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1. Multiple Intelligence: New Horizons in Theory and Practice
Summary of biological theory of criminal behaviour
Summary of biological theory of criminal behaviour
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In order to answer the above question, it must be understood what is meant by the term ‘the race-crime debate’. Bowling and Philips (2002) found the ‘race and crime’ debate has largely been detached from discussion of ethnic differences in the extent and nature of victimisation and how patterns of offending and victimisation interrelate. Bowling and Philips (2002) found that until recently the ‘race and crime’ debate had been preoccupied with other issues. The first being a question to whether people from ethnic minority groups are ‘more likely to commit criminal offences’, contrary to those from the majority of the white population. ‘This debate has turned on an analysis of ‘official’ crime statistics, especially arrest and prison data – that show marked variation for different ethnic groups’ (Bowling and Philips 2002, P76) Where elevated rates of official offending are identified. Bowling and Phillips (2002, P76) put forward that one of the most controversial questions in the field of criminology is ‘is this because the criminal justice system treats black people unfairly, or because black people are more likely to offend’. So looking at the race and crime debate and biological aspect put together a better understanding may follow as to why there may be good reason to dismiss biological approaches to criminalisation.
Hawkins (1995) showed that biological and biosocial studies are of a ‘biological organisation’ with four levels which he describes as the following, the structure of genetic and organic molecules, function of neurons, biochemistry of hormones neurotransmitters and the functioning of neurological organ systems (the brain) (Hawkins 1995). Ellis (1990) found that Biocriminal researchers assume among noncriminal...
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... [Criminal Man]. Turnin: Fratelli Bocca.
Herrnstein, R.J. and Murray, C. (1994) The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life. New York: Free Press.
Gardner, H. (1993) Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligence. London: Fontana Press.
Thurston, L.L. (1947) Multiple –Factor Analysis: A Development and Expansion of ‘The Vectors of the Mind’. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Volavka, J. (2002) Neurobiology of Violence: American Psychiatric Publishing,Inc. Washington DC.
Sampson and Wilson (1992)
Miller, J.G. (1997) Search and Destroy: African-American Males in The Criminal Justice System. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pearson, G. (1983) Hooligan: A History of Respectable Fears. London: Macmillan.
Hirschi, T. and Hindelang, M.J. (1977) Intelligence and Delinquency: A revisionists Review. American Sociological Review.
Allen supports her claims about hierarchies and power dynamics in her chapter “Social Class Matters.” She dives into the structures of society by examining power and social class in various contexts. In this chapter, she explains that people are categorized according to themes of class difference and struggle. Social class is associated with the relationship between power and the distribution of resources. Because this stratification system of social class is one of the biggest predictors of school achievement, social identity plays a large role in the social reproduction of inequality in the education system.
Just Mercy’s Bryan Stevenson exposes some of these disparities woven around his presentation of the Walter McMillian case, and the overrepresentation of African-American men in our criminal justice system. His accounts of actors in the criminal justice system such as Judge Robert E. Lee and the D.A. Tom Chapman who refused to open up the case or provide support regardless of the overwhelmingly amount of inconsistencies found in the case. The fact that there were instances where policemen paid people off to testify falsely against McMillian others on death row significantly supports this perpetuation of racism. For many of the people of color featured in Stevenson’s book, the justice system was unfair to them wrongfully or excessively punishing them for crimes both violent and nonviolent compared to their white counterparts. Racism towards those of color has caused a “lack of concern and responsiveness by police, prosecutors, and victims’ services providers” and ultimately leads to the mass incarceration of this population (Stevenson, 2014, p. 141). Moreover the lack of diversity within the jury system and those in power plays into the already existing racism. African-American men are quickly becoming disenfranchised in our country through such racist biases leading to over 1/3 of this population “missing” from the overall American population because they are within the criminal justice
“A report by the United States General Accounting Office in 1990 concluded that 82 percent of the empirically valid studies on the subject show that the race of the victim has an impact on capital charging decisions or sentencing verdicts or both” (86).
In 1999, black men are much more likely to be stopped and searched by six percent than Asian and White men. The Macpherson inquiry report generated institutional racism after the death of a young black man named Stephen Lawrence. There are disproportionately large number of crimes committed by young black men, according to police records that leads to inequalities (Parliament u.k., n.d.). In the light of, policy makers tried their best to ameliorate the racism problem and to prosecute racist offenders (Phillips, 2007). However, the implications of institutional racism affect black men and remains prevalent up to these days based on statistic records.
In many nation states, it is noticed that there is a disproportionate number of black people especially those youngsters going through the criminal justice system. The overrepresentation is illustrated by related data released by the U.S. Department of Justice and the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee. In America, almost 3500 per 100,000 residents of the black male were sent to jail in 2013 which was over seven times more than the ratio their white counterpart had and in England and Wales, 8.5% of young black people aged between 10-17 were arrested during the same period .This essay aims to explore the reasons behind the ethnic overrepresentation in the criminal justice system and believes that the higher rate of offending for some race groups and the existence of systematic racist which partially stems from the contemporary media distortion are attributive to the overrepresentation.
