One of the approaches to explain the origins of crime that I have not yet seen explored is the ecological. That is, just as there are producers and partners who work together prosocially to acquire resources, there are humans who are parasitic and predatory on those producers. Whether intraspecies parasitism/predation is due to a particular suite of genes, a failure during fetal development to correctly wire a prosocial brain, or disease, trauma or some other cause is yet to be determined. Nature is not interested in how one gets the means of living, just that one survives and reproduces. Sociopaths, those people who are parasitic and predatory on their own species, are successful on those terms. The question is, how do we prosocials prevent and constrain such behavior? Biological approaches , like brain function assays that can detect sociopathy, offer hope I detecting and constraining sociopathic behavior.
Great question! There's another theory called social bond theory (part of the control theories) that argues we deter crime through social connections -- this relates to at least part of what you're saying by arguing that social conditions matter to get people in a society on the same page to avoid and repress criminal behavior. Ideally, many of these theories should be used together to repress crime.
In hunter-gatherer societies a sort of natural crime control happens because the groups are small, everyone not only knows the offender but his/her history and family, and social controls l8ke gossip, shaming, shunning, punishment and exile can be deployed to keep the peace. The problem for urbanized, mobile, and largely anonymous societies is that we do not always know the offender and his history before we are victimized. What I am proposing are physiological tests (like GSR paired with verbal and photographic stimuli) to detect sociopaths and attempt to redirect their antisocial impulses in a more prosocial direction. Better minds than mine will have to help us with that challenge!
One of the approaches to explain the origins of crime that I have not yet seen explored is the ecological. That is, just as there are producers and partners who work together prosocially to acquire resources, there are humans who are parasitic and predatory on those producers. Whether intraspecies parasitism/predation is due to a particular suite of genes, a failure during fetal development to correctly wire a prosocial brain, or disease, trauma or some other cause is yet to be determined. Nature is not interested in how one gets the means of living, just that one survives and reproduces. Sociopaths, those people who are parasitic and predatory on their own species, are successful on those terms. The question is, how do we prosocials prevent and constrain such behavior? Biological approaches , like brain function assays that can detect sociopathy, offer hope I detecting and constraining sociopathic behavior.
Great question! There's another theory called social bond theory (part of the control theories) that argues we deter crime through social connections -- this relates to at least part of what you're saying by arguing that social conditions matter to get people in a society on the same page to avoid and repress criminal behavior. Ideally, many of these theories should be used together to repress crime.
In hunter-gatherer societies a sort of natural crime control happens because the groups are small, everyone not only knows the offender but his/her history and family, and social controls l8ke gossip, shaming, shunning, punishment and exile can be deployed to keep the peace. The problem for urbanized, mobile, and largely anonymous societies is that we do not always know the offender and his history before we are victimized. What I am proposing are physiological tests (like GSR paired with verbal and photographic stimuli) to detect sociopaths and attempt to redirect their antisocial impulses in a more prosocial direction. Better minds than mine will have to help us with that challenge!