Introduction to

Criminology
Prof. Kristine C. Dolloso
Criminal Etiology

• Criminal Etiology, in simpler terms, is a study of the causes of crimes. This chapter discusses the
different explanations to criminality. They include the various theories (Classical or Modern) and
factors (biological, psychological, psychiatric, sociological , geographical and criminogenic) that
account for criminal behavior of man. Basically, this section provides a concise discussion of the
theories of crime causation.
EARLIER EXPLANATIONS OF THE EXISTENCE OF
CRIMINALITY

• The following concepts provide a scenario on how criminality was dealt with in the early
times:

1. Crime is caused by demon (Paganism Era). Men violate social norms and religious practices
because they are possessed by demons or evil spirits.

2. Crime is caused by divine will. Men manifest criminal behavior because they are sinful. God is the
offended party when they commit crimes, and the punishment is in the form of plagues,
earthquakes, or other form of desolation. This way, God’s anger is lessened.
EARLIER EXPLANATIONS OF THE EXISTENCE OF
CRIMINALITY

3. Crime is a matter of personal offense and retribution (Ancient World, Early Greek Law). The
earliest form of punishment was private revenge, in which the victim’s kin retaliated for injury and the
community did not interfere. This often resulted in vendetta or blood feuds that could continue for
many years until one or the other family was completely wiped out.
• The earliest broad laws reflective of the retributive system are those found in the Babylonian
Code of Hammurabi (1790 B. C.). These laws were based on “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a
tooth” concept of retribution. However the exacting for a penalty corresponding to the offense
was observed only when the victim was of the upper or freemen group. When a freemen
offended a slave, he might make justice by a small payment of money. Slaves had no legal rights.
EARLIER EXPLANATIONS OF THE EXISTENCE OF
CRIMINALITY

4. Crime is equal to sin (Middle ages). Crimes and sin were treated as the same substance and nature. The
state claimed that it was acting in the place of God, when it inflicted horrible punishments such as ostracism,
stoning, exile from the community, burning, decapitation and capital punishment.
• In the Twelve Tables (450 B.C.) of the roman law, intentional homicide, setting fire to a dwelling or
harvested crop, treason and parricide were all punished by death.
• Another cruel punishment method was trial by ordeal or torture in which the accused is subjected to
difficult and painful test as means of extorting confessions. The belief was that an innocent person
(Protected by God) would emerged unharmed while a guilty person would die a painful death. For
example, a common method of determining whether a woman was witch was to tie her up and throw
her into the water. If she floated she was considered innocent, but if she sank she was guilty. Other forms
of ordeal included running the gauntlet (a double line of people with whips, fraternity paddles, or other
weapons) and walking on fire.
Biological explanations of criminality

•  
•  
• Chromosomes
• Genes
• Chemistry
• Hormones
• Body type
A. Family Studies
(Hereditary Factors)

A. Family studies
1. The study of the Juke Family (Richard Dugdale)
• ADA JUKE is known to anthropologists as the "mother of criminals." From her there were directly
descended one thousand two hundred persons. Of these, one thousand were criminals, paupers,
inebriates, insane, or on the streets. That heritage of crime, disease, inefficiency and immorality
cost the State of New York about a million and a quarter dollars for maintenance directly. What the
indirect loss was in property stolen, in injury to life and limb, no one can estimate.
• suppose that Ada Juke or her immediate children had been prevented from perpetuating the Juke
family. Not only would the State have been spared the necessity of supporting one thousand
defective persons, morally and physically incapable of performing the functions of citizenship, but
American manhood would have been considerably better off, and society would have been free
from one taint at least.
A. Family Studies
(Hereditary Factors)
• Instances such as these are not isolated. Ever since the late Sir Francis Galton gave us his
science of Eugenics, which in its most literal sense means "good breeding," the scientific
students of mankind, the directors of insane asylums and hospitals, criminologists the
world over, have been compiling statistics to show not only the danger of permitting the
marriage of criminals, lunatics, and the physically unfit, but the effect upon" mankind. 
A. Family Studies
(Hereditary Factors)
2. The study of the Kalikak Family (Henry Goddard)
• One case involved the descendants of an anonymous man referred to as Martin Kallikak.
This man produced two different lines of descent, one with a supposedly "feebleminded"
bar maid with whom he had had sexual relations and one with his wife, reputed to be an
honest Quaker woman. The offsprings from the two women generated two lineages that
could not have been more different. The pseudonym "Kallikak" was taken from two Greek
words: kallos, meaning beauty (referring to the descendants of the Quaker woman)
and kakos, meaning bad (referring to the descendants of the bar maid).
A. Family Studies
(Hereditary Factors)
• The psychologist Henry Goddard (1866-1957) investigated these two groups over a two-
year period. According to psychology historian David Hothersall, Goddard discovered that
the inferior branch of Martin Kallikak's family included "46 normal people, 143 who were
definitely feebleminded, 36 illegitimate births, 33 sexually immoral people, 3 epileptics, and
24 alcoholics. These people were horse thieves, paupers, convicts, prostitutes, criminals,
and keepers of houses of ill repute. On the other hand, Quaker side of the family included
only 3 somewhat mentally "degenerate people, 2 alcoholics, 1 sexually loose person, and
no illegitimate births or epileptics."
A. Family Studies
(Hereditary Factors)

