic for antisocial behaviour. These correlations revealed a high degree
of psycoticism, hyperactivity, aggression, emotionality-neuroticism and sociability. The
strong connection to genetic factors is worth mantioning since MPAs are usually evident at
birth and show considerable stability through childhood (Quinn & Rapaport, 1974) and the
fact that they are unlikely to be change on thorught the life span is a strong point of this
idea. More than that, multiple factors during the first trimester of pregnancy may affect the
development of the nervous system by that influencing a person’s temperament (D.W
Smith, 1970; Stef & Rapaport, 1975).26 Notwithstanding, we should remind that MPAs are
barely noticable by untrained observers and in a crowded space, full of people, many MPA’s
are not found any less physically attractive than those with none.
Even though Lombroso’s original theory was exaggerated, it might have had a kernel
of truth in it, and in support for this idea come one modern study of two doctors who
compared over 7.000 photos of noncriminals with over 11.000 photos of criminals to find
that over 60% of criminals presented deformations defined as surgically correctable facial
defects copared with 20% in noncriminals. Masters and Greaves (study from 1967) also
distinguished between different categories of crime such as suicide, homicide, rape
prostitution and sexual deviation. They revealed that homicide had the lowest precentage
of deformities (only 44%) while, totally unexpected, prostitues had a high degree of facial
disfigurement of both congenital and acquired origin (69%).
Kretschmer
Under the auspicies of an important number of well-founded critics, the study of

stigmata or MPAs gave way to the study of physique
which had a two-folded approach on height and width.
Kretschmer extracted the main ideas of the French writer
called Rostan (1828) who postulated a digestive type
(thickset,round) which Kretschmer called pyknic; a
cerebral-respiratory type ( thin, elongated) which was
called astenic or leptopsomatic; and an intermediate
muscular type which Kretschmer called athletic. To this
Kretschmer added another category called dysplatic
which essentially denotes an incompatible mixture of
primary components in different parts/regions of the
body.
On a personality level, Kretschmer made some

interesting correlations between the mental side and the
25
Hans J. Eysenck, Gisli H. Gudjonsson (auth.) - The Causes and Cures of Criminality-Springer US (1989), p.20
26
physical appearance. He considered that the temperamental typology was based on two
main groups of functional psychoses, the schizoprhenia and the maniac-despressive
disorders. Schizophrenics were belived to be leptosomatic in body build; the maniac-
depressive largely pyknic, but the athletic type was an intermediate between the other two.
Sheldon
Fortunately, the thirst for knowledge didn’t stop at this breakpoint, because more
interesting attempts to make the connection between physical appearance and the
temperament of the mind were made by William Sheldon. Sheldon’s main ideas is derived
from medicine and biology, in his attempt to link up the diffrent types of body build with
germinal layers in the embryo which is esentially a tube made up of three different tissue
layers: 1) the inner layer (the endoderm); 2) a middle layer (the mesoderm) and 3) the outer
layer (the ectoderm). By using embryology and physiology he claimed that the endoderm
gives rise to the digestive viscera; the mesoderm to muscle, bones and motor-organ system
while the ectoderm connects tissue of the nervous system. In essence, the body type is a
result of the overdevelopment of one of these components.
Sheldon’s work was summarized as follows:
1) The endomorphic type which had a relatively great development of digestive viscera,
the tendency to put on fat (which is caused by a predominence of the absorbion
function over the energy-expediture functions), short tapering limbs, small bones,
soft, smooth and valvetly skin was associated with the viscerotonic type of
temperament which was attributed to people with general relaxation of body, who
are comfortable and love small luxury; they were categorized as extroverts;
2) The mesomorphic being the muscle type with large trunk, heavy chest, large wrists
and hands who fill out heavily. The temperament attributed to this category was the
somotonic which means that people in this category are active an dynamic; they
enjoy walks, talks, gestures assertively and behave aggresively; theorist considered
this category to belong to active extraverts.
3) The ectomorphs have a relative predominance of skin and its appendages, which
includes the nervous system, lean, fragile and delicate body, delicate bones, droopy
shoulders,small face, sharp nose, fine hair and realively little body mass in relation to
the body surface area. The temperament linked to this type was the cerebrotnic
defined by introvercy, full functional complaints, allergies, skin troubles, chronic
fatigue, insomnia, sensitive to noise and distractions.
Each porsen belongs to one category or another and Sheldon attributed three
numbers, each from 1 to 7 to indicate the extent to which the characteristics of the
three types were present in a given individual. For instance, a person whose somatotype
is 2-6-1 would posses many mesomorphic characteristics, few endomorphic and even
less ectomoprhic. Furthermore, Sheldon conducted a series of experiments and found
that young delinquents whre high in mesomorphy and low in ectomorphy with the
avarage somatotype being 3.5 - 4.6 - 2.7. S. Glueck and E. Glueck (Physique and
Delinquency, Harper, New York, 1956) confirmed Sheldon’s hypothesis finding that
mesomorphs, in general, “were more highly characterized by traits particularly suitable
to the comission of act of aggression (physical strength, energy, insensivity, the
tendency to express tension and frustration in actions) together with a relative freedom
from such inhibition to antisocial adventures as feelings of inadequancy, marked
submissiveness to authority, emotional instability, and the like”.
PHYSIQUE AND PERSONALITY
There is an impressive number of different meanings for the term constitution. One
of the most embracing is found in the Encyclopaedia of Psychology (H.J Eysenck, Arnold
& Meili, 1971) where the term is explained as „human reactive potential and reaction
style (form and performance). It is grounded on heredity and Anlagen or fundamental
dispositions, and those acquired in early childhood, or more rarely at a later date, and
can be determined as a type of an individual constitution.” (same, p.213) Another
attempt to define this term tells us that constitutional types are theortical groupings or
psychophysical (occasionally excusively physical: the „biotype) characteristics which are
assembled either by statistical frequency method or by arbitrary selection”.
Sheldon will always be remember for his devotion and his erudition due to his
perseverance and consistency showed through out his career. He collected a list of 650
traits of temeprament in order to link the theory of phyisiqual traits with personality
characteristics related to introversion or extroverion. After reducing the number to only
20, he devided each main group of traits into three main clusters. These clusters were
labeled „viscerotonia”, „somatotonia” and „cereborotnia”; they showed both a positive
and a negative correlations among themselves and it was found that viscerotonia
correlates -.034 with somatotonia and -.37 with cerebrotonia; somatotonia and
cerebrotonia intercorrelate -.62.27
Before moving on, it should be noticced that Sheldon has not carrier out any factorial
study and the several attempts that tried to do it were faced with the problem of finding
the root of the negative numbers. Therefore, the pecularity of these interrcorelations
forced some investigations to affirm that they might be „outside the bounds of
mathematical pssibility” (Labin 1950, pag. 188). Labin further added that these figgures
„must contain error of arithmetical calucaltion” because they violate the well-known
conditions of consistency. To conclude, we should interpete with cautious and critic
Sheldon’s findings in respect for these interrcorelations.
One of the most fascinating aspect of Sheldon’s theory is the large number of
connections that make-up the theory, like the pieces of a puzzle that are placed together
in order to have the image of the hole. In this respect, Sheldon made correlation
between body type and temperamental types. He discovered that the correlations
between endomorphy and viscerotonia was .79, between mesomorphy and somatotonia
.72 , and between ectomorphy and cerebrotonia .83(!). Those high rates made Sheldon
affirm that „correlations of the order of .8 would suggest that morphology and
27
Hans J. Eysenck, Gisli H. Gudjonsson (auth.) - The Causes and Cures of Criminality-Springer US (1989), p.27-
28
temperament as we measure them may constitute expression at their respective levels
of essentially common components”. Furteron, Sheldon made connections between
temperamental components and other personal indices such: the textural component
correlated .36 with cerebrotonia, but only insignificantly with the other two
components. IQ and sexuality also correlated positively with cerebrotonia but not with
the other two components. Nevertheless, it should be reminded that these results have
to be checked and reapeted since these kind of experiments may suffer from important
experimental errors.
The directions predicted by Sheldon’s system were partly confirmed by a few studies
that analyzed the relationship between physique and self-rated behaviour or by
investigating the relation between physique and Sheldon’s measures of temperament.28
Sheldon extended his scheme of temperament to include psychotic and neurotic
manifestations. After conducting an experiment where 155 psychotic male were
somatotyped by Sheldon himself combined with Wittman rating for these pacients
based on the traits from her checklist, they found that correlations between:
a) Maniac-despressive disorder and endomorphy .54, mesomorphy .41 and
ectomorphy -59
b) Paranoid psychiatric componend and endomorphy correlated -.04; with endomorphy
.57 and -34 with ectomorphy.
c) Hebephrenic correlated -.25 with endomoprhy, -.69 with mesomporohy and .64 with
ectomorphy.
In the following pages I will give some insight about the relationship between criminality
and Sheldon’s indices of body constitution. In a study conducted by Sheldon, Hartl and
McDermott (1949), based on 200 delinquent youths who were somatotyped according to
Sheldon’s system and compared to 4.000 college students, it was found that delinquents
differed sharply from the college students in the sense that they had distinct and havier
massing in the endomoprhic-mesomoprhic sector. When they generalize their findings, they
concluded that delinquents were characterized by high level of mesomporhy and low level
of ectomorphy, but there was no straight-forward tendency regarding endomorphy.
Sheldon further proposed a three-dimensional representation of these results by

