Scientists Identify Genes Associated with Violent Crime

Genes determine how are our bodies are made up so they can also be the reason why criminals do such violent crimes. Scientists have been contemplating this and even though it has been said that our life experiences only contribute to about half of the influence of this criminal behaviour, there is no evidence that supports this idea. However, after examining about 1000 DNA profiles, they have found that there are two particular genes that are found in violent criminals and not in non-violent criminals. It is important to know that by people having these two genes, they will automatically become criminals, there could be many other factors contributing to this.

Researchers looked at around 900 Finnish prisoners; the offenders had either committed violent crimes or non-violent crimes. They also took into account their environmental factors, like their childhood or substance abuse. After they looked at both the criminals and the general population, they found two genes in particular that were associated with extremely violent behaviour.

The one gene, which had low level activity in the violent criminals, was responsible for a protein called monoamine oxidase A (MAOA), and the other had produced a member of the cadherin family, CDH13 (contributes to the making of dopamine, which plays a major role in addiction and helps control the brain’s reward and pleasure centres). The protein has been linked to substance abuse and ADHD.

The study says that 5-10% of all extremely violent crimes committed in Finland could be relate to these two genotypes. It is to be noted that these are extremely rare behaviour and that the majority of these individuals with these genes will not crimes. This should also not be used to defend any criminals in court.

The source does not have a published date but the last paragraph does tell us that it was done after the Source 2 was published so it was written between October 2014 and 2018. There is no research that contradicts this source. There is no bias in this article and the language and tone has been written by someone that has a high comprehension of this topic. The findings are consistent to other findings I have read and the authors have not omitted any research deliberately. This can therefore be deemed as reliable.

The author is unknown but there is evidence to support this because the source refers to the different researchers, from different universities in the world, which conducted the study. The research was done in Finland and no this does not affect the results because these two genes are found in people all over the world. This has therefore been deemed as partly valid, because we do not know the author.

This does help narrow down my research and it does increase my knowledge of the topic because it told me further information about the two genes that could affect criminals. The context is similar to my research. This can therefore be deemed as useful.