The over-representation of black people in the UK prison population became an issue which needs to be addressed. The prison statistics shows that black people are over-represented and by analysing their population in the UK and a prison statistics it can be noticed that their number increases massively comparing to white and Asian people. The statistics focuses on adult male population, but by considering women and young black people, the evidences show that across all levels black people are over-represented. However, black people are not over-represented only in prison statistics, police practices shows that they are a main target for their actions such as stop and search under section 60 or when fighting in “war on drugs” even that their drug usage is lower than white people. Matthews (2009) and Sampson (1987) provide evidences that one of the reasons for over-representation is institutional racism within Criminal Justice system, police service as well as areas such as Council, education and housing. Newburn (2013) presents that there are specific crimes for which black people are more likely to commit as well as black people are less likely to plead guilty, including that often they leave in inner city cause that judges in those locations are more likely to give “heavier” sentences (Newburn 2013). Furthermore, turning point is given by Wacquant (2001) and his idea of hyperghettoization, he looks at the massive privatisation of prison and provide evidences that the prisons are turning into “ghettos” to keep uneducated, unskilled young black offenders in one place (Wacquant, 2001).
The majority of our prison population is made up of African Americans of low social and economic classes, who come from low income houses and have low levels of education. The chapter also discusses the amount of money the United States loses yearly due to white collar crime as compared to the cost of violent crime. Another main point was the factors that make it more likely for a poor person to be incarcerated, such as the difficulty they would have in accessing adequate legal counsel and their inability to pay bail. This chapter addresses the inequality of sentencing in regards to race, it supplies us with NCVS data that shows less than one-fourth of assailants are perceived as black even though they are arrested at a much higher rate. In addition to African Americans being more likely to be charged with a crime, they are also more likely to receive harsher punishments for the same crimes- which can be seen in the crack/cocaine disparities. These harsher punishments are also shown in the higher rates of African Americans sentenced to
Tremblay, P., & Morselli, C. (2000). PATTERNS IN CRIMINAL ACHIEVEMENT: WILSON AND ABRAHAMSE REVISITED. Criminology, 38(2), 633-659.
Although not everyone agrees that African Americans are treated unfairly in the Criminal Justice system, there is proof. African American males are unfairly targeted by Law Enforcement. African American males also serve on average more time than the average White American male for the same types of crimes. African Americans are more commonly misidentified from eye witness accounts than white Americans. Race should not be taken into account when dealing with a crime inside of the criminal justice system.
There are so many more African-Americans than whites in our prisons that the difference cannot be explained by higher crime among African- Americans - racial discrimination is also at work, and it penalizes African- Americans at almost every juncture in the criminal justice system.1
Many would argue that the reason why the incarceration rate for African Americans is sustainably higher compared to white American is because of economic situations, and because of past arrest patterns. While it is true that the economic opportunity someone has will affect their decisions, this argument doesn’t fully explain the real reason of why the rates are higher. To fully understand the reason why one must look back on America’s history and how African Americans were treated. The past arrest patterns do not explain why the gap continues to increase, however it is clear that the past arrest patterns is more an indicator of institutional racism that exists in this country. One study found that African Americans believe the reason for the high incarceration rates is becau...
2010, “Racial Disparities in Sentencing: Implications for the Criminal Justice System and the African American Community”, African Journal of Criminology and Justice Studies 4(1): 1-31, in this Albonetti’s study is discussed in which it was found that minority status alone accounted for an additional sentence length of “one to seven months.” African American defendants were “likely to receive pretrial release but were more likely to be convicted, and be given harsher sentences after conviction than white defendants charged with the same crimes.” One of the reasons behind this are the sentencing laws, it is seen that these laws are designed in a way that they tend to be harsher towards a certain group of people, generally towards the people of color than others thus leading to inequality with the sentencing
...& Snipes, J. (2010). Biological Factors and Criminal Behavior.Vold's theoretical criminology (6th Ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.
Before one can begin talking about what the “Biological Theories” of Criminology are, one must first understand what were the early understandings of crime. The earliest theories tended to focus on supernatural or religious causes, which is where the ideas of witches and witchcraft came into play (e.g., the Salem Witch trials), which today seem ludicrous to even believe in. However, most crime cases focused on the assumption that these criminals were possessed, rather than it being their rational choice to commit the crime, which is where the unconventional, to say the least, treatments came into place, such as exorcisms, burning, or trephining (i.e., making a hole in the scull of the deviant to release the evil spirits from their body… wonder how that worked out?). This explanation soon fell out of favor within the community when individuals (e.g., Lombroso and H.H. Goddard) began finding more conclusive explanations and moved on to explain that it was the individual’s fault, but not necessarily their choice; they used the descriptions of phrenology/physiognomy (which was based off of Darwin’s theory of evolution) and the
I now know that criminology prefer to highlight the correlations between crimes’ social climates and criminals’ psychological states of mind. While some argues that criminal behavior is a result of individuals’ association with criminal peers, other claims that crime is a reflection of an individual’s genetic disadvantages. I have come to learn that there are no universally agreed formulas on decoding crimes and criminal behaviors. What we have, however, is a manual full of academic opinions and subjective views that have emerged alongside of the development of criminology. At the same time, the volume of conflicting perspectives that I have stumble upon in studying criminology reminded me again that the success of our current assessment models has yet to be determined. Thus, the study of criminology is an appropriate practice that will further prepare me to conduct meaningful research on legal studies and to provide accurate and in-depth findings in the near