Causes of Criminal Behaviors Heredity and Crime Bio-physical factors and criminality

Two boys grow up in the same Mumbai chawl, go to the same municipal school and play on the same maidan. One becomes a clerk, the other ends up in Arthur Road jail. Was it something in his blood, something in his mind, or something in the lane he walked home through? Criminology has spent a century trying to answer that question, and no single theory has won. This topic teaches you the main candidates, why each is only part of the truth, and how to write about them in an exam.

In two minutes

No single cause explains crime; biological, psychological and social theories each capture part of it, which is why modern criminology prefers a multiple-factor approach.

The rest of this chapter

The full explanation, the cheat sheet, every previous-year question at every mark weight, the quiz and the answer skeletons are part of Criminology and Penology on LexBlox Semester. Sign in to unlock the subject, or read Module 1 of Legal Language and Writing free.