OUTLINE
The researchers took a sample of 14,000 adopted Danish men who were born between 1924 and 1947. They compared their criminal records to those of their adoptive and biological parents.
RESULTS
- If they had convicted biological parents, they were nearly twice as likely to be convicted than adoptees who had biological parents who had not.
- There was a strong correlation between biological parents and their sons for property crimes
- If a biological parent had 3 or more convictions, it is more likely their son also would
- If unrelated siblings were present, only 8% committed a crime
- 20% of related siblings in different families committed a crime
- If the biological father committed a crime, 30% of the sons also committed crimes
CRITICISMS
1 - Unreliable records
- Criminals may not have been reported,detected, or convicted
- Some convictions may not be fair
2 - The contamination effect
- The adoptees spent time with their biological parents
- Over 90% of the adoptees were adopted before the age of 2
- Psychoanalysts think that early childhood affects you greatly
3 - The sample is culture biased and sex biased
- All participants were male and from Denmark
- Cannot be generalised to females or other countries.
No comments:
Post a Comment