attributing 20 cases to each black dot. After he did so for both groups he concluded that
while in the group constituted by college students the dots are distributed almost randomly,
with the majority in a circle around the center (Fig.1), the delinquents graphic shows us a
28
32
different picture since the majority are in the endomorphic-mesomorph part (Fig. 2)
Fig.1 Fig.2
Another interesting point to be added is that the correlation between body build and
delinquency shoudn’t be interpreted in an absolute way in the sense that mesomporhs or
endomorphs are have a kind of predisposition for a life of crime. As an example, sportsman,
elite weightlifters, commando regiments are almost entirely to be found in the
mesomorphic and the endomorphic-mesomorphic group without showing an intereset for a
criminal career.
Another studies tested the predictive capacity of Sheldon’s theory when Hartl, Monnelli
and Elderken (1982) carrier a 30-year follow-up of Sheldon’s work by trying to predict the
future prospect and career of youth group. They concluded that the biggest difference was
related to mesomrphy since future criminals were significantly more mesomporh than
normals.
Epps and Parnell (1952) studied a group of 177 young women who were
anthropometrically measured and compared them to a group of 123 university women. The
results showed that delinquents were heavier in body build, more muscular and fat, in other
words,they were predominantly mesomorph or endomorph. Regarding their temeparment
they showed a predominance of somatotonia and viscerotonia that is high in psychoticism
and high in extraversion.
I began this part by presenting Goring’s studies which suggested that criminals are less
physically developed than the normal population. Seltzer (1951) contradicted his assertions,
saying that there is atendency for the reverse to be true since deliquents are in terms of
body weight avarage almost 3 pounds heavier than nondelinquents and in respect for the
skeletal structure and muscal fibers, delinquents displaied considerably ruggedness,
massiveness and higer power than nondelinquents. Seltzer concluded that the „Data give no
support to those who characterise juvenile delinquents as stunted, underdeveloped,
defective, and constitutional inferior biological organisms. Seltzer went even further
claiming that delinquent have an advantage over normal population since they are
characterized by those trait indicating vitality,directness, relative insensibility to fine
external influences and a high level of sociability. On the contrary, since nondeliquents are
charaterised by traits indicating sensitivity and complexity of their personality, they will
have an handicap when confrunted with the social and economical aspects of the day-to-
day life.
H.J. EYSENCK
The relation between crime and personality has been the object of H.J Eysenck in his
book Crime and Personality (last edition was published in 1977). Eysenck system of
personality was inspired by Royce and Powell who established two main relevant factors
connected to personality under the term ability and those subsumed under the term
temperament. Further, he attributed a number of personality traits by saying that ability is
closely linked with general intelligence, while temperament is made-up out of three major
order factors which he called emotional stability, emotional independence, and introversion-
extraversion. The structure of Eysenck theory is similiar but he changed conceptual meaning
of the personality factors, thus, in order to define the temperament he used the terms
neuroticism (N) – for emotional stability, psychoticism (P) – instead of emotional
independence, and finally he kept the label of introversion-extraversion factor.
Figure 9 ,10 and 11 describe the constitution of psychoticism, extraversion
and neutoricism in term of personality traits. It should be noted that usually individuals are
neither completely extraverted nor fully introverted or psychotic because a person can have
a trait from of each category.
In the following pages I will make a short description of the four major personality
factors – intelligence, psychoticism, extraversion and neuroticism and than I will show their
relations with criminality as shown by empirical data,studies and experiments. Genetic
factors also play an important role in determining the person’s personality. This has been
suggested by numerous studies, correlations and mesaurments which showed that genetic
factors are more important than environmental ones in the determination of difference in
ability and temperament.
A few words should be added about psychopathic, sociopathic or „personality
disorder” behaviour since it will be the subject of an in-depth investigation. There is a large
specter of personality traits that define this category (psychologist have identified
psychopathy with traits like unreliablity, untruthfulness, insencerity, lack of remorse or
shame, failure to learn from experience, poor judgment or incapacity for love) but in spite
all the symphtoms, psychopaths often present a convincing mask of sanity. Therefore, we
have to avoid the common mistake of identifieing psychopaths with criminals (although
they are characterized by antisocial behaviour) because psychopats may not be criminals in
the legal sense, in fact, a large number of public personality have been ranked on the top of
the list of person suffering from antisocial personality disorder. Eyesenck connected DSM-III
with the system of personality description elaborated by psychologist and found that the
first cluster that belongs to DSM-III and includes paranoids, schizoid and schizotypal
personality disorders (the category of people who appear odd or eccentric) is closely
related to the psychotocism factor. The second cluster that includes histrionic, narcissistic,
antisocial and borderline antisocial personality disorder (the type of people that appear
dramatic, emotional or erratic) was connected to extraversion. The third class composed of
avoident, dependent, compulsive and passive-aggresive personality disorders belongs to the
class of people that appear anxious or fearful and it was linked with the neuroticism factor.
To sum-up, it is necessary to notice the considerable nuber of similarities between the
psychiatric (DSM-III) and the psychological description of psychopaths, in particular, and the
relation between antisocial and criminal subject in general.
The relation between intelligence and criminality is somehow confusing because, on
the one hand, those who have a low level of intelligence will have a handicap for
educational succes and a satisfactory living along othodox lines, since people with low IQ
have little alternative if they want to achieve a resonable degree of influence. It is obvious
that mugging, larceny or other similar activities do not require an IQ as high as does
medicine or legal studies. On the other hand, those characterized by a high level of IQ, may
indulge in antisocial behaviour in term of economical related crime, such as the one
committed by the white-collar criminals, but on the other side, people with high IQ have a
better chance to succed in their educational endeavors and to achieve a middle-class status.
Another complication is that intelligence is the correlation between intelligence and the
other three factors of personality and it should be noticed that there was no study to attack
the question „What is the degree of correlation between them and criminality?”. However,
correlatios between criminality and psychoticism tend to be higher than those between
criminality and intelligence.29
After conducting a large number of studies, psychologists came to the conclusion

that offenders have an IQ below avarage; offeders IQ was within the range of 90 to 109
points with a mean around 92. Another aspect of these studies revealed that offenders had
a relatitvely lower verban IQ than performance IQ (Matarazzo, 1972, pp 433-439). These
findings were confirmed by the work of McGarvey, Gabrielli and Menick (1981) who
concluded that low IQ children with poor verbal abilities that limit their opportunities to
obtain rewards in the school environment may engage in delinquent behaviour.
Psychologists made a few attempts to find some connections between intelligence
and different kind of social categories. Thus, it was argued that in some cases, the studies
are biased by tha fact that more intelligent criminals who are engaging in white-collar crime
may not be caught in equal proportion to the large number of delinquents involved in
stealing burglaries, muggings or assaults.30 On the contrary, Schimb (1980) affirmed that
even the most succesful white-collar criminals do not a high IQ level and also the small
number of offences committed by this category would not significantly influence the
findings. Furtheron, more interesting correlations between IQ and race gender were made,
showing that there is an unusually high probability of criminal behaviour for black when
compared to whites and escpecially when compared with oriental; Ellis concluded that there
are consistend tendencies for black to have the highest rates of criminal conduct, orientals
to have the lowest and white to have intermediate rates. Another complex study comes
from Gordon who concluded that prevalence of delinquency is commensurate with black-
white differences in IQ parameters. Another sparking point raised by Gordon was related to
the correlation between SES parameters and IQ parameters. Gordon used a number of SES
status variables such as employement, male income, female income, education attainment
and occupational prestige and showed a mean reduction in variance of 18,6% while the IQ
avarage had a 98.4% reduction. As Grodon pointed out, these findings showed that SES
(social and economical standards) were most successful in the model” and that „such
success itself constituted evidence for the importance of IQ to group differences in
delinquency”. He concluded that, after conducting studies on millions of individuals, the
black-white differences in IQ were surprisingly consistend and this constitutes a source of
major black-white differences in the lifetime prevalance of crime.31
Finally, Kendel supported the view that IQ acts as an protective shield against
antisocial behaviour. He conducted a study in which he compared the characteristics of four
groups of Danish man and found that the group which evidenced the highest mean IQ group
score was less likely to indulge in a criminal career.
29
30
Sutherland - White-collar Criminality, 1940
31
54
Moving our attention to the other aspect of personality that doesn’t have a cognitive
nature. According to H.J Eysenck general theory, criminality is positively and causally related
to high psychoticism, high extraversion and high neuroticism. The following pages will dive
Eysenck research into three parts: the first one will be an attempt to link personality with
antisocial behaviour; the second one will discus the biological aspects of the theory with a
focus on studies conducted on twins; in the last part I will present some interesting aspects
of the Pavlovian conditioning theory.
There are two brief point worth to be noted: first of all, all studies conducted have
taken into consideration the age of the subject; thus, it has usually been found that P
(psychoticism) is always relavant in antisocial behaviour, E (extraversion) is more relevant in
yound children and possibly juveniles while older criminals were found to be high in N
(neuroticism). Some hypothesis suggest that these results are caused by the social
conditions of these subjects since incarcerated criminals can hardly go to parties, make
friends easily and indulge in other activities of extraverts. On the other hand, studies have
pointed out the relative heterogeneity of criminal groups showing that personality traits
differ according to the category of offence that has been committed. For instance, it has
been shown that con men are low on P, low on N but high on E, whereas inadequates are
high on P, high on N and low on E.
Psychologists thought they

