I'd like to use this post to underscore a critical point about both biological and psychological theories (which I did manage to squeeze in yesterday in 220A, although not in 220B). I believe that neither theory by itself (or even together) can offer a completely adequate explanation of criminal and deviant behavior for one basic reason that: the individual is not a separate and distinct biological or psychological being, but is also a social and cultural being. That is to say, the individual is really a system of relations, which includes the social and cultural dimension as well as the biological and psychological. And given the fact that crime and deviance are a matter of social definition, that would suggest that the social dimension is ultimately more important than the biological and psychological in explaining this behavior. Indeed, I believe most biologists and psychologists would concede this point.
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2 comments:
Ok so the making of a criminal is in large part a social thing, but there must be some sort of genetic or internal reason, outside of their surroundings, that certian people are ciminals. Not everyone who was beaten or grew up in a bad neighborhood is a criminal and not ever person who had the perfect childhood is a decent citizen.
I agree. I can understand that the Biological and Psychological Theories can not stand by themselves or even together, but this does not mean that the Sociological Theories can stand alone either. In Psychology and Genetics we always talked about nature vs nurture and it was made very clear that not many things, if anything, are completely nature or completely nurture. They go together.
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