Criminals are born not made

Are criminals born or made?

Criminals are made because every one is born normal so they choose to be involved in a crime.

Comments (8)

Tiff @ Topical Talk
08 Jan 2019

This is an interesting discussion starter for a post.

However, you should try to give more detail to your own opinion. What do you mean when you say ‘everyone is born normal?’ and do you have evidence for what you mean.

Do people always choose to be involved in a crime?
Here are some examples to think about:
Someone might be hiking and accidentally walk into private property which is trespassing
Someone might be in a rush and forget to pay for one item in a shopping basket
Someone might feel that they have no other choice but to commit a crime. For example, if they are blackmailed.

You give some good reasons for criminals being ‘made’!

You also mention «criminal genes, biologically». I don’t think there is any reputable research proving a link between genes and criminal activity.

Why do you think a «happy, secure, supportive» environment is important for growing up?

you have good reasons for criminals being «made»

Some people might argue that criminals are born, not made. They might argue that they have relatives who are already criminals, and that people can genetically inherit a ‘criminal’ nature, although we agree with Tiff that there isn’t much evidence to support this. There are also some people born with mental-health issues, such as those with kleptomania, who might commit crimes.
However, other people might argue that criminals are not necessarily born, but are made by the society and environment in which they live. For example, friends and family might force someone to act in a certain way, or a person might commit a crime because of peer pressure. People might join gangs because they want safety and money, and might commit crimes because of this. Society might be to blame, because lots of people are homeless, poor, or jobless, and therefore these people sometimes have no choice but to commit a crime.
In conclusion, our group believes that criminals can be either born or made, because it depends on the criminal. It depends on your family, your home, your own genetic make-up, but there is no one rule for each criminal.

I think criminals are made because of their environment.

I agree with you

You must be logged in with Student Hub access to post a comment. Sign up now!

Student leaderboard

School leaderboard

Contact us

The Economist Educational Foundation
20 Cabot Square
London, E14 4QW
United Kingdom

Are criminals born or made?

Asked by: Rhea Langosh

Criminals are born not made. The basic definition of the word criminal is someone who commits offending behaviour within society (Harrower, 2001). The crime may range from petty theft to murder.

Are criminals born or are they formed?

The idea is still controversial, but increasingly, to the old question »Are criminals born or made? » the answer seems to be: both. The causes of crime lie in a combination of predisposing biological traits channeled by social circumstance into criminal behavior.

Can someone be born criminal?

Recent studies have found that there may be a genetic origin for violent crime, and that personality traits including criminality can be deduced from facial features. The born criminal, it seems, might not be such a ridiculous idea after all.

Are criminals born or made conclusion?

Some psychologists and medical researchers have come to the theory that criminal behaviour is hereditary just as other medical conditions, such as heart disease and high cholesterol. This gives a conclusion that criminals have a tendency to commit crime and are indeed born (Wasserman D (2004).

Are criminals born or made?

30 related questions found

Is there a criminal gene?

Genes alone do not cause individuals to be- come criminal. Moreover, a genetic predis- position towards a certain behavior does not mean that an individual is destined to become a criminal.

Who is the father of criminology?

This idea first struck Cesare Lombroso, the so-called “father of criminology,” in the early 1870s.

Are serial killers made from nature or nurture?

The research predicted that nature and nurture are prime factors to a serial killer’s mind. Results portrayed in the research showed that individuals with the MAOA gene are more prone to violence than those without it. As well as both nature and nurture are necessary in understanding criminal behavior.

Are humans violent by nature or nurture?

What is the theme in Are serial killers born or made?

Trauma is the single recurring theme in the biographies of most killers.”(Conroy, 2018) One common explanation is that psychopaths experience some kind of trauma in early childhood.

Are you born a killer?

Serial killers are not born; it’s a mix of environmental factors that activate the evil in us. In her own words, “You get a combination of factors, environmental and intrinsic, that create a very violent person.

Who is the mother of all criminals?

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.

Who said criminals are born?

Critical Evaluation. Lombroso became known as the father of modern criminology. He was one of the first to study crime and criminals scientifically, Lombroso’s theory of the born criminal dominated thinking about criminal behaviour in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Is criminal behavior inherited yes or no?