found a way to predict the criminal
behaviour. In this sense, they
conducted a few studies of the
factorial structure of juvenile
delinquency in self-reported acts
using the basis of Gibson’s ABS scale
supplemented by objective records of
classroom detention and other
punishments inflicted by teachers for
misbehaviour (Na=naughtiness score)
and found important correlations
between these two indices, demonstrating the relevance of the subjective ABS
questionnaire. As shown in this figure, there is a linear (or at least monotonic) increase in
antisocial behaviour along with increased P,E or N.
The validity and relevance of the ABS scale has been proved by numerous studies
that used ABS as an instrument for measuring impulsivity,venturesomeness. Numerous
studies showed clear evidence and support for the relation between high delinquency
scores and psychoticism, extraverson (and rarely neuroticism) and the ABS questionner,
making it a reliable tool for further research. In this direction it is worth pointing to the
replication study of Silva, Martorell and Clemente in Spain (1986) that adapted the research
formula of S.B Eysenck and H.J Eysenck (1980) where they found that ABS scores were
significantly higer on impulsivity and venturesomeness and lower in empathy, traits that
were common to deliquents and criminals (Table 3). A final example of the validity of the
ABS scores is given by Silvam Martorrel and Salvador (1987) report that indicated a .52
correlation between ABS scale and teacher’s ratings besed on the children behaviour at
school. In another sample of 285 high school boys, Erickson (1972) foud a gamma coefficient
correlation of .72 between self-reports and court records and .66 between self-reported
delinquency and future court appearance. To conclude, the value and validity of self-
reported delinquency is beyound any resonable doubt.32
A study conducted by Saklofkse, McKerracher and Eysenck (1978) administered the

EPQ test to four groups of 20 adolsecent boys classified by teacher’s rating and self-
reported questionner of antisocial behaviour(for instance the one who behaved badly had a
history of general disrispect and defiance of school rules, detentions or temporary
suspensions) and one group of 20 delinquent boys in detention. The study aim was to prove
the relation between behaviour (rather than self-reports) and personality. Finally, they
came to the conclusion that group E had significantly higher scores than groups A and B on
the four scales but not always on N. Therefore, they came to the conclusion that using ABS
and EPQ test as a cirterion to evaluate P,N and E, will result in an accurate prediction except
for the N variable that fails with the badly behaved group. Still the other results will be in
line with the prediction.
Moving from the causes of criminality to the methods that may be used to cure this
„diseas”, psychiatrist have been inspired by Lane and Hymans who were concerned with the
32
61
relationship between personality variables and levels of conduct disorder, delinquency and
therapy responsiveness in children. They took special regard to Pierson’s position who
argued that delinquenct youths are resistant to change in the direction of prosocial
behaviour because they lack anxiety. Lane contradicted this hypothesis thourgh a study
conducted in a small group of 17, where he found that the response to theraphy was
positively correlated with N and L (lie indicator) but negatively with P.
It is worthwhile pointing out some interesting aspects regarding the relationship

between juveniles and the antisocial behaviour. Important results emerged form the Scott,
Marson and Neill’s study entiteled Taxonomy of Behaviour Distrubance (1975) which
involved teacher’s ratings and an instrument developed by the Bristol Social Adjustment
Guide. Their conclusions were trully remarkable finding two main syndromes of
maladjustment among the children rated, syndromes known as Unract (underreactivity,
inhibited behaviour, unferthcomigness, despression) and Ovract (overactivity, unhibited
behaviour, inconsequence and hostility). What does the Ovract take into consideration
when it offers the personality score? It seems to combine E and P in equal measure while
the general maladjustment add a certain amount of N. These syndromes were positively
intercorrelated with three personality elements from Eysenck theory finding that the Ovract
child had a predisposition to criminal activities since he was characterized by high E.
Evidence in favor of this hypotheses has been brought to light by further studies that
analyzed some official criminal records which indicated that the nondeliquents had lower
scores for overreacting maladjustments. Also, the Ovract score for those who had three or
more crimes recorded was three times the score of nonoffenders while the diffrence
between feminine delinquents and nondelinquents was almost 2 times higher.
Other positive results were shown by Berman and Paisey who investigated the
relationship between antisocial behaviour and personality in 30 juvenile males convicted of
offenses of assault or confrontations with a victim and 30 juvenile males convicted of
offenses involving property without confrontation with the victim. Their study use the EPQ
and Zuckerman’s Sensation-SEeking Scale. They found that juvenile convicted for assault
offenses exhibited significantly higer P,E and N scores and higer sensation-seeking scores.
These results indicate that particular types of crimes may be pradicated by the P, E and N
scores.
Furtermore, other studies like the ones conducted by Robins and Ratcliff who
suggest that the personaility’s components (P,E,N) can be used as a predicator of future
conduct with some degree of succcess. In their search for evidence they used some indexed
items such as truancy, school failure, early sexual intercourse, illicit drug use, alcohol
problems and juvenile arrests on a sample of black men born in St. Louis finding that the
number of adult arrests increased with the variety of childhood deviance. They found that
5/9 childhood deviance, 69% had three or more adult arrests , 29% for drug offense and
27% for violence as compared to those having no childhood deviance of whome only 12%
had three or more arrests, only 10% for theft and none for drugs or violence.
Meta-analysis and empiritcal studies were carried in Germany through the Freiburg
Personality Inventory (FPI) which mesures nine personality traits in addition to extraversion
and neuroticism. Steller and Hunze found that 15 out of 23 comparisons had higher scores
on emotional instability (neuroticism); also , extraversion was found frequently into the
delinquent group. They summed up saying that the difference between delinquents and
nondeliquents was represented by the bad humor, low self regard ,toubles with
psychosomatic reactions, irritability and frustration filled by a high degree of emotional
lability. Another useful instrument is represented by the cluster analysis that devided
different type of delinquents between four groups which cosisted, in Wardell and Yeudall
(1980) study, of primary/seconday psychopats, sub-cultural psychopats, over controlled and
violent aggressive groups. The cluster-analysis studies (as the one mentioned before)
suggest that most of the time the clusters agree with Eysenck’s theory of criminality since
clusters scores in delinquency cases were high on P and E, E and E while in other high only
on E. 33
Another important aspect of adult criminality is the social inadequancy dimension. In
general, the profile of the inadequate individual is that of the old, neurotic, introverted
person with a psychiatric history and poor contact with his wife and family. Eysenck pointed
out that a large group of inadequates is to be found in prison populations since the prison
regim has the effect of limiting the social interactions. Therefore, since the E factor is
artificially reduced the correlation with extravertsion would be negative.
At this point, the question that comes to mind is „Does these studies have any
practical significance?”. It would be unfair to neglect that these data have a major influence
33
85
over the pedicition capacities giving that the tendency
of the last 30 years to close psychiatric hospitals
resulting in a discharge of persons suffering from
mental illnesses into the community led to an increase
in the number of crimes and an increase in the
avarage daily prison population. Weller and Weller
(1986) conducted an investigation about the bed
availability in psychiatric hospitals and daily prison
population in the English and Walesh prisons, showing
that, as the number of bed availability decreased, the
latter increased, as it was predicted. In this direction,
the representation from the following figure is a solid
proof.
These results suggest that a change in the
trend would be welcomed especially since a prisoner
may cost more to maintain than mental patients. It was also affirmed that it is unjust and
unethical to punish patients suffering from mental disorders especially when the medical
evidence shows that a proper medical treatment can improve the mental state of the
delinquents. On the other hand, it should not be forgotten that the legislation of the EU
contries consider iresponsibility to be a legal cause that excludes liability, therefore, in cases
where the offender was lacking the basic mental faculties, he will not be sentenced to
imprisonment but he will be the subject of protective measures such as obligatory
rehabilitation in special psychiatric facilities.
Moving further, these three personality futures have been use in the attempt to
assess the likelihood of recidivism thorough the help of a few major instruments such ass:
the MMPI personality inventory which uses a number of scales; the CPI which also makes
use of some scales like the So scale (socialization), the Self control scale (Sc) and
responsibility scale (Re) in ordert to construct a pertinent inventory; the POS which is the
result of factor-analytic studies containing 100 true-false item scores that give rise to three
factors – psychopathic delinquency, neurotic delinquency and socialized delinquency - that
are similar to those resembling the P,N and E.
As a summary, the large amount of data discussed reached the following

