Can Geneics Cause Crime - Are genetic factors more likely to make one person violent?

Essay by Anonymous UserUniversity, Bachelor'sA+, November 1996

download word file, 3 pages 3.4

Downloaded 196 times

Can Genetics Cause Crime ?

Introduction to Criminal Justice System

Dr. Mike Carlie

Are genetic factors more likely to make one person

perform violent acts? Many doctors and researchers in the

field of genetics have searched for a answer to this

question.

During 1989-93 one such researcher named Dr. Sullivan found

some interesting points about genetics and crime.

Sullivan while working for the Bush administration's

secretary of health and human services during 1989-1993 was

appalled by the epidemic of violent crimes he saw taking

place in American cities. According to Dr. Sullivan,

" more than 26,000 Americans were murdered,

and six million violent crimes were committed

with young men and minorities falling victim

most frequently".

Sullivan also reported that about one in every 27 black men,

compared to one in every 205 white men, died violently also

1 in 117 black women met a untimely end as compared to white

women which only 1 in 496 were killed due to violent crimes.

This is not surprising that young males commit most of the

serious crimes. According to an article in Scientific

American, only 12.5 percent of violent crime in the U.S. in

1992 was committed by females. What is also surprising

according to W.W. Gibbs the author of "Seeking the Criminal

Element," in Scientific American,(1995 March) pp 100-107,

is that a very small number of criminals are responsible for

the majority of the violent crime.

Sullivan who is now the president of the Morehouse

School of Medicine in Atlanta wanted to try and address the

violence as a public health issue. In an interview after he

left office in 1993, Dr. Sullivan explains that his rational

for this was that the higher increases in violent crimes and

specifically homicide in the young male population in large

cities. Which was higher...