1. Crime and Violence: Forces for Good or Evil?
Lecture Four
Biological Influences

2. What do we know so far…? It is really hard to define violence
Violence is difficult to quantify

3. Recap
The act itself
The relationship of the participants to each other
The location of the act
The outcome
Social rules – because different rules apply in different situations
Social roles – because who we are might determine how we act
Social power

4. Causes of Violence
Is it natural?

5. Brain dysfunction Link between serotonin and aggression
In 1966, Charles Whitman killed his wife and mother and 14 people from a tower on the University of Texas campus.
He had a large brain tumour in the part of the brain where aggression processing is believed to be located (Meyers, D. G. (1998). Psychology (5th ed.). New York: Worth).
Link between serotonin and aggression

6. Bad, sad or mad? Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
Psychopaths - glib and superficial; egocentric and grandiose; to lack remorse or guilt; to lack empathy; to be deceitful and manipulative; and to have shallow emotions.

7. Jack Abbott killed a waiter
John Wayne Gacy murdered thirty-three young men and boys
Kenneth Taylor battered his wife to death
Aggression instinct - Konrad Lorenz

8. (See Demonic Males Apes and the Origins of Human Violence)
Sociobiology
(See Demonic Males Apes and the Origins of Human Violence)

9. Hormones – a gendered biology?
Adrenaline
testosterone
Testosterone levels in women prisoners:
Dr Michel Odent– oxytocin