conclusions: 1) there is a connection between antisocial behaviour and criminality; 2) within
the antisocial and criminal behaviour is a certain amount of heterogeneity since active
criminals commit different type of offences than inadequate criminals; 3) criminality is
strongly influence by certain dimension of personality, in particular the one label
psychoticism (P); 4) here is a strong tendency to link extraversion with juvenile criminality
and neuroticism with re-offenders that served a long period in jail; 5) some personality traits
such as impulsiveness, venturesomeness, risk taking or empathy correlate in the predictable
directions with antisocial conduct; 6) studies based on self-report and rates given by
teachers may serve as a great tool in the attempts to predict future criminal conduct;
CRIMINALITY AND GENETICS
In science we often find a pendulum-like swing from one theory to another, or as
other’s might say, „what has been is what it will be, and what has been done is what will be
done, and there is nothing new under the sun”. In the 20th centruy, a number of psychiatrist
used the biometrical genetical analysis of the Birmingham School in order to provide some
data about the contribution of various genetic and environmental factors to phenotypical
behaviour. One of the many problems faced by a psychologist in his attempts to have a
torough examination regarding the connection between heritability and criminal behaviour
is caused by the lack of any systematic teaching of modern genetic theory and also due to
the number of erroneuous assumptions about concept like heritability, interaction and
environmental variance. Nevertheless, a definition for the cause of the criminality based
only on genetic factors would be biased since it doesn’t take into account the breakdown of
the phenotypic variance that are conditioned by the genetical code. Modern methods of
analysis have been used in studies conducted on MZ (monozygotic) and DZ (dyzygotic) twins
by taking into account the level of education of the adopted children, familial
intercorrelations or the genetic regression. Before moving to the first part of the genetical
approach, it is necessary to point that heritabilities are not given once and for all; as Heath
(1985) concluded, heritabilities were highest for the youngest age male groups (70%) but
lowest for the oldest (40%). Therefore, we shall reach the conclusion that the traits
inherited from our ascendents are not fixed for all eternity since genetics don’t play a
deterministic role in the absolute sense of the word, and accept the fact that both variables
are intercorrelated (each depends on the evolution of the other). As an analogy, we might
imagine that the changes produced by recent hormonal treatments that influence the
physical appearance of the person are similar to the changes caused by the behavioural
therapy that may change the psychological structure of human kind.
What is fascinating about psychology, is the vast number of correlations that can be
established between factors, indicies and variables in order to make inferences and collect
precious pieces of data and information. In the following pages I shall try to prove the
relationship between the genetic factors and the personality factors P, E and N and
summarize the most important studies that confirms this hypothesis.
RESERCH CONDUCTED ON TWINS
Amoung the first to conduct twin studies was Johannes Lange who compared 30
pairs of twins in which at least one had been convicted for an offence; the pairs were
distributed as follows: 13 monozygotic pair and 17 dyzygotic for the other category. The
study revealed that in 10/17 cases the other twin from the MZ group was sentenced to
inprisonment, while in the DZ pair, the result was only 2/17 sentences. To this results he
added that „Monozygotic twins showed quite considerable concordance with reference to
crime” while dyzygotes showed „quite considerable discordance. According to the twin
method, we must conclude from this that heredity is a very important cause of crime”.34
Several replications of the Lange’s study have been carrierd out as shown by Table
11. Still there is a number of criticism in respect for the unreliability of data collection, the
ambiguity of the concept of concordance which may be influenced by the definition of crime
(thus, Dalgard and Kringlen found a concordance of 26% for MZ and 15% for DZ twins with a
ratio of 1.73 by keeping a strict criterion to define crime and the antisocial behaviour
associated with it ) , the failure of the police forces to investigate all the crimes that have
been committed (one method to fight against the black number of criminality is that of
relying on self-report data rather than official statistic). It was suggested that, since MZ
twins are treated more alike by parents, there is higher chance to find similarities in
intelligence and personality and perhaps in criminal conduct – as it was shown by Loehlin
and Nichols counteraargument, similar treatment applied to twin pairs doesn’t make any
difference with repect to congurence in intelligence and personality; therefore, similarities
of treatment may influence some relatively superficial characteristic, such as dressing alike,
but it’s unlikely that they would lead to any great congruence in intelligence ,personaility
and criminal activity.35
Some authors suggested that reported figures giving a concordance rate of MZ twins
of 50% to 70% must be regarded as a minimum estimate, since in this kind of studies the
error probability is significant. A study conducted by Rowe (1983) relied on self-report data
rather than official statistics. Rower sent questionnaires by email to twins in the 8th to the
12 grades in which the twins were asked how often they had engaged in several categories
of deliquent behaviour by themself or along their friends or the other co-twin and about
their physical characteristics in order to decide the zygocity. This study has shown a higher
rate of concordance for MZ than for DZ twins.
34 34
Hans J. Eysenck, Gisli H. Gudjonsson (auth.) - The Causes and Cures of Criminality-Springer US (1989),
p.102
35 35
p.104
It in interesting to investigate the „bright” side of the antisocial continuum and make
some correlations between delinquency and altruistic behavior . Rushton, Fulker, Neale ,
blizard and H.J Eysenck (1984) conducted a investigation where they addressed three
questionnaires to measure the altruistic tendency. The questioneer consisted of 20-item
self-report altruism scale, a 33-item empathy scale and a 16-item nurturance scale. The
results showed that interclass correlation for the 296 MZ pairs were 0.53, 0.54 and 0.49
while for the same-sex DZ the results were 0.25, 0.20 and 0.14. Also there were differences
among age and sex, showing that altruism increased over the age span from 16 to 60
whereas aggressiveness decreased. 36
To end-up this part, I should remark that „crime as destiny” – as suggested by some
theorists – goes against modern theories of genetics, since the interaction of the criminal
with environmental factors may play a huge role in influencting the destiny of a young
person. As Bohman stated, there are no genes for crimanility, but only genes coding for
structural proteins and enzymes that influence metabolic, hormonal and other physiological
processes, which may indirectly modify the risk of criminal behaviour in a particular
environment, under some circumstances. At the end of the day, we must face the idea that
we are biosocial animals influenced by genetic and environmental factors acting and
interacting in complex ways. In this direction, we must accept two other points: there is no
fixed genetic code leading inevitably to crime even though it was pointed out that genetic
causes exert a very strong pull in the direction of prosocial behaviour, possibly to something
like 60%; this findings should be viewed in the light of the fact that predisposition to
criminal conduct may be inborn, but they are entirely depending on environmental
circumstances that can easily lead to an altruistic and honest conduct.
Equally, it would be unjust to accept the idea that, since some people are genetically
predisposed to crime, the efforts to rehabilitate or to prevent their future criminal conduct
are doomed to failure. For instance Phenylketonuria is a diseas which consisits in a
hereditary metabolic anomaly in which the conversion of phenylalanine into tyrosine is
disturbed owing to an enzymatic feficiency. Practically, the nervous siystem of a person
suffering from this diseas gets poisoned if he consumes products that contain phenylalanine
(which could not be convered tyrosine). Other studies suggest that, if the treatment begins
in the first few month of life, the chances for a normal mental developement will be higher.
To put it otherwise, by being able to understand the way in which heredity works, we can
arrange a rational method of therapy that might improve the persons general health.This
preocupied psychiatrist for a long time and at a certain point, H.J Eysenck and Martin came-
up with an effective method of treatement for neurotic disorders introduced under the
name of behaviour therapy.37 (pp 107 eysenck)
36 36
106
37 37
p.107
BIOLOGICAL STUDIES
We previously talked about the correlations between genetics and personality
feautures and the way they influence antisocial or altruistic acts. Frutheron, I will explore
the relationship between biological theories and criminality and offer some relevant
answears to the question „Why certain individuals are more predisposed than others to
commit antisocial acts?”. Still, it should be reminded that most of the studies were
conducted according to the idea that, the biological predisposition of a person to crime
could only be activated by interaction with certain environmental variables.
One of the first studies suggested that human differ from each other (and also from
animals) with respect to the ease or difficulty with which their level of arousal can be
increased and the ease to maintain a high level of arousal. Essentially, arousal refers to the
different states of consciousness that could be associated with different activities – for
instance, a person who’s sitting in front of the TV at 12 o’clock in the afternoon would be in
a low state of arousal, while a person who woke up early in the morning to go to the
mountain-side will have a high level of arousal. These psycological dispositions can be
measured by mean of EEG which shows that fast and low amplitude alpha waves are related
to high level of arousal while slow amplitude alpha waves are the result of low arousal level.
In a study conducted during the mid 19’s, Eysenck suggested that cortical arousal,
mediated by the reticular formation, is responsible for differences in extraversion and
introversion. He claimed that extraverted behaviour is a characteristic for individuals with
low arousal level who are difficult to arouse, whereas introverts had a low arousal level and
a high sensitivity to arousal stimuli since their arousal levels were higher under indentical
conditions. So far, we concluded that high level of E is one of the main factors that influence
the criminal personality. Therefore, a short syllogism between Eysenck’s findings and this
conclusion will lead to the idea that extroverted individuals characterized by low
arousability level may indulge in criminal or antisocial behaviour, because they are trying to
find external stimuli that would raise their level of exitement.
Eysenck went further to investigate the ways in which different states of arousal
might lead to differences in behaviour implicated by the Pavlivian conditioning. He
suggested that pro-social and altruistic behaviour was mediated by Pavlovian theory since
the young child has no social conscience and behaves in a purely egocentric manner. In their
course of life children will aquire a conscience through the process of conditioning due to
the thousand of occasions when their antisocial behaviour would be corrected by parents,
teachers or peers, by applying punishments in order to make them associate the antisocial
conduct with actions that may produce disagreeable consequences. Experiments conducted
on human and animals showed that, when the conscience of the individual is conditioned,
he will refrain from contemplating or carrying out antisocial activities because antisocial
conduct will be accompanied by conditioned feelings of fear/anxiety, anticipation of
punishment and guilt.38
38 38
p.115
By far the most intriguing and scrupulous study on the importance of conditions in
the development of a conscience was conducted by Richard L. Solomon and his colleagues.
Their experiment used 6 month old puppies deprived of food for two days who were
brought in the experimental room and showed two small dishes, one that contained boiled
horse meat, which was very liked by the puppies, whereas in the other dish was placed a
less liked commercial dog food. When puppies went for the horse meat dish, the
experimenter would swatten them with a gentle blow by using a newspaper, and if it was
not enought, the puppies were swatted again and again until they finally gave up their
attempts to eat the horse meat. In the end, the conscience of the puppies was conditioned
so that they will go directly to the commercial food, without being swatted by the
experimenter. 39
The next phase of the experiment was called the „temptation testing” phase because
this time the dogs were brought in the room while the experimenter was absent. At this
point, Salomon said that „some puppies would circle the dish over and over again. Some
puppies walked around the room with their eyes towards the wall, not looking at the dish.
There was a large range of variability in the emotional behaviour of the puppies in the
presence of the tabooed horse meat.”. Finally, Salomon measured the resistance to
temptation as the number of second or minutes which passed before the subject ate the
tabooed food. Thus, the puppies were allowed half an hour a day in the experimental room
and if they did not eat the horse meat by that time, they were brought back in their home
cages, were not fed, and a day later were introduced again in the experimental room. This
continued until finally the taboo was violated or until the dog had fasted so long that he had
to be fed in his cage in order to keep him alive. As Solomon’s words say, the range of
resistance to temptation was very large „the shortest period of time it took a puppy to
overcome his training and eat the horse meat was six minutes, and the longest period was
sixteen days without eating, after which the puppy was fed in his home cage”. Another
interesting aspect was that puppies who had been hand-fed throughout their early life by
the experimenter developed a much stronger conscience than did other puppies which had
been machine-fed.
Other remarkable hypthesis were advanced by this study, suggesting resistance to

temptation could be separated from guilt. Apparently, when a puppy violated the taboo and
ate the horse meat while his wail was wagging the hole time and after he ate the meat, he
also greeted the experimenter with his tail waging and no obvious sign of distress while
some pups showed more emotional disturbances after eating the meat than when they
were approaching it.
Furthermore, the study emphasized the importance of the relation between the
moment when the punishment was applied and the conditioned reaction of the puppies.
Thus, they found that when pups were walloped (smacked over their butts) just when they
approached the tabooed food, they built up a high resistance to temptation but if the
puppies that were conditioned in this way, violated the taboo rule, they showed no signs of
39 39
p.118
emotional upset following the „crime”. On the contrary, if the puppies were left to eat a half
of the meal before being walloped, it would still be possible to establish a conditioned
reaction of avoidance but the puppies would show a much more emotional disturbance
following the „crime” and these, Solomon suggested, could be called guilt reactions (rather
than resistance to temptation). Salomon noted that „the conditions for the establishment of
strong resistance to temptation as contrased with the capacity to experience strong guilt
reactions is a function of both the intensity of punishment and the time during the approach
and consumatory response-sequence at which the punishment is administered. 40
We might speculate that delayed punishment is not very effective in producing a

high level of resistance to temptation but might be effective in producing emotional
reactions of guilt after the commission of the crime. Nevertheless, Solomon’s findings
demonstrated that aversion and the disruption of approach responses do not seem to be as
reliably broken up by such delayed punishment after the animals eats quite a bit of the
horse meat. This oberservation is pretty important since it could be connected with two
major types of socializtion tehniques used by parents. In one case, the parent traps the child
into the commission of the tabooed act, so that the child could be effectively punished,
hoping that the severity and intensity of the punishment will prevent the child from
performing it again. The other tehnique is to watch the child closely and try to anticipate
and prevent to moments when the child intends to step on the antisocial path, and punish
him during the incipient states. To sum up, it is worth noticing that each tehnique, according
to the study’s findings, would lead to different outcome with regard to the components of
conscience.
The theory about the influence of timing in determining the outcome of the
conditioned response has been highly explored in recent years. Using the same paradigm as
before, Aronfeld and Reber slapped the dogs who approached the forbidden food either:41
1)before they could start eating (0 seconds)
2) 5 secondes after beginning to eat (5 seconds delay)
3) 15 seconds after beginning to eat
The findings confirm Salomon’s hypothesis, since all three groups learned the
avoidance response in roughly similar number of conditioning session but when the pups
were left alone in the room, they reacted different. The 0 seconds group ate 20 grams of dry
chow pallets and then withdrew to the walls of the room, far away from the horse meat.
The experimenters added that only „after several days of starving these subjects moved
close to the horse meat dish” and „when they finally broke the taboo, their mood appeared
to change abruptly: they ate vorociously without pausing and after finishing did not appear
40 40
p.120
41 41
p.122
to be apprehensive”. In other words, the pups feared to approach the forbidden food, but
once they violated the taboo, they had no guilt feelings.
The reactions of the group that was applied a delayed punishment was in the
direction predicted by Salomon since the pups behaved as thought the experimenter was
still there. Thus, when they finally broke the taboo, they ate in breif intervals and ran away
between bites, they appeared to be frightened during and after finishing the meat and by
contrasts with the 0 seconds delay group, they seemed to exhibit guilit feeling and
emotional disturbance during and after finishing the meat.
It might be against the common sense to attribute „guilt” feelings to nonhuman
experimental subjects but if we are to judge in purely behavioural terms, the behaviour of
dogs reminds us of the human beings reactions under some strong guilt feelings.
Furthermore, the importance of timing has been proved by working with children and
observing the reactions either of aviodance or the guilt feelings. The relevance of this
findings is being any resonable doubt if we think that, nowadays, criminal policies is focusing
on avoiding the commission of the forbidden act rather than producing gulity feelings after
the act has been done. The former achievement could be considered a major succes in
preventing crime and antisocial conduct, while the latter may satisfy our ethical sense of
retribution, but in essence it is socially useless. Furthermore, these kind of approach reveals
an interesting mechanism that explains the fact that introverts are not always found to
indulge in socially acceptable behaviour possibly because the parents and teachers have
failed to apply negative reinforcement without unde dealy, so that these children have
grown up without being conditioned to avoid temptations, but to feel guilt after the
antisocial action has been committed. Therefore, guilt feelings are certainly more frequent
in introvers and particularly in neurotics. Evidence in this direction was offered by remorse
levels as measured by the Gudjonsson Blame Attribution Inventory which correlates
positively with introversion and neuroticism and negatively with psychoticism. 42
We should not forget the importance of the social theories when it comes to
conditioning and learning programs to which the individual is exposed. It is worth noticing
that, in Solomon’s experiments, had the pups not been the subjects of a conditioning
process, none of the them would have developed avoidance behaviour or feelings of guilt.
From his studies, it also follows that permissiveness on the part of society would lead to a
lack of conditioning of the consience-bulding kind – that may be the reason why Western
societies had higher criminality rates than their Communists counterparts.
NEURO SCIENCE STUDIES
Before takling the last part of this essay, it is essentialy to mention the relation
between the general theory of low arousal in extraverts (and the high arousal levels in
introvers) and the pain sensitivity reactions. Due to the high level of arousal/arousability,
introverts will be satisfied with low levels of stimulation whereas extroverts, because of the
inhibiting feautures of their low level of arousal/arousability, will require higher levels of
42 42
p.124
stimulation. One important consequence derived from these observations is that extravers
should suffer pain more readily and experience pain less strongly, whereas introverts would
tolerate sensory deprivation more readily but experience pain at higher levels than
extraverts. Furthermore, from this consequence we should also remark that, since pain
threshold and pain tolerance are higher for extraverts, these kind of individuals may indulge
into antisocial behaviour that involves physical danger and pain in order to raise their stimuli
level to satisfy their arousal needs.
The studies also researched the way personality factors such as intro-extraversion
might influence the Pavlovian conditioning process. The general principle of Pavlovian
theory tells us that intensity of pain is directly correlated with the strength of the
conditioned response. Hence, since the intensity of physical punishment is felt less strongly
by extravers, it would be more efficient to punish them more harshly or to pay a close
attention to the stimuli selected for the rehabiliating/conditioning process. Therefore, the
hypothetical intolerance of extravers and criminals to low levels of stimulation would leek
them to seek excitement, noise and generally anything that will increase their „too-low”
arousal level.
The influence exercised by the neurotrasnmitters play an important role in
psychological phenomena. Some major naurotransmitters like serotonin, norepinephrine
and dopamine play an important role in regulating the antisocial behaviour. Also, there are
many studies that confirmed the relation between neurochemestry resarch and the impact
it has over the social science reserch, and vice versa.
What are neurotransmitters? In essence, neurotransmitters such as dopamine,
norepinephrine and serotonin form the basis for information processing and communication
within the brain, in the sense that they influence all types of behaviour including sensation,
perception, learning and memory, eating , drinking and more controversially, antisocial
behaviour. The communication systems can be divided into two type: hormonal and neural.
Hormones are biochemical substances that are screted into the bloodstream by endocrine
organs located throughout the body, including the testes (testosterone), ovary
(progesterone) and pancreas (insulin). It is worth noticing that the best-studied
neurotransmitters (serotonine, dopamine and norepinephrine) account only for a small
portion of cell firing in the brain, for example, serotonin is thought to be the transmitter
substance at less than 0.1% of the brain synapses. Last but not least, it should be remined
(in connection to the neurological aspect of brain studies) that while some transmitter
systems are distributed evenly throughout the brain other are localized to specific brain
networks, for example, norepinephrine is largely produced in neurons in the brainstem
nuclei whose axons project relatively widely troughtout the brain while dopamine is
produced largely by cell in the brainstem which project to the basal ganglia and speicfic
cortical areas – also, dopamine is more implicated in voluntary movement, learning and
memory.43
43
Adrian Raine, Angela Scerbo (auth.), Joel S. Milner (eds.) - Neuropsychology of Aggression-Springer US
(1991), p.84
Drug manipulation of these neurotransmitters has been related to crime and
violance. For example, increase intake of lithium carbonate has been found to decrease
aggressive episodes in prison inmates, mentally retarded patients and deficit-disordered
children. Similarly, administration of the serotonin precursor tryptophan has been found to
decrease aggressive episodes in schizophrenics characterized by poor impulse control and
high lifetime aggression. On the contrary, drugs that increase Norepinephrine and
Dopamine levels have tended to exacerbate aggressive behaviour in agitated and derepesed
patients. To summerize, studies have indicated that serotonin plays an inhibitory role while
norepinephrine and dopamine play facilitative roles in aggression, therefore, the literature
has prodicted that antisocial conduct would be characterized by low levels of serotonin and
high levels of norepinephrine and dopamine.44
The most fascinating part about neurotransmitters is their theoretical and