What are the criminals?

Is violence inherited or learned?

The strong association between exposure to violence and the use of violence by young adolescents illustrates that violence is a learned behavior, according to a new study, published by researchers at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center and included in the November issue of the Journal of Pediatrics.

Is aggression caused by nurture?

What causes aggression and violence? It depends. Some experts consider aggression the consequence of environment, and others believe there are biologic causes. In reality, each patient’s unique psychological makeup, underlying biology, and symptom constellation will differ.

What is aggressive nature?

What Is Aggressive Behavior? Aggressive behavior can cause physical or emotional harm to others. It may range from verbal abuse to physical abuse. It can also involve harming personal property. Aggressive behavior violates social boundaries.

What are the 14 traits of a serial killer?

Are all serial killers psychopaths?

All psychopaths do not become serial murderers. Rather, serial murderers may possess some or many of the traits consistent with psychopathy. Psychopaths who commit serial murder do not value human life and are extremely callous in their interactions with their victims.

What makes a killer?

What Makes a Killer is a twelve-part series that chronicles the lives and crimes of the world’s most notorious serial killers. In every episode host Jennifer Nittoso will trace a killer’s origins, examine their behavior, and follow their path to bloodshed.

Are Criminals Born or Made?

Autor: optimum97 • November 7, 2015 • Essay • 1,934 Words (8 Pages) • 1,750 Views

Psychologists have researched this question for many years, whether or not criminals are born or made, but to date they have not come to a conclusive answer. Some psychologists believe in the nature approach (born criminals) and others believe in the nurture approach (made criminals), (Newburn, 2007).

Many experts believe that violence is an inborn trait that people are naturally violent and aggressive, but there are those who do not support this belief. Psychologist, Erich Fromm believes that ‘human destructiveness is not part of human nature and that it is not common to people’ (Erich Fromm). I take a similar view and would say that violent behaviour in people can be identified by a person’s genetics, together with their circumstances and environment. Religious leaders, scientists and philosophers have been trying to find out if people are born with violent, aggressive tendencies. An eighteenth century philosopher, Jean Jacques Rousseau tried to demonstrate that humans are naturally good until they are warped by society, a society that encourages inequality and competiveness. He believed that society was responsible for the fact that human beings hurt one another (Jean Jacques Rousseau). This ideology I agree with because there are many situations in life where our environment and society act as the driving force in our behaviour. Take for example someone who has lost their job and is in desperate need of money to feed themself and their family, there are some people who will resort to various types of criminal activity in order to meet their needs. On the other hand we will have some people who will not stray from the law, no matter what their circumstance. This type of person would have learned to control their response to this kind of situation. This control within someone could have been a result of their upbringing, life experiences, social class and maybe their general attitude towards life. This brings to light whether or not criminals are born or made.

Erich Fromm says that ‘some people prefer to believe that aggression is all instinctive because then they don’t have to consider how social problems have contributed to a rise in violence’. This is a very true statement because if violent behaviour and aggressive behaviour was purely instinctive then we would all probably react in pretty much the same way to certain situations, and we clearly do not. This brings us to the argument to whether criminal behaviour is fuelled by our social problems and society. In society people have been always categorised according to their wealth, or in accordance to their lifestyle and income. In the past this was seen as categorising them into classes; the upper class, the middle class and the working class. Today people in the lower socio-economic groups would be considered to be working class, which I would say makes up three-quarters of our society. The origin of the people in this group, generally have

Going into detail. Part 1: Are criminals born or made?

In the Burnet news club, we have been given some very interesting questions that i was intrigued about. Some of the questions I will be covering today will involve: Are criminals born or made? Is there victimless crimes? Why is knife crime increasing? And lastly, why would a young person decide to join a gang? These questions made me wonder if i could get the correct answer, so today i will be gathering some evidence to support my opinion.

Today, we will be discussing whether criminals are born or made?

Firstly, what is a criminal? There are many debates as to what a criminal is however the definition of a criminal is: someone who breaks the law by commiting illegal activity. (Crime such as murder, theft etc.)

