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The Anatomy of Violence:
The Biological Roots of Crime
Adrian Raine
It is obvious to me, as I am a brain surgeon, that thought and feeling are physical phenomena, although my own thoughts and feelings certainly don’t feel as though they were made of the same stuff as the world outside me. Every day at work I see people whose brains have been injured. If the frontal lobes of their brains are involved they will suffer personality change — almost invariably for the worse. They will become — as doctors put it in their jolly way — “a bit knocked off”. People once kind and sensitive can become coarse and selfish. Their ethical nature has been altered by physical damage.
It would seem, therefore, that morality depends on an intact and healthy brain. This is an unsettling thought. It is not a great step to wonder whether the demons of the modern world — serial killers and paedophiles — are not so much “evil” as brain-damaged: damaged when their brains were developing before birth or in childhood rather than by injury in adult life as I see with my patients.
The idea that there might be a “biological” basis to violent behaviour — that criminals might be criminals because of their physical nature and not because of some moral failing that deserves to be punished — was first proposed in the 19th century. It became abhorrent in the 20th century because of its association with racism and eugenics. In recent years criminologists — some of whom now call themselves “neuro-criminologists” — have started to apply this biological approach again to violent criminal behaviour, but rather than using phrenology and crude morphological classifications, they use brain scans and epidemiology.
In The Anatomy of Violence, the criminologist Adrian Raine shows in great though occasionally confusing detail that violent criminals have different brains and physiological responses from non-criminals. He intersperses the results of criminological research with deadpan descriptions of the quite terrible crimes perpetrated by some of the famous serial killers of the past, such as the Yorkshire Ripper and the cannibalistic Jeffrey Dahmer. He clearly states that nobody is predestined to become a criminal, although he recounts one or two case histories that perhaps suggest the contrary. He does not seek to excuse criminal behaviour, but there is overwhelming evidence that the combination of bad genes and a bad childhood environment are major determinants of anti-social and violent behaviour in later life. Using MRI brain-scanning, he and his colleagues have also shown that there can be major structural differences between the brains of criminals (admittedly by definition unsuccessful criminals as they have been caught) and non-criminals. As he admits, brain scanning only shows associations and not causes and he almost certainly overestimates the accuracy of functional MRI brain scanning, but it is quite clear that there are real differences. It is hard, however, to distinguish between cause and effect; brains are “plastic” and will be shaped by experience and behaviour. It has also been shown, fascinatingly, that a slow resting heart rate in a child is a strong predictor of anti-social behaviour in later life. The proposed mechanism is that these children are relatively fearless and are less likely to be conditioned by the sort of punishment for anti-social behaviour that most children will receive from time to time.
So if violent behaviour is largely determined by a bad genetic inheritance and a bad upbringing, is it criminals’ fault that they have committed crimes? Raine makes a powerful plea for considering violence to be seen as a disease, and uses the analogy of how in the pre-modern era infectious diseases were seen as having a moral cause whereas now we know they have a bacterial one. Punishment should be justified more on the grounds of deterrence and public safety than on retribution. It also follows that there should be a greater emphasis on rehabilitation. One does not need to forgive bacteria for killing one’s child, and perhaps the same should apply to murderers. Whether human beings are capable of such detachment, however, must be open to doubt. The desire for revenge is deeply ingrained, and perhaps plays an important role in promoting social cohesion.
Raine looks forward to a future when crime will be predictable, as in The Minority Report, by Philip K. Dick. Children who are at risk of becoming criminals will be identified and helped, and not allowed to drift into crime and a life wasted in prison. This is an important book, on an important subject, let down at times by some infelicities of style, but profoundly thought-provoking.
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