conceptual implications and the influence they pose upon social scientist, psychiatrists and
other researchers interested in a more complete understaing of antisocial and criminal
behaviour. Attempts for a cross-disciplinary integrations have been made by Gray (1975)
and Fowles (1988) who suggest an underactive behavioural inhibitory system (BIS) in
antisocials. Gray has developed an interesting theory about the behavioral activation system
(BAS) and the behavioral inhibition system (BIS) in respect for their functioning and results
they might produce. Their initial assumption, that underactivation of BIS would result in low
skin conductance, low norepinephine and low serotonin while underactivation of BAS would
result in low hear rate and low dopamine, was the subject of a few studies that lended inital
support to their findings.45
Gray’s considered that poor socialization was the result of the inability to learn to
inhibit bahviour from cues of punishment fact that might also be related to decreased
anxiety. Also, it is common to for decreased anxiety level to trigger a decrease in heart rate
and skin cunductance which is suggested to indicate a potentially antisocial behaviour. The
effects of environmental and genetics in relation to the neurotransmitters is still unclear but
it has been suggested that property crimes seem to have a genetic basis (subgroup analyses
indicated that reduced norepinephrine is influential in crimes against person and property –
therefore, the influences are only genetic) while reduced serotonin is influential in crimes
against person and property.
Previously, I showed the intercorrelations between phisiological theories, genetic

theories and the psychological approach in relation to the antisocial conduct. Another
relevant correlation could be made between neurotransmitters-body build theories-
antisocial behaviour. The majority of studies enumerated earlier showed the relation
between crime/delinquency and a mesomorphic (sometimes meso-endomorphic) body
build. Studies showed that decreased concentration of somatostatin would result in low
serotonin levels which may influence antisocial behaviour in a negative way. Also,
44
(1991), p.85-86
45
(1991), p.98
somatostatin is a peptide which stimulates serotonin release, process which can influence
somatotype as this last peptide inhibits the relase of growth hormone. Such a reduction will
result not only in a reduced level of serotonin but will also lead to an increas in muscle and
body mass, therefore, the person would present the charateristics typical for the meso-
endomorph category.
THE WORLD OF PSYCHOPATS

There have been many attempts to define psychopats and to build a proper
instrument to measure pychopathy levels. In my eyes, R. Hare's studies are best suited to be
analyzed in details, since he dedicated his entire career and energy to explain the causes
and effects of the borderline antisocial behaviour. In one of his first summaries of such work
he conculded that „It appears that psychopaths do not develop conditioned responses
readily. As a result, they find it difficult to learn responses that are motivated by fear and
reinforced by fear reduction.” Hare’s research confirms the hypothesis of the arousal theory
when he affirms that „several lines of research and theory suggest that psychopathy is
related to cortical underarousal. As a result, psychopaths actively seek stimulation unaware
of, or inattentive to, many of the subtle cues require for the guidance of behaviour and for
adequate social functioning”. To conclude, it won’t be a mistake to deduce that, since
psychopaths are characterized by low cortial arousal, they will condition poorly and seek
excitement in oreder to raise the level of arousal.
After all the theories announced and the studies presented, there remains a
question: is it possible that the diagnosis of antisocial personality be attributed to the
modern prototype of Lombroso’s "born criminal"?
The essential element of this disease begins from childhood without the possibility of
healing or alleviating the symptoms of this disease, which will continue to exist throughout
life. In essence, the first manifestations that occur in infants are characterized by a pervasive
pattern of disregard and violation of others' rights, manipulation, imposture and cruelty to
animals or humans plus the inability to comply with the rules of social conduct. In order to
obtain a precise diagnosis, the individual must be at least 18 years of age,; for example, a
person suffering from this disorder will commit repeated acts of property destruction,
thefts, or practicing a occupation illegally, but in order to obtain this complete picture of the
individual's social history, it is necessary that it exceeds the age of adolescence. Other
features specific to this category of offenders are: the ability to cheat and manipulate in
order to obtain money, sexual satisfaction or power; repeatedly using alibis, deceiving
different people, to which we add a high degree of impulsivity manifested through the
inability to make plans ahead of time and to constantly follow an objective (that is why, in
most cases, individuals suffering from this disorder take decisions under the impulse of the
moment without taking into account future prospects or the consequences that they might
have on others). Irresponsibility, predisposition to acts of aggression (i.e. fighting and
physical aggression, hitting the wife or child), disregard for his or other persons safety
(manifested by irresponsible driving of a vehicle) and use of substances with increased risk
of harmful consequences , are other symptoms that indicate the existence of this
personality disorder. As to how this type of individual ensures their existence, it has been
revealed that psychopaths show irresponsible work behavior due to long periods of absence
at the work place or long periods without a job, despite real job opportunities or
abandoning one or more jobs without having a realistic plan to build a career. Also in this
sphere is included financial irresponsibility, indicated by the non-payment of debts and the
incapacity to support the child or to support other dependents on a regular basis, or by
looking for a method to avoid paying the damages caused by their inappropriate behavior.
It is not easy to separate personality disorder per se from other types of personality
disorders that have many common features with psychopathy. Differentiation is based on
characteristic features, but nothing prevents the diagnosis of personality disorder be placed
alongside the other types. For example, antisocial personality disorder and narcissistic
personality disorder have a common tendency for individuals affected by these illnesses to
be dishonest, superficial, exploiters and without empathy, but the narcissistic personality
disorder does not include features such as impulsivity, aggression, or imposture; on the
other hand, individuals suffering from psychopathy do not feel the need for a high degree of
attention and admiration on the part
of others, while narcissistic
individuals do not have a history of
childhood behavioral disorder that
has evolved into a criminal history
during the adult. Psychopathy also
differs from the paranoid personality
disorder in that individuals who
suffer from paranoia are not
motivated by the desire to win or the
intention to exploit others, but rather
to the desire for revenge.
Nevertheless, psychopath must not
be seen as individuals that are out of
touch with reality, experiencing
delusions, hallucinations or intense
subjective distress that may
characterize most other mental
disorders. In fact, unlice psychotic
individuals (for example, people
suffering from schizofrenia),
psychopaths are rational and aware
of what they are doing and why they
are doing that particular thing,
therefore, their behaviour is the
result of choice, freely exercised. (Dr.
Kevin Dutton has made some
remarkable discoveries by using Dr. Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist on the personalities of
some of the most important presidents/spiritual leaders in the history of mankind; thus, we
find that Donal Trump scored higher than Adolf Hitler)46
In respect for the terminology used by literature, sometimes the term socipathy
would be more appropriate than is psychopathy because it is often confused with
psychoticism.47 Also, diffrent psychiatrist find the ethiology of the disorder in different
factors, therefore, a scientist who attributes this disorder to social forces will prefer to use
the term socipath, whereas who feel that psychological,biological and genetic factors play a
proeminent role in the development of the syndrome, prefer to use the term psychopath.
Therefore, it is not unusual for the same individual to be diagnosed with both „sociopathy”
and „psychiopathy”. The words of a person suffering from this when he was asked if
psychopathy is not the same thing with socipathy are illustrative: „No, they’re not. You see,
a sociopath misbehaves because he’s been brought up wrong. Maybe he’s got a beef with
society. I’ve got no beef with society(...) It’s just the way I am. Yeah, i guess I’d be a
psychopath.”
Let’s take a few examples from doctor’s Robert D. Hare’s experience with
psychopaths. One of the most disturbing stories comes from a person who was serving a six-
year sentence for manslaughter. The crime was committed against his girlfriend’s infant
daughter who „shitted all over his hands” making him lose his temper and „pick her up by
the feet and smashed her against the wall”. What amazed R. Hare was that he was telling
this story with an unbeliveabul smile on his face. One year after he was realeased on parole
(even thought the prison’s psychiatrist had diagnosed this man as a psychopath and
recommended against parole) he was killed during a high-speed police chase following a
bank robbery. Hare adds that, at that time, the procedures for the diagnosis of psychopathy
were „vague and unreliable” so it couldn’t make an accurate prediction of the inmate’s
future conduct. 48
Nowadays, the situation is quite different since psychology and psychiatry improved
their means for detection and predicition of future antisocial behaviour. The Mask of Sanity
is the book that influenced researches in the US and provided a clinical framework for most
of the scientific research on psychopathy conducted during the past quarter-century.
Hervey Cleckley made an in-depth clinical description,saying that the lack of personal values
and incapacity to understand such matters may be though as a color-blindness, acompanied
by a sharp intelligence which can distinguish and have the impresion that he understands
the importance and significance of them, but in reality he doesn’t realize that he has a
distorted perception on them (he understands them in a wrong way, specific to egocentric
persons).
46
https://phys.org/news/2016-08-presidential-candidates-psychopaths-good.html
47
Robert D. Hare - Without Conscience - The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us -The Guilford
Press (1999), p.23
48
Press (1999), p.30
One of the most intriguing discoveries of dr. Hare in his attempt to find a reliable tool
that could measure the intensity and existance of sociopathy was the unreliablity of
psychological tests. The ease that some inmates had in faking the results of psychological
tests is shocking. On the one hand, one inmate told dr. Hare that he knew all about self-
report inventory and that he had in his cell a complete set of question booklets, scoring
sheets and scoring templtes which he used to provide a consulting service for other inmates.
Therefore, the inmates „coached” by him knew how to answear to the question in order to
achieve their purposes. For instance, one inmate (who didn’t even recive this kind of
preparation) obtained differen MMPI profiles, the first suggested that he was psychotic (he
faked mental illness in order to receive a transfer to the psychiatric unit of the prison, where
he though he could do „easy time”), the second that suggested that he was perfectly normal
(this one he faked because he didn’t like the psychiatric facility), and a third profile that
suggested that he was mildly disturbed (in order to have access to Valium which he sold to
other inmates). The irony is that the prison psychologist actually took the three MMPI
profiles as valid indication of the type and degree of psychiatric disturbance suffered by the
inmate. 49
On the contrary, dr. Hare chose not to rely on self-reported data, since the
probability to contain biased information was very high. He prefered to identify possbile
psychopaths in the prison population by means of long, detailed interviews and close study
of file information. After 10 years of improving and refining the procedures for ferreting the
psychopaths, the result was a reliable dignostic tool called Psychopathy Checklist that any
clinician or researcher could use in order to diagnose correctly, precisely and in a scientific
way inmates who yielded a richly detailed profile of the personality disorder. Nowadays,
Psychopathy Checklist is used worldwide by clinicians in their attempt to distinguish with
resonable certainty true psychopaths from those who marely break the rules.
Generally speaking, the Psychopathy Checklist attempts to provide a detailed picture

