Check out Top 10 Theories About How Biology Creates A Criminal

9 Some People Could Be Born Criminals

In the late 1960s, the WHO started a project to closely follow about 1,800 children on Mauritius, an island in the Indian Ocean. Researchers have been using that data to predict whether a child will grow up to be a criminal.Their research showed that children from Mauritius with slower heart rates and reduced skin responses when annoyed by loud tones or challenging questions tended to have criminal records when they got older. Fifteen-year-olds with this pattern tended to have criminal records by age 29. Three-year-olds who displayed the pattern were usually more aggressive than other children five years later. When sets of twins were tested, identical twins showed more similar traits than nonidentical ones. This suggests that genetics played a stronger role than environmental factors because each set of twins was raised in the same household.According to the theory, criminals are insensitive to fear. A loud noise raises the heart rate and puts the body in a state of alert, which is what the skin sensors pick up. But children who were not alarmed also didn’t react to punishment when they misbehaved. In the same way, they didn’t react to distress in other people. The theory is that the pattern builds as they age, resulting in criminal behavior. However, the researchers caution that environment is a significant factor in whether a child becomes a criminal.