The Criminal Brain
: Hardware, Not Just Habits
Forget everything you thought you knew about crime. What if the villains aren't just making bad choices, but are quite literally hardwired to be bad?
Alright, listen up, because what I’m about to lay out isn’t pretty, and it’s going to mess with your tidy notions of good and evil. Forget choice, forget upbringing for a minute, and let’s talk about the grey matter between your ears. Because if the latest science is to be believed, some bastards aren't just choosing to be violent; their brains are literally wired for it.
The Architect of Atrocity: Herbert Weinstein
Remember Herbert Weinstein? The advertising exec who throttled his missus and tossed her from the 12th floor back in ’91? Seemed an open-and-shut case of a man losing his bloody mind. But then the boffins got involved. A brain scan. And what did they find? A tumour, the size of a plum, gouging into his prefrontal cortex – the bit of your grey matter that tells you not to be a complete arsehole. Suddenly, this 'act of rage' looked a lot like a 'neurological malfunction.' The court bought it, too. Manslaughter, not murder. That was the first crack in the dam, boys and girls. The first time the inside of a skull got more attention than the motive.
Raine, a keen mind who spends his days poking around in the heads of psychopaths, says Weinstein’s case isn't just an anomaly. Oh no. It's the whole damn argument writ large. He posits four shattering truths:
Subtle Fault Lines: Weinstein’s brain was visibly mangled. But Raine argues many villains have subtle, almost undetectable, structural flaws. Think of it like a hairline crack in a perfectly good teacup. Invisible until it shatters.
The Seed of Sin: For most offenders, the problem ain't adult trauma; it's bad wiring from the get-go. "The seeds of sin are sown early," he mutters, and you just know he means it. A chilling thought, that some are born with a predisposition to villainy.
Hardware Failure: We've talked about brain function before – how the 'software' of the mind goes wonky. But Raine's dropping a much heavier truth: it's not just the software, it's the hardware. Your brain, the actual physical structure, is buggered. And old Lombroso, that 19th-century Italian doctor who swore criminals were evolutionary throwbacks with dodgy skulls? He might have been a bit of a crank, but he was on the right track.
Beyond the Bloodbath: This isn't just about rapists and murderers. Raine suggests these brain differences infect the whole spectrum of criminality, even the smooth-talking fraudsters and the pathological liars.
Slicing and Dicing the Brains of Bastards
How does he back this up? Bacon-slicing, that's how. His team takes real-life 'free-range' offenders – basically, criminals off the street – and shoves them into MRI machines. Then they meticulously map their grey matter.
The results? Striking. Blokes with Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD) have an 11% reduction in prefrontal cortex grey matter. And no, before you ask, it’s not just the booze or the drugs. They controlled for that. This isn't visible to the naked eye. It takes serious computational grunt to spot these differences. The brain, it seems, can hide its flaws well.
Raine then drags old Antonio Damasio into the mix. Damasio studied folks with damage to their ventral prefrontal cortex. These poor sods were:
Emotionally Flatlined: Couldn't register fear or empathy. Like a psychopath in a lab coat.
Decision-Making Disasters: Chose all the 'bad' options, even when the consequences were staring them in the face. Sound familiar?
Psychopathic Lite: Impulsive, irresponsible, breaking rules like it was their job.
It’s like looking into a damned mirror for someone who’s served time.
And let’s not forget Phineas Gage. That 19th-century railway foreman who got a tamping rod shot through his skull. Went from a respected, decent chap to an ‘irreverent, indulging at times in the grossest profanity’ arsehole. His brain, too, had a massive hole in his prefrontal cortex. Proof, if you needed it, that buggering about with your brain can turn you into a different person. A worse person.
The Deviant Details: A Deeper Dive
Raine's team didn't stop at the surface. They went deeper, pinpointing specific zones within the prefrontal cortex that were particularly shite in antisocial individuals:
Orbitofrontal Gyrus: 9% smaller.
Right Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex: A whopping 16% reduction.
Right Middle Frontal Gyrus: An even more massive 20% reduction.
These aren't just fancy names, mind. These bits of your brain are crucial for everything from empathy and moral decision-making to learning from your mistakes and delaying gratification. When they’re knackered, you end up with an impulsive, rule-breaking git who feels bugger-all for others. Recidivism, he argues, isn't just a choice; it's built into the anatomy.
The Male Brain and the Criminal Mind
Now, this one’s going to ruffle some feathers. Men commit more crimes. A lot more. Raine’s research points to a biological underpinning: men, particularly criminal men, present with a 12.6% reduction in orbitofrontal grey matter compared to women. When they controlled for this, the sex difference in crime plummeted by 77%. So, it's not just testosterone and bravado; it’s a tangible difference in the very structure of the brain. Bloody inconvenient, that.
Not So Fast, Sunshine: Three Cautions
Hold your horses, though. Raine isn't calling for a eugenics program just yet. He throws in three crucial caveats that show biology ain’t always destiny:
The Spanish Phineas Gage: A lad from the Spanish Civil War got his prefrontal cortex absolutely mangled, just like Gage. But he didn't turn into a psychopath. Why? Because he had a loving fiancée, supportive parents, and a stable job. Environment, you see, can be a bloody powerful shield against biological vulnerability.
The Russian-Roulette Urchin: A 13-year-old with a history of conduct disorder shot himself in the head. Damaged his prefrontal cortex. Guess what? His behaviour didn’t get worse. He remained the ‘same unruly, conduct-disordered urchin.’ This suggests if your brain’s already dysfunctional, further damage might just be a wasted effort. Like trying to break a broken clock.
The Philadelphia Crossbow Man: This chap, aggressive and depressed, tried to off himself with a crossbow bolt to the head. It damaged his prefrontal cortex. But instead of becoming worse, he transformed! From a 'pathologically aggressive' arsehole to a 'quiet, docile, and content man.' Brain damage, in rare cases, can actually reduce antisocial tendencies. Go figure.
These cases are a stark reminder: it's not a simple equation. It's a complex, messy dance between what you're born with and what life throws at you.
From Womb to Wrongdoing: The Neurodevelopmental Link
Raine pushes further, implying that some of these brain peculiarities start very early. He points to something called cavum septum pellucidum (CSP) – a tiny, normally fused part of the brain that, in some cases, fails to close properly. It's a sign of fetal neural maldevelopment. And guess what? Individuals with CSP have higher psychopathy scores and more criminal convictions. Lombroso, that old fool, was barking up the right tree about early development, even if his evidence was pure shite.
The Deeper Darkness: Limbic System and Striatum
Raine then plunges into the murky depths of the subcortical structures:
Amygdala: Psychopaths have an 18% reduction in volume here. This little almond-shaped part of your brain is key for fear and emotion. When it’s dicky, you get a cold-hearted bastard.
Hippocampus: This memory and aggression regulator shows a pronounced right-sided enlargement in psychopaths. Stress in early life, like maternal separation or fetal alcohol exposure, can cause this. See? Environment messing with the biology.
Corpus Callosum: The bridge connecting your brain hemispheres is larger, longer, and thinner in psychopaths. Raine speculates this might explain their charming glibness – perhaps their language centres are working too well, too connected.
Striatum: This joy-seeking part of the brain is 10% bigger in psychopaths. Hypersensitive to reward, constantly seeking pleasure – often through morally bankrupