Are criminals born or made?

Within an evolutionary psychological perspective, human beings can form aggressive coalitions as a solution to adaptive problems.  It represents a collection of strategies that manifested under high specific contextual conditions. An evolutionary perspective suggests at least six aggressive strategy i.e. coopting the resources of others, defending oneself against attack, inflicting costs on intrasexual rivals, power hierarchies and negotiating status and struggle for survival. Dominance theory proposes that humans have evolved and adopt several information processing strategies that emphasizes on the emotional components of dominance such as rage, envy, depression and social anxiety etc. There is vast evidence that crime runs in families and that early childhood precursors of crime is clear.

In one study of adoptions conducted in Denmark from 1924 to 1947, it found that chronically criminal biological parents were three times as likely to produce a chronically criminal son as were biological parents with no such convictions. Other research indicates high-risk children should be identified and given early help as the abnormal need for stimulation that impels a child toward abnormal behaviour may later express itself in a tendency toward psychopathy and its consequences, such as criminal behavior.

Many studies have shown that individuals who have social interaction difficulties  may manifest futile ways of trying to get close contact by the exercise of power over others. The absence of feelings of empathy for a victim can be a powerful factor of violence. Cognitive distortions refers to patterns of thinking which form negative aspect of their impact e.g. man many entertain rape myth that the women are secretly wanting to have sex forced upon them. Many criminals are also victim of substance use and social learning. Macro-societal supports male aggression, patriarchal, sexist and other ingrained attitudes. Biologically chains evolutionary processes and events at a hormonal or neuro-anatomical level. Socialization and gender role influences the male and female role development and pressures towards difference patterns of social interaction and beliefs regarding gender. Psychological experiences affect children in more harmful ways as they are exposure to observing violence and cruelty. The psychosocial statuses also contribute to the range of factor for violence. Hence, all these variables add on to a person’s psychological disposition which is normally the product of nature, upbringing and individual experience. Society has rejected these individuals and in some cases the individual’s perception of rejection fuelled the reality of it.   

In general, there are the theories of murder that are interrelated. Killers often portray an overt lack of self esteem. The expression of low self esteem can either be overt or covert.  The overt presentation of low self esteem is the offence cycle, fantasy-addiction model and medical model while the covert presentation covers narcissistic personality theory and evolutionary model.  The offence cycle theory defines a predictable sequence that repeats itself in the thoughts and action of a killer. Murder becomes an addiction. The nine steps that define the offence cycle are (1) anticipated rejection (2) hurt feeling (3) negative self image (4) unhealthy coping (5) deviant fantasies (6) grooming of a victim and (7) commission of offence (8) guilt (9) rationalization. The fantasy addiction model also supports this theory with particular attention given to the deviant fantasies that drive the act of murder. However, the killers with the fantasy addiction would rather not acknowledge their poor ego strength but believe that they are more superior to other human beings. They can be remarkably intelligent and articulate with refined skills of manipulation. Killers of narcissistic personality disorder are so self confident that they can evolve to a dangerous level of antisocial behaviour with an compulsion to kill. The worst of all is the evolutionary model as the killer is both self sufficient and self seeking that the need for a social environment no longer exists. 

Are criminals born or made? The answer is quite clear that both nature and nurture can be strong factors that reflect the rate of crime, type of crime, the seriousness and frequency. Whatever the exact details, crime touches the lives of nearly everyone. Research shows that crime events take the largest share of media spotlight. There are more areas to look into the relationship between psychology and the study of crime, hence the study of individual factors such as cognitive and emotional development should be seen as an element of a broader understanding of crime.