To begin with, we shall be talking about if criminals are born or made. If criminals are born then that means that they were destined to become a criminal or showed signs of unusual behaviour and if they were made into criminals, that takes into account everything that made them that way, (For example, their parents or the people that may have had an impact in their life.) In order to become a criminal, some people may argue that someone or a handful of people may have to have some sort of authority on you, in order to change the way you think or act. A psychologist once stated that, if you have access to people who may endanger you or shape you in certain ways, then that can impact you the most. Some people believe that it is related to your genes and your family history, but in my opinion some people may be changed based on what they see or hear but some may have a mind of their own.

You can inherit inferior genes from your biological parents. Some people who believe in Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution suggests that as we have evolved, we carry positive and negitives eugenics. These may have an impact as we get older, we are constantly creating who we are and what our personality is. We may carry these eugenics as we recieve impacts both socially and biologically. An article from the BBC news states that, »-that part of the reason may be childhood abuse» such as early abuse, »which can create killers by damaging a physical part of the brain.» This made me think, What if the people who influence them can cause permanent damage to their brain? If, for example, someone’s parents were putting too much pressure on them and they took that throughout their life it may increase their chances of becoming something bad. (Or making bad choices?) At this moment, i am starting to question if this is actually true. Some people might be physically damaged so they try to make better choices so in some cases this may not actually be true. However, this is correct in some cases as i have seen multiple studies that relate to this topic. Therefore, in most cases this is true however some people may have completely different stories.

Next, we shall be discussing if it is in their nature to become criminals. I have researched if some people are born as criminals and most say it depends on the person. Now, if it depends on the person, how would you know if someone was a criminal? You would have to look at their family history to decide if someone may have the potential to become a criminal. This question is quite tricky to answer as you cannot be judgemental based on someone else’s origin. This relates back to if their family’s genes may have an impact on them. Critics argue that, people may just become criminals with no reason for doing so. So some may assume that they were naturally psychotic. There are many reasons, altogether, as to why a person may decide to pursue the lifestyle of a criminal but it is mainly undecided. Although, there is still biological components to consider, i personally would not know, just by looking at someone, whether they were going to become a criminal or not. In my opinion, it is one of those things that you cannot automatically make an assumption about.

There are, furthermore, many reasons to why a person becomes a criminal. Amongst other things, every person has their own mental health and some people even have illnesses- which i shall mention later in this text. Mental health is very important as to maintain a good mental health you need a mixture of being able to talk about your feelings and what you are thinking. A few people believe that if your mental health is bad, things may not turn out as good as you think.

Tim newburn has created a textbook, defining the factors of criminology. He suggests that there are many biological ways to study whether someone is naturally a criminal or is surrounded by a negitive enviroment and is shaped by what they see. One of the biologicial testings are to do with twins. The study suggests that the twins have the same genes (given by both parents) but are seperated into different lifestyles so they can test if it is their surroundings or something within the family. If it based on genetics, they both should have similar offending patterns but if it is inherented, it should be different. Another way to test biological patterns is adoption. Some people/children may become criminals earlier on if they do not have their biological parents. Each parent has their own way of teaching their children and this may impact some. The testing involves comparing someone’s offending history who has been adopted compared with someone with biological parents.

A study has shown that parents with a criminal record who decide to adopt has a higher percentage than biological parents who have a criminal record. (Exact results: Adoptive parents-24.3% and biological parents- 14.7%.) Nevertheless, some people have bad habit which then may reflect on their children. Furthermore, others may have a illness such as brain dyfunction or ADHD which causes them to act in a certain way. ADHD, in particular, causes you to act relentlessly without considering the consequences. Now, this might impact sufferers by doing something that they cannot control. Children in specific may find it hard to concentrate or even process what is going on around them. This made me wonder, if they cannot help it, are the ones to blame? Overall, the problems that they go through eventually lead to aggression and violence. Problems to do with attention also came from low intelligence men and woman whose parents had a criminal record. Brain dyfunction is the case where the tissue in the brain is damaged due to some sort of physical or emotional activity. So, people do infact get impacted by their surroundings.

Now, this may sound like an unusual point but nutrition has been proved to be one of the many biological studies of criminology. Things such as low blood sugar and low values of vitamins have been correlated to behavioral problems. Lastly, the central nervous system has been connected to biological criminology and is another abnormality within the brain.