3. The study of sir Jonathan Edward’s Family

• Jonathan Edwards, was a Puritan Preacher in the 1700s.  He was one of the most
respected preachers in his day. He attended Yale at the age of thirteen and later went on to
become the president of Princeton college. He married his wife Sara in 1727 and they were
blessed with eleven children. Every night when Mr. Edwards was home, he would spend
an hour conversing with his family and then praying a blessing over each child. Jonathan
and his wife Sarah passed on a great, godly legacy to their eleven children.

• An American educator, A.E. Winship decided to trace the descendants of Jonathan

• Twin studies support the contention that a heritable trait may increase risk for criminal behavior.
Twin studies compare the rate of criminal behavior of twins who are genetically identical or
monozygotic twins (MZ) with twins who are not, or dizygotic twins (DZ) in order to assess the
role of genetic and environmental influences. To the extent that the similarity observed in MZ
twins is greater than that in DZ twins, genetic influences may be implicated.
B. Twin Studies

Twins reared apart. Grove and others investigated the concordance of antisocial problems,
as measured by the Diagnostic Interview Schedule (DIS), among a sample of thirty-two sets
of monozygotic twins reared apart (MZA) who were adopted by nonrelatives shortly after
birth. Because this was a nonclinical sample, very few subjects met Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual-III criteria for antisocial personality. To remedy this limitation, symptoms that
contribute to the overall DSM-III diagnoses were counted to assess for subclinical
manifestations of antisocial problems. Grove found substantial overlap between the genetic
influences for both childhood conduct disorders (correlation of .41) and adult antisocial
behaviors (correlation of .28). Although these findings are based on a small number of
subjects, the Grove findings are congruent with the findings from other twin studies and
extend the twin literature by evaluating MZ twins raised in separate environments.
C. Adoption Studies

• The possibility that genetic factors are among the causes of criminal
behavior was tested by comparing court convictions of 14,427 adoptees
with those of their biological and adoptive parents. A statistically
significant correlation was found between the adoptees and their biological
parents for convictions of property crimes. This was not true with respect
to violent crimes. There was no statistically significant correlation between
adoptee and adoptive parent court convictions. Siblings adopted separately
into different homes tended to be concordant for convictions, especially if
the shared biological father also had a record of criminal behavior.
D. The XYY Supermale studies

• A legal theory that holds that a defendant's XYY chromosomal abnormality is a condition that
should relieve him or her of legal responsibility for his or her criminal act.

• Criminologists have examined many theories as to why a person becomes a criminal. Since the
nineteenth century, biological theories have been proposed that seek to link criminal behavior with
innate characteristics, yet these theories have been strongly challenged by the scientific
community. With the development of modern genetics, scientists have noted abnormalities in the
chromosomal structure of some people. A chromosome is the threadlike part of the cell that
carries hereditary information in the form of genes.
D. The XYY Supermale studies

• The normal human genetic complement consists of 23 pairs of chromosomes. One of these pairs
determines sex. Women have two X chromosomes and men usually have an X and a Y
chromosome. However, in 1 in 500 to 1,000 live male births, an individual has an extra Y
chromosome. This XYY abnormality is often characterized by tallness and severe acne and
sometimes by skeletal malformations and mental deficiency.

• With the discovery of the XYY abnormality in 1961, some social scientists proposed a link between
the abnormality and aggressive and impulsive behavior. This "supermale" syndrome seemed
confirmed when studies of prison populations showed the presence of the abnormality to be
significantly higher than in the general population.
D. The XYY Supermale studies

• Taller than average male often standing 6’1 or more