Criminals are born, not made. Comment

I do not agree that criminals are born and not made. No one is born a criminal. Criminals turn to crime either out of desperation or mental disorders, such as addictions and even for the sake of enjoyment and excitement.
In my opinion, even though there have been studies which revealed links between genetics and criminology, suggesting that genetic flaws do lead to crime, I feel that it is not correct to just state that criminals are born and not made. Indeed, there may be cases whereby criminals are born, but most of them are due to their influence by their parents. If they had not known their parents were criminals and lived with other foster parents, then they would most probably turn out as normal law-abiding citizens.
Using data from National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, it has been found that childhood maltreatment can lead to a person having twice the likelihood of turning to crime. Hence could be seen that there is also a link between a person’s childhood and crime. Being abused as a child often leads to trauma by the child, eventually leading to feelings of hate and then causing violent behaviour and then crime. Hence it can be seen the criminals are sometimes made, not born.
Having power can also contribute to crime. When one has the power to kill, there exists the temptation to kill whoever one feels is annoying. On the other hand, when one has no weapons, he or she probably would not even think of killing. According to a recent NBER Working paper by Mark Duggan, higher gun ownership leads to increase in gun-homicide rate. Hence, power sometimes does produce more criminals.
The fear of getting punished is a powerful deterrence to prevent crime. When one feels that he or she would not be caught, one is more likely to commit crimes. Take the bloggers who uploaded racist remarks for example. They had probably felt they were protected by the anonymity of the internet, and they probably would not have dared to say such racist remarks in public. Hence, crime can also be attributed by such external factors.
As seen, criminals can also be made, and not born. It is simply unfair for people to be labelled as criminals when they are born.

-Jia Hao