of the key traits that are common among the people suffering from sociopathy. This
instrument could be devided into two subgroups: the first one describes the
emotional/interpersonal key symptoms of psychopathy such as glib and superficiality,
egocentrism and grandioism, lack of remorse or guilt, lack of empathy, deceitfulness and
shallow emotions, while the second subdivision conerns the social deviance like impulsive
and poor behaviour controls, need for excitement, lack of respinsibility, early behavioural
probelms or adult antisocial behaviour.
One of the Checklist’s indicator is glib and superificality which defines a person who
seem slick and smooth or insincere and superficial. To some observers it seems that
psychopaths are play-acting, mechanically reading their lines; for instance, when a
psychopath tries to appear familiar with sociology, psychiatry, medicine, philosophy etc. it
seems to lack the concern of being found, therefore, it is not uncommon for a psychopathic
inmates to claim to have advanced degrees in sociology and psychology, when in fact they
didn’t even complete high school. Insincerity is another key characteristic of psychopaths,
49
Press (1999), p.34
and it should not suprise us that people with horrendous criminal records who have the
highest possible score on the Psychopathy Checklist may deliver a rational and emotional
story about their future.50
Psychopath are characterized by a high degree of narcisism, egocentricity and a

exacerbated sense of entitlement. Thus, it is not uncommon for a psychopath to consider
himself as the center of the universe or as a superior human living according to his own
rules. Let’s take for example Diane Downs’s words, who in 1984 was convicted of shooting
her three small children : “It’s not that i don’t follow the law, I follow my own law. I never
violate my own rules”. Grandiosity is another common traits of psychopaths that is often
seen in cases where the defendant fires his lawyer thinking that he will be able to handle his
own appeal (which in most of the times will be increased – it seems like the US legal system
doesn’t follow the priciple of non reformatio in peius). On the other hand, psychopaths
often claim to have specific goals for which they show little understaind of the qualifications
required, therefore, they will have little chanches to attain them giving their lack of
sustained interes in education and superficiality. For intance, a psychopathic inmate hoping
for parole might outline vague plans to become a property oligarh or a lawyer for the poor
in order to impress the Parole Board. 51
So far i presented the general image associated with the antisocial personality
disorder. An interview conduted with a prisoner who recived the highest possible score on
the Psychopathy Checklist provides us with a good example of how psychopathy is revealed
by focusing on some key personality traits. Jack was the kind of inmate that found a
pleasure to launch into a detailed lengthy account of his criminal history to which he could
always find a justificate cause like “they are not really victims (...) they always get back more
than they lost in insurance anyway”. Another aspect was his history of fighting about which
he said that “I’ve been fag-bahing since i was fourteen – but i don’t do anything bad, like
beating women or children. I’d like all the men in the world to just die, and I’d be the only
man left” . Jack was also a mile-a-minute talker who had the ability to contradict himself
from one sentence to another – when asked if he ever tell lies, he replied “Are you kidding
me? I lie like i breathe, one as much as the other”; he had an inability to learn from past
experience since his criminal record reflected his criminal versatility. One last outstanding
thing about his personality was the lack of realistic planning; life in prison had added a few
pounds to his body fat but still he told the interviewer with the confidence of a young
athlete in training that he planned to become a professional swimmer when he left prison.
He was planning to go strainght, live off his winnings and travel on them when he retired at
an early ages. For a thrity-eight years old this may seem pretty unrealistic, but in the
disturbed world of psychopaths this kind of things are pretty common.
Psychopaths show a stunning lack of concern for the devastating effects of their
actions. When asked if he had any regrets about stabbing a robbery victim, one of the
50
Press (1999), p.36-37
51
Press (1999), p.38
subject replied “Get real! He spends a few months in a hospital and I rot here. I cut him up a
bit, but if I wanted to kill him I would have slit his throat. That’s the kind of guy I am; I gave
him a break.” Furthermore, the subject’s lack of remorse was as shocking as his lack of guilt
“I don’t regret nothing. What’s done is done. There must have been a reason why I did it at
the time, and that is why it was done.”. Ted Bundy, one of the most notorious criminals in
the history of America, he ramarked that guilt “it’s this mechanism we use to control
people; it’s an illusion, it’s a kind of social control mechanism and it’s very unhealthy. It does
terrible things to our bodies and there are much better ways to control our behaviour than
that rather extraordinary use of guilt.” For sure, Ted Bundy’s extraverted personality would
conflict with the verbalized remorse showed by some psychopaths, which usually
contradicts their actions. For example, a psychopaths who learned in prison that remorse is
an important word, said that “Yeah, sure, I feel remorse” but later affirmed that he “didn’t
feel bad inside about it (committing a crime)” . Sometimes, psychopaths show a remarkable
ability to rationalize their behaviour and to shrung off personal responsibility for their
actions. Usually, handy excuses that may reverse the logical state of things are used in order
to present a different reality. For instance, some psychopaths will admit to having
performed the actions, but will either minimize the consequences to others or, as i said
before, they will make-up a plausible excuse. Many examples can be offered: an inmate who
score very high on the Psychopathy Checklist said that crime actually had a positive effect
on the victims since “they’d got their names in the paper” he further added that “women,
for example, would say nice things about me – that i was really polite and considerate,very
meticulous. I wasn’t abusive to them, you understand. Some of them thanked me (the
person was convincted for robbery and a a rape)”. Another subject entering for the
twentieth time said “sure, I stole the stuff. But, hey! Those folks were insured up – nobody
got hurt, nobody suffered. What’s the big deal? In fact, I’m doing them a favor by giving
them a chance to collect insurance.” These kind of cynical and ironic twist sometimes go too
far, when psychopaths see themselves as the real victims; John Wayne Gacy, a psychopathic
serial killer who tortured and murdered thirty-three young men and boys and buried their
bodies in the basement of his house claimed that he “was made an asshole and a
scapegoat... when I look back I see myself more as a victim than a perpetrator”. Futher, he
maintained his position adding that “I was the victim, I was cheated out of my childhood. (If)
there would be someone, somewheere who would understand how badly it had hurt to be
John Wayne Gacy”.52
The last personality trait that I will present is the lack of empathy. All the other
characteristics displaied by psychopaths – especially their egocentricity, lack of remorse,
shallow emotions and deceitfulness – are connected to a profound lack of empathy.
Empathy is the inability to understand others emotions and to construct a mental image of
their emotional state. If we put it otherwise, psychopaths seem unable to “get into the skin”
or “walk in the shoes” of others, except in a puerly intellectual sense. The words of one
psychopathic rapist are illustrative when he said that “They are frightened, right? But, you
see, I don’t really understand it. I’ve been scare myself, and it wasn’t unpleasant”. On the
52
Press (1999), p.40-42
other hand, psychopath show an inability to appreciate the feelings of others, for example,
when they torture and mutilate their victims with no sense of concern about their feelings.
It could be that their lack of emapthy is strongly connected to the shallow emotions that
limits the range and depth of their feelings; Ted Bundy described himself to the police as the
“most cold-blooded son of a bitch that you’ll ever meet”. Pychopaths who suffer from this
kind of emotional poverty seem like they are play-acting to the careful observers. Their