To conclude, all of these points connect toward whether criminals are born or made however most of it is due to biological components. I would like to thank everyone for reading this, and i would love to hear your viewpoints in the comments!

The websites i have used are https://www.medicaldaily.com/are-criminal-minds-born-or-made-bbc-documentary-explores-psychology-cold-blooded-324990, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-31714853, Criminology book by Tim Newburn and https://www.bartleby.com/essay/Are-Criminals-Born-or-Made-FK9724YTC.

Comments (37)

Tiff @ Topical Talk
16 Jan 2019

You’ve clearly put a lot of time and research into your post, well done for being curious and trying to explore both sides of the argument here.

The term ‘eugenics’ has a controversial history and was largely dismissed after WW2. You can read about it here:
https://www.britannica.com/science/eugenics-genetics

Do you think if there is a medical reason for someone acting a bad way, then they should be treated differently?

To start with, thank you very much for your feedback and I enjoyed reading about the eugenics link that you gave me. Now, I do believe that if there was a medical reason for someone acting in a bad way that they should perhaps be treated a different way if they committed a crime. It, overall, is an unusual question to answer as there are so many things you must consider and most importantly, despite their condition they still did not abide by the law. Now, if the person in question cannot help the way that they feel, and they have no control over it perhaps they should be treated in a different way. If it is down to their mental health and their own genes, then that should be taken into consideration at court. Everyone should be treated equally but, in some cases, you must look at the different pieces of information that you have been given. For example, if someone committed a crime (such as theft) and they had a medical condition, but another person committed the same crime but did not have a medical condition, you would have to hear both sides of what happened and then make your assumption based on what made them do it. To conclude, you must contemplate whether the reason had an impact on what they done.

Criminals are made because when you are a baby you do not understand much but when you grow up you will learn more if you see crime you will know how to make crime because you will see them do it so you can do it

Yes, i do think that criminals are made because i think that when you are a baby you have not any idea on what the world is and that means they must be made. There is a thery that you inherit crimalaty but i do not think thats true, i think experinces make you who you are.

I also think criminals are made because it’s not possible to have criminal in your dna and also someone probally just want to have a little more action in their life or they are just bored

sometimes criminals can be born or made I think this because criminals copy of other people who do it.crimanals sometimes make other people join aswell as thereself.

I thoroughly agree. I always used to think that for sure criminals are made however I have come to the conclusion that, this is not actually how it works. How I have managed to figure this out is because I have realized that many children may have a bad upbringing in the fact that they are shown that stealing and, crime in general is a normal and that there is no problem in committing crime it may be a way of life in a child’s view if they were born into that type of lifestyle. However, there is no doubt that a child might decide to turn away from the life of crime that they were born into. A child can also be made to turn into a criminal due to things such as peer pressure and perhaps keeping a cool image in front of friends.

Hi powerful robin,
I think your’e post was really insightful on this topic. Well done.
I personally believe that criminals are made as everyone has a choice. Yes some might choose the wrong path but I like to believe most people would pick the right path. However if given the choice right in front of them I belive most people, especially young adults would choose to abide by the law and be regular citizens. But you have to wonder are there more reasons to why they are criminals. Is it phsycological or is it a role model that have chosen the wrong path. Don’t judge a book by there cover. Everyone has done something wrong before it’s just that we must tackle crime at a young age.

just something to think about.

Excellent reasoning, and well done for responding to another BNC member!

I think that criminals are made because unless you have a mental disorder, you can speak for yourself and make your own disicions

Criminals could be made because knife crime comes up on the media, so people could have an influence from it. This may only happen if that person has the wrong mind set. Potentially, that person might go and commit a crime and therefore become a criminal. Criminals could also be made depending on the way they were raised.

However, I also agree that criminals could be born because of mental health.

Overall I think that criminals are made.

I think that criminals are made because they might be led onto the wrong path and because of their past. Criminals might be led onto the wrong path because of their friends and family might be in gangs and they don’t realised what they are actually doing so they just want to be accepted or feel safe.
Young teenagers and some children might grow up to become criminals because they hear about the world and all the crime and join gangs to feel safe but end up killing or being killed.
others may feel like outcasts to their friends and siblings so they might become criminals so they feel like they are finally important and «cool».

