Short note on Crime as a hereditary phenomenon

 Crime is hereditary as speculated by most of the genius minds of their era in past. But do we really have any scientific data which supports that notion?

Definitely yes, there are scientific provisions that confirm it and further explain why crime is hereditary in specific terms if not in general.

Hereditary explanation of crime specifically and scientifically comes from the earlier theories of criminology which are the followings,

The biological positivism theory of criminology advanced by Cesare Lombroso states that crime is biological and certain people have the characteristics of criminality from their birth and certain do not posse the ability to commit any crime in their lifetime. This notion advanced by the Lombroso aimed at the rising criminality and its affiliation with medicine. These thoughts come to mind when some of the citizens were committing crimes while some other citizens of the same residency were highly polite, humble, and law-abiding citizens. This difference leads Cesare to the conclusion that some people possess these criminal tendencies by birth.

Currently, this theory is not much helpful keeping in mind its application as crime patterns and the latest available data on crime and its causes clearly indicate that crime causation has come with multifaceted reasons, some of them are clearly been discovered some have been still unknown to the researchers. Biological positivism also helps states to hide their inability to eradicate the repetition of the crime. It also left criminal rehabilitation as useless as it believes that criminals have biological factors which do not need rehabilitative programs which are mainly based on psychological reformation whereas this theory endorses the medical treatment of those offenders.

In the Pakistani context, work on biological positivism is almost non-existent due to a lack of research work because of governmental and institutional lack of interest which made any effort of ascertaining do we have any cases here which verify the notions of biological positivism, some would believe that biological positivism in some extend do relate in Pakistan as there are ample of cases which state that due to hereditary transfer of criminal tendencies some people committed crimes in their life whenever they left with any opportunities of doing so. But it is not enough to completely confirm the biological positivism’s application here as other schools of thought also explain that these crimes are the result of social learning and the failure of the state to provide an environment that prohibits and condemns any inclination towards deviance and anti-social behavior.