prone to dramatic, shalow and short-live display of feelings made H.C Quay affirm that
“psychopaths know the words but not the music”, for instance Jack Abbott, a convicted
murdered said that “there are emotions that I know only through words, through reading
and in my immature imagination. I can imagine I feel these emotions but I do not”. This kind
of statements made clinicians affirm that the emotions of psychopaths are so shallow as to
be little more than “proto-emotions: a primitive response to immediate needs”. In this
direction, a psychopath revealed that he did not understand what others meant by “fear”
but when he robbed a bank he noticed that “the teller shakes or become tongue-tied” while
another “barfed all over the money”. This made our subject affirm that “she must have
been pretty messed up inside, but I don’t know why. If somone pointed a gun at me I guess
i’d be afraid, but i wouldn’t throw up”. When he was asked how would he feel in such a
situation, he didn’t mantion anything about bodily sensations but he said things such “I’d
give you the money”, “I’d think of ways to get the drop on you”; when asked how he would
feel, not what he would do , he seemed perplexed, unable to construct a rational reflection
of his emotions. When he was given some further help by asking him if he ever felt his hear
pound or his stomach churn, he replied: “Of course! I’m not a robot. I really get pumped up
when i have sex or when i get into a fight”.53
I may conclude by saying that psychopaths are unable to feel fear and apprehension
associated with a variety of unpleasant bodily sensations such as sweating of the hands, a
punding heart, dry mouth , muscle tenseness or weakness. This fact could also be connected
with the Pavlovian conditioning theory presented before, since psychopaths are unable to
establish normal psychological responses associated with fear. Therefore, it would be
impossible to establish a conditional link between the fear of being punished and the
unplesant emotional sensation determined by the intensity of the punishment.
The portret of the psychopathic disorder strongly suggests that usually, people
suffering from this kind of disorder, are to be found in prisons or psychiatric hospitals. This is
only partly true. It may be shocking to find out that sometimes, psychopath are hired in
important positions where ability to get along with others is critical and in positions that
may pose a threat to economy or financial status of the company. Why does this thing
happen? How could a ill-person, suffering from a disorder that may predispose him to
antisocial behaviour? Some affirmed that psychopaths can be very charming and able to talk
their way past even the most seasoned interviewers, therefore, they might use their
charisma to disarm even the most wary individuals. On the other hand, some companies
may mistakenly attribute qualties like „leadership” and management, failing to look closely
53
Press (1999), p.50
beneath the outer trapping of stereotypical leadership. Another cause may be found in
beureaucracies that typically employed a large number of people. I previously mentioned
that psychopaths don’t experience fear and anxiety in the way that normal people do. This
fact may have a positive aspect if we combine it with a talent for conning and manipulation
and a well-paid job in a new, fast-paced, competitive, and highly effective organization with
few constraints or rules. One thing has been generally admited: psychopaths love to work
for businesses that offer fast-paced, high-risk and high profits.
Psychopathic manipulation and deceit among busniesspeople has been to object of

the book Snake in Suits by Paul Babiak and Robert D. Hare. They brought a large number of
examples about the work of psychopaths in modern organizations proving that often they
are successful by most standard of career succes while hidding their destructive personality
characteristics that are invisible to most of the people with whom they interact. Another
negative aspect revealed by their studies is that the web of deceit is constructed by
psychopaths around people with communication weaknesses, organizational systems and
processes, interpersonal conflicts and general stressors that plague all companies.
Therefore, they are always looking for ways to abuse coworkers and to lower morale by
stirring up conflicts. 54
The authors presented many cases like the one of Helen, a dynamic and engaging
person who self-proclaimed her abilities to fix organizational problems which the division
had. Her style and manner matched both the corporation’s and analysts standards so she
was given financial controls withing the corporation, therefore, Helene had pretty much
whatever she requested and control over the balance sheet. During her stay in the
corporation, she expressed her taste for grandiose and the latest extravagances by
purchasing a new car, a corporate apartment or any other accessory that signaled the
trappings of power. Moreover, she initiated a series of expensive conferences, held in
tropical locations with proeminent speakers, in the idea that she will be fully taking the
spotlight. Apart from these, Helene was unable to understand the negative consequences
that might affect the corporation’s interests. Thus, when somone questioned her behavior
she applied harsh punishments like firing the executive coach in order to smooth her rough
edges. Soon, it was discovered that Helen and her friend Ned were accomplices in the
turnaround and growth of the companies balance sheet by use of illegal means.55
To conclude, dr. Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist is one of the most used and widely
accepted instrument for the assessment of psychopathy. The mechanism of this instruments
combines the subjective assessment of a qualified psychologist or psychiatrist familiar with
the evaluation procedure, who will conduct a in-depth interview in order to make a
judgment of each trait or characteristic from a list of twenty interpersonal, emotional and
lifestyle traits and behaviors.
54
Paul Babiak, Robert D. Hare - Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work (2007)
55
Paul Babiak, Robert D. Hare - Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work (2007), p.24-29
CONCLUSION
The literature has developed numerous theories about crime etiology, criminals
prototype, and ways to combat this phenomenon. Last but not least, it has to be remarked
the importance of moving from metaphysical, subjective, scholastic, philosophical
explanations theories and assumptions to scientific, objective, based on figures and careful
calculations studies and research. I also have to point that until now, no cure against
psychopathy has been found, and many cases suggest that individuals develop this
condition independently of any social factors, which means the genetic factors cause this
disease. Therefore, psychopaths can be said to be the model of the "innate criminal" of our
century, which often goes unnoticed, occupying leading positions in the highest
corporations or firms.

Penology Essey

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

Penology Essey

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Penology Essey

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

NAME: SANDU Alexandru-Daniel

A panopticon over some criminological theories

Thus, a brief presentation of 19th century thinking is necessary to better understand

As he advanced in age, Lombroso’s work became more complex in an attempt to find

Another piece of Durkheim’s theory is to be found in a concept called the state of

Under the auspicies of an important number of well-founded critics, the study of

On a personality level, Kretschmer made some

Sheldon further proposed a three-dimensional representation of these results by

After conducting a large number of studies, psychologists came to the conclusion

Psychologists thought they

A study conducted by Saklofkse, McKerracher and Eysenck (1978) administered the

It is worthwhile pointing out some interesting aspects regarding the relationship

As a summary, the large amount of data discussed reached the following

Other remarkable hypthesis were advanced by this study, suggesting resistance to

We might speculate that delayed punishment is not very effective in producing a

The most fascinating part about neurotransmitters is their theoretical and

Previously, I showed the intercorrelations between phisiological theories, genetic

THE WORLD OF PSYCHOPATS

Generally speaking, the Psychopathy Checklist attempts to provide a detailed picture

Psychopath are characterized by a high degree of narcisism, egocentricity and a

Psychopathic manipulation and deceit among busniesspeople has been to object of

You might also like