Good use of reasoning, well done!

Hi, powerful_robin I can see how much effort you have put in to this piece of work, you have clearly used a vast amount of research here.
I admire the the quality of your post, you have answered the incredible expanse of my questions about this issue, thank you!

I think criminals are made because you can’t just tell that a newborn baby is going to be a criminal when they grow up. They are made because maybe they lived in an area where crime happened often or their parents/siblings were criminals and set a bad example for them.

I think criminals are made because when a baby is born they have a calm soul and they are humble. So what I am trying to say is for someone to be born a criminal is impossible in my opinion and if someone are a criminal it probably means they grew up in a bad neighbour hood or they were raised in a bad place or they were raised by bad people

Hi powerfull_robin,
Well I think criminals are made because a baby can’t talk and can’t walk also there family member might of been a criminal or they joined a gang or their siblings (brother/sister) set a bad example and they got influenced by them and started to do crime.

I think that criminals are made because a newborn babies can’t go out on the streets and start violence. They are influenced by their family members who have maybe committed a crime or have been a part of the a gang wanting to commit crime which might make the person want to do it. Unfortunately, this often happens where there is lack of money.

I think they are born as a criminal because little things can change your life. Also I think this because you can see by there personality

You seem to have a contradiction here. If little things can change your life, doesn’t this mean you can change because of these things?

I think criminals are made because their actions are based on influence and if they are exposed to a lot of violence or knife crime, it could encourage them to do it too.

I think criminals are made because when they are born they can’t just start stealing because they can’t walk yet. So they are made because they might have threatened or disciplined by friends to do it.

Great info about parents with criminal records: «Adoptive parents-24.3% and biological parents- 14.7%» I found this very interesting and will use this info in class.

I think criminals are made because when you are born you do not know the difference between right and wrong

They are made because when people are born,they are not automatically evil,horrible or bad

Are all criminals bad or horrible?

Not all criminals because if they get sent to jail and they are released, they might want to change their ways.

I think criminals are made because they choose to go on the right path or wrong path and they could get influenced
and if they see the news all the time the crime that they show and get influenced in that way so they are made most of the time because they are influenced.

I think criminals are made because even if you were born into a criminal family, it is your decision about your actions.

I agree because a 2 year old wouldn’t start murdering adults or dealing drugs

I think that most criminals are bad and horrible. They are bad because say there is a criminal who deals drugs to people pretending that it’s something like lemonade or orange. They are definitely being horrid and bad because they are a threat to the public and also doing something very illegal. It’s the same with a mass murderer- they are killing innocent people but it also backfires on them because they will definitely get a life sentence. This means that they are definitely being bad AND horrible.

Tiff @ Topical Talk
29 Jan 2019

A lot of you are focusing on very serious and unusual crimes. It is tempting to often look to the most extreme examples, but when thinking about ‘criminals’ you should consider the range of crimes.

For example, speeding in a car, committing fraud, computer hacking, not paying taxes etc. These are all crimes as well. Does considering other crimes change what you think about if criminals are born or made?

As you have said, we tend to look at the serious crimes, (E.g. murder, theft etc.) However, in some cases, we do not look at the other side of the story. There are various crimes that are not called extreme crimes but are still crimes. If we consider the other crimes, (Such as speeding,) then perhaps our point of view would change. Many people believe that, we make mistakes and sometimes we do not think about the consequences but regret it after. Furthermore, if someone commits a less-serious crime, would our opinion of whether criminals are born or made change? The answer is perhaps. I have read through some of the comments and they all make fantastic points, however a couple of the comments suggest that criminals cannot be made as an infant could not commit a crime, (but due to a bad upbringing, they could absorb criminal behaviour from their carer.) Perhaps, some criminals are not born or made, some criminals make a mistake which then may put them in a category. In this case, if someone did not pay their taxes then that would that make them a criminal? Or would we not say that they are a criminal, but something else? Many statistics show that, on average, a worker makes over one hundred and eighteen mistakes. Now, out of those 118, how many of them are life-changing? Possibly, three or four. So therefore, in court cases, we must take contemplate whether it was a mistake or if they meant it deliberately.

You must be logged in with Student Hub access to post a comment. Sign up now!

CUTTING edge thinking about how we should prevent and punish crime centres on the question of whether criminals are born or made…

CUTTING edge thinking about how we should prevent and punish crime centres on the question of whether criminals are born or made. Is the behaviour of troubled children and teenagers innately biological and inherited? Or is it the result of social deprivation and moral anarchy? And do the answers to these questions offer any solutions?

Regardless of the cause, flogging criminals is our only hope, says Dr Richard Lynn, Professor of Psychology at the University of Ulster and director of the Ulster Institute for Social Research. Criminal behaviour has been increasing virtually throughout the Western world for 50 years because such behaviour is passed on from father to son and the genetically deprived criminal under class is breeding faster than the rest of society, he argues.

The two psychological factors which inhibit criminal behaviour are fear and conscience. «Most criminals do not have much conscience, so all you could do is to deal with their fear,» he argues. The threat of the whip would deter where the threat of a prison sentence does not, he believes.

Yet psychological research with hamsters at the University of Massachusetts has concluded the opposite that violence begets violence. Neuroscientist at the university discovered that hamsters have in their brains the same chemical transmitters that regulate behaviour in humans. When these transmitters are disrupted by fear and trauma at an early age, the hamsters become extraordinarily anti social and violent to their fellow animals. Therefore, aggression in adults can be blamed on their being neglected and brutalised as youngsters, rather than on their being born violent.

Dr Craig Ferris, who led the study, believes that the lesson is clear. «The best thing we can do for kids is have a better policy of perinatal health care and parent care. We need to build resilience in children, not volatility, for when they face unemployment drugs, and violence,» he says.

The «short sharp shock» argument whether used in support of flogging or American style boot camps is based on the notion that fear will prevent young people with criminal tendencies from indulging them. But many adults working with juvenile delinquents have found that fear cannot deter them because they are incapable of understanding consequences.

«People who have been victims of crime understandably want the sources of their fears removed from society, but putting youngsters together in schools for crime with no therapy and no rehabilitation in places like Mountjoy and St Patrick’s in Dublin is not the answer. In the long term you have more angry people emerging to do worse things,» says Marie Murray, a psychologist at St Joseph’s Adolescent Services.

At Oberstown Boys’ Centre in Lusk, Co Dublin, where he is director, Michael O’Connor has no doubt that boot camps do not decrease crime levels, basing his view both on his experience and on US studies.

If you treat people with abuse, you are teaching them that it is okay to intern and inflict pain on other people. A bullying regime will promote bullying and teach them that might is right.»

«It’s an age old cry that they should be locked up and we should throw away the key,» says Oberstown’s deputy director, Ann Wall. «But if you do that, all you are doing is storing up the problem for two years. We have to adopt a caring philosophy in trying to build up their conscience.»

The lack of conscience and the inability to see consequences appears to have biological roots, says Professor Jim Sattersfield, associate clinical professor of Psychiatry in the Division of Child Psychiatry at the Oregon Health Sciences University in the US. Children who grow up to be criminals often suffer from conduct disorder, a suspected brain abnormality which makes them so impulsive and lacking in control that even when they understand intellectually that their aggressive, oppositional behaviour will end in punishment, they still cannot stop themselves.

«This is why in Oregon we have seen that boot camps do not work. It’s not that these kids don’t know that if they don’t follow the rules of the game they’ll be punished, they do know that. But they cannot control their behaviour. Putting kids in prison is no solution to the problem. It may be part of the problem, in fact, in that they become recidivist,» he says.

We need to find children at risk and treat them when they are young during a «window of opportunity» between ages six and 12, he believes. «If you could identify these children early on, as early as six or even four, and offer them the right kind of preventive measures you could reduce criminality by about 50 per cent,» he believes.

