Question

If we accept that biological and personality traits can increase the likelihood of criminal behavior, what policy recommendations would you make to lower crime?

Answer 1

The concept of Criminal behaviour assumes great importance as a socio-cultural variable. Decades of studies involving the understanding of the causes, prevention and management of criminal behaviour have been carefully conducted, and have led to the establishment of a detailed literature that emphasizes upon all the factors associated with criminology. Tracing down the root causes of criminal behaviour has been a contributing factor in the establishment of various laws and policies that aim at preventing crime. Criminal behaviour as a result of biological and personality factors is considered of great importance. Policies that should be implemented in order to lower crime (based on biological and personality factors) must address those factors which emerge during the early developmental stages of an individual.

Biological factors like genetic dispositions, neurological structure and functions, hormonal functioning, brain functioning, level of intelligence--- are all determinants of criminal behaviour. Anomalies present in the above mentioned conditions may increase the vulnerability of developing criminal behaviour, prevention of which must thus require preventing the occurrence of the anomalies, in the first place. Policies that should be implemented addressing these variables must include the following:

• Providing pre-natal care to the pregnant mother with regard to all possible health-care and medical facilities, so that the child does not develop any disease or disorder during the gestational stages.
• Screening of possible brain-related diseases or hormonal dysfunctions.
• Provision of complete pre-natal, peri-natal and post-natal care of the child, so that he/she does not contract diseases that may disturb the normal functioning of the brain and other parts of the body. Immunization must also be regularized in this process.
• Preventive policies must also involve identification and management of antisocial traits, if present, in one or both of the parents.

Personality factors involve specific traits, types and dispositions that are correlated with criminal behaviour. Antisocial traits are easily identifiable from childhood conduct disorders and defiant behaviours. Though personality traits are majorly influenced by genetic determinants, the role that the environment plays in shaping and re-moulding those traits cannot be overlooked. Family interaction patterns, faulty learning of undesirable behaviour, faulty parental disciplining, observation and adoption of behavioural traits of aggressive role models, may all contribute in shaping the personality of the child and developing antisocial traits. Policies that need to be developed in this perspective must include the following:

• Regular assessment, scrutiny and evaluation of communities and neighbourhood where there are reports regarding regular or irregular criminal incidences.
• Family-level counselling must be regularized in every community so as to keep in check how children are being treated and disciplined within families, how their behaviours are monitored and managed by their parents and what standards of morality and ethics are practised within the families.
• Individual counselling services must be made available for each and every child, who is reported by the family, school or community as having displayed conduct problems, emotional distress and sub-normal behaviour in given social settings. It is important to focus upon the behavioural problems of the child. Specific behavioural traits that point towards antisocial tendencies must be immediately addressed and therapies for the management of these traits must be provided accordingly.
• Policies must be implemented that promote communal harmony through the eradication of poverty, availability of ample opportunities of employment, efficient systems of reward and punishment for desirable and undesirable behaviour, respectively, and so on. An all-round approach towards the management of community-based problems is an extremely important aspect in the prevention of the development of antisocial behaviour. The personality factors that are inherited can also be managed if the above policies are implemented. This is because a child who is predisposed to develop antisocial behaviour may not be able to do so if he is brought up in a family/community that provides a stress-free environment and a culture that promotes and rewards ethical behaviour.