Contemporary Biosocial Criminology Theories

The very first steps in explaining the causes of crime were taken by the Italian scientist Cesare Lombroso, who tried to reveal the connection between criminal behavior and the anatomical features of the human body. His biological theory was quickly criticized and disproved by his colleagues, and after that criminologists switched from the biological causes of crime to social in the explanation of criminal behavior. Social theory takes a strong position in the criminological discipline, receiving support from both foreign and domestic criminologists. Also, domestic criminology rejected the biological aspects of the criminal mind for a long time, considering crime as a social phenomenon. Since the twentieth century, science develops in such fields as genetics, neurobiology, neuropsychology, molecular biology and similar disciplines which study human behavior at the cellular and molecular levels. Modern criminologists have also paid attention to these areas and tried to integrate their knowledge into criminology in order to determine the causes of criminal behavior and the motivation of the criminal mind, thus creating a biosocial theory of crime. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the modern biosocial theories of crime and the disclosure of each concept of biosocial theory. The work covers the basic theories of biosocial criminology - evolutionary theory, biological theory, the theory of behavior and molecular genetics, the theory of neurocriminology - and the explanation of this separation. Evolutionary theory considers crime as the result of an evolutionary process. Biological theory concerns the effects of nutrition and hormones on the formation of behavior and mental health. The theory of behavioral genetics and molecular genetics considers heredity and genes as the causes of crime. Neurocriminology concerns the relationship between the structure of the brain and its functions with human behavior.