But in the Republic, such children are treated only when they get into serious trouble and that usually happens around the age of 12 when it may be too late. Dr Nuala Healy, psychiatrist with St Joseph’s Adolescent Services explains that through primary school, these children who tend to be of low intellectual ability often manage to slide through, although their lack of achievement contributes to chronic low self esteem. Once the academic demands of secondary school hit them, these troubled children start to rebel and their lack of self esteem encourages criminal behaviour.

I feel very strongly that too much is being expected of them. They’re doing 10 subjects and they can barely read. It’s only alienating them further,» says Dr Healy.

We are very often looking at kids where the only thing they are successful at is crime,» says Ms Murray. They say, I can do something right. I can attack that old woman and take her bag and get away with it

THEY believe that we are failing these young people by ignoring their problems in primary school and that we need to develop programmes of early intervention, with the Departments of Health, Justice and Education working together.

Noel Howard of the Irish Association of Careworkers also sees the way in which we are socialising our children in schools as contributing to the moral anarchy in which many of them are being reared, rather than counter acting it. «When corporal punishment was taken from the schools nothing replaced it,» he says. While he does not support corporal punishment, he does believe that we need to replace lost authority figures.

Professor Donald West, whose research is being used by the British Home Secretary Michael Howard in an attempt to construct a brave new world of crime prevention, agrees that the main problems lie in the school system. Starting in 1961, Professor West, with Professor David Farrington, of the Institute of Criminology, Cambridge University, monitored 411 average boys to see which ones would become criminals and found that teachers unerringly predicted which boys would grow up to be trouble. West and Farrington came up with a list of risk factors, including parents’ criminal record, low income, large family, inadequate parenting and below average intelligence.

British police forces, with the support of the Home Secretary are talking with companies in the neural computing industry in an attempt to target six year olds, using the risk factors compiled by Farrington and West. Both men are appalled at the prospect.

Crime prevention lies not in targeting trouble makers but in developing school programmes which build self esteem, says Professor West. «Today schools are very competitive and have become less tolerant of those who cannot achieve in terms of intellectual effort. There is a need for an alternative for the less able so that they can feel good about something,» he says.

A strong stand against targeting children at risk has also been made by the Gulbenkian Foundation Commission, which was set up in the wake of the Jamie Bulger murder. «Attempting to identify high risk children wrongly identify some, miss many others and create stigmatising services which may not be accepted and which do little to emphasise every individual’s responsibility for creating a non violent society,» it stated.

Those who believe that we will be able to «treat» criminal behaviour as if it were a biologically based mental illness have difficulty accepting the foundation’s argument, however «Vandalism isn’t mindless, it’s the consequence of minds hungry for sensation,» says Ann Moir, co author with David Jessel of A Mind to Crime, the book of their TV series screened on Channel 4 last September.

US research has shown that young people with a low level of brain arousal fail to be engaged or interested in the normal stimuli of life. They need bigger, bolder, rasher challenges in order, to make themselves feel alive. This could explain why so many Irish juvenile delinquents can explain their destructive behaviour by saying it is «for the buzz». If low arousal is the problem, then the young teenage boy who craves excitement and achievement needs to have that craving fulfilled. The future of crime prevention lies not in punishment, but in treating what is essentially a biological handicap, Moir and Jessel believe.

IN THE Republic, the need for super charged arousal has already been recognised as a personality trait in delinquents, if not a biological condition. «If the police chase of 200 m.p.h. down the dual carriageway or the chase across the factory roof at two o’clock in the morning is what does it for them, we need to be asking, how can you replace that buzz?,» says Mr O’Connor.

It seems worth considering why, when we can assess low IQ and psychopathology in childhood, we do not invest the money we might later spend on locking people up on giving them the support in early childhood to overcome their handicap? With the scientific information about the biological roots of criminality flooding in, this is a question which policy makers are eventually going to have to be brave enough to answer.

«The bottom line,» says Ms Murray, «is that these are young people’s lives and the future of our country. If we do nothing and as a result have an increasingly upset and needy population, what kind of parents will these young people grow up to be? How will they be able to help their own kids?»

When you have been a victim of crime, it is hard to be compassionate and offer help rather than punishment. But evidence is increasing that if we want to stop crime at the roots, compassion may be our only chance not in the so called bleeding heart, do gooder tradition but out of sheer common sense. The survival of society may depend on it.