Do you think criminals have a choice

[FabbyChix]

I don’t believe anyone is born with any behaviour problem. The personality only forms from input data. Consider the brain a computer hard drive). Who we are is what we see, hear, feel. As we grow our opinions who we are come from what we have on our drive. Peope don’t know they do things wrong because it’s not there. I know this as my abuser cannot even see what he did it’s not there. I also have bpd and before I was enlightened I’d do stuff and could justify it because that was me. No one is born bad, it’s not possible. Behaviour is only a reaction to a happening and that reaction would be born or what is in the hard drive.

Does anyone agree?

As someone who works in prison I totally agree that it’s about environment, influences and 100% more than anything else, a serious lack of positive role models

Eg take Paul and Dean. Both have shit parents and are taken into care, who in certain ways are no better. Paul grown up to be a serial arsonist. Dean does not. How was Paul forced to be an arsonist?

At the risk of sitting on the fence I think it’s probably both.
Some sort of chemical imbalance in the brain and a bad set of upbringing and influence and role models. Perfect storm.
We all say ooh the new baby looks like his dad or his uncle. If those genes can be passed on I don’t see why behavioural ones can’t.

Yes criminals have a choice.

Yes, it is a choice but those choices are informed by your upbringing and current circumstances.

I know a girl who has grown up with an abusive heroin addict mother, she was eventually taken into foster care and placed with ex heroin addict grandmother. Her uncle was in jail for crimes to feed his habit and most people in the friendship group of the adults in her life had similar problems.

Is a young girl who grows up with that lifestyle being her normal far more likely to replicate it than someone who has grown up with loving parents with high expectations because it is all she knows?

Luckily this story had a happy ending, she was eventually taken in by an aunt and uncle who were loving and good role models and she now lives with a different uncle who is only a few years older with her and is doing well as a young adult.

Of course criminals have a choice.

I completely agree about the lack of role models, particularly for young men.

If there is a lack adult men In their communities who work hard, earn an honest living, provide for their families, behave respectfully to women, run sports clubs etc etc, how the hell are boys supposed to learn how to be men?

Yes they have a choice!

No matter how fucked up one claims to be or poor little John or Jane who’s mummy didn’t love them enough know certain behaviour like murder, rape or even shop lifting is wrong.

Many people have a tough life and don’t end up in prison

I think environment is a large factor in how someone behaves. However, I also think nature is a part of it. When I look at siblings, there is often a huge variation in the personalities of those siblings - despite having the same genetic makeup and being raised in the same environment. There is only 15 months between DH and his brother but they couldn’t be more different. Environment can’t be the only reason.

I think so yes. Nature can be attributed to certain addictions I think. Some people are more likely to become addicted than others. But with crime, people brought up amongst chaos, often repeat it because it is their normal. At some point they will be shown it is not normal and will choose to either carry on being deliquent or change and break the cycle of behaviour. Their personality may effect their ability to make changes but they will essentially make a choice to change or not.

There's definitely the nature/nurture argument.
I think nurture is the biggest impact, behaviours are learnt and developed.

You can’t be born with any behaviour. Your brain receives inputs from in the womb which may be the reason we have children with behaviour problems. Thinking, thoughts, etc is learned

Nurture my kids are exactly as the were raised. They were taught education means choices. As I didn’t know caring I didn’t show it and they don’t have that.

There have been tests done which shows under development of parts of the brain in psychopaths which was reflected in the behavioural traits they possessed.

So while it’s mostly environment I strongly feel there’s a physical development element too.

Nurture must obviously play a significant part but to deny individual choice is to accept that our lives are pre-determined and could be plotted out by a computer at some point in the future.
I do not believe that.

It's pretty obvious in some cases why someone's a criminal, when all of their lives they've had no boundaries, poor nutrition, lack of good role models, poverty, poor housing, randomers coming and going, nobody interested in them, never mind their health and education etc.

It's far less obvious when someone who's had all those things commit a serious crime. I always think of Brian Blackwell who was 18 when he murdered his parents and went on holiday with his girlfriend, using his parents' credit cards.

Don’t forget a significant proportion of people in prison have mental health issues - like literally more than half id say having previously worked there

So it’s a lack of input and support too

It's really complicated. Take a look at the work of Prof. Adrian Raine, who has used neuroimaging to examine the brains of murderers and has found significant differences in many areas of the brain implicated in aggression, compulsion, inhibition (he also did an interesting programme on Ch4 called What Makes a Murderer). There's also pretty strong evidence that there's a genetic component to criminal behaviour too (see work by neuroscientist James Fallon, himself a pretty interesting case). Chuck in various other things, like deprivation, abuse, neglect, poor nutrition, brain damage, poverty, environment and you really do have to question whether criminal behaviour is a choice or not.
(sorry for the essay, I'm a psychology teacher )

I look at those pictures of Joanna Dennehy and cannot equate the child in the cobalt blue uniform to be the same person as the young woman holding the knife. Something must have gone wrong somewhere inbetween.

@Slurpy that’s what I watched, I’d forgotten!

Another thing that could be added into the mix is the reluctance of companies to hire ex-offenders, so they remain on the social security and need to start committing crimes for money or return to their old drug dealing using etc ways to block out the bad memories they haven’t had sufficient counselling to get over, as mh issues dont always get adequately treated as it takes a lot of investment from all concerned.

You talk about criminals as another type of being. Most of us have broken the law.
Those speeding (myself included) are a dose of luck away from a prison sentence for death by dangerous driving.

I think it’s hugely complicated. A disproportionate amount of people in prison have a learning disability or significant mental health problems. Many have problems with addiction. Women get harsher sentences for lesser crimes.
Many grew up in circumstances that meant life was never going to be easy. Disproportionate number have been looked after children.

Then there must be mis-wiring of some who just have no ability to understand morality. Those with an inability to show empathy or to consider impact of their behaviours.

It’s not that simple! Sometimes people are born with brain under development and issues in the frontal cortex resulting in impulsive behaviour. Yes, nurture is highly influential but to outright dismiss the nature aspect is pretty foolish.

@AvalancheKit I think Joanna Dennehy is one of the scariest female criminals I've ever heard of.

You can't be born with any behaviour

I think you can. We are humans, but we are also animals. When I was younger I worked with horses, and looked after mares and newborn foals. All of the foals came out as essentially wild creatures, completely untamed, and they would be afraid of us when we went in the stable to care for them, and would keep away. All apart from one I particularly remember. She was completely unafraid of us, very aggressive and would try to bite us, literally from a day or two old. She hadn't learned this behaviour, her mother was really placid. She was born like it.

My friend has identical twin boys. They are now young adults, and their personalities have been completely different since they were very small.

I think we are all naturally predisposed to a certain personality type, whether outgoing or reticent, full of energy or placid, keen to learn or get bored easily. The environment we are exposed to will have a considerable effect on how we turn out. So I don't think it is beyond the realms of possibility for people to be influenced by nature as well as nurture.

There have been studies on identical twins separated at birth which have shown there’s a huge genetic element to personality. Don’t forget that what a child is exposed to in the womb can affect their brain development like foetal alcohol syndrome. There’s also a lot of studies showing a link between stress in the womb and mental health problems etc. So I do think some children are born with personalities/developmental issues etc which make them likely to develop mental health and/or personality disorders etc which in turn make them more likely to be involved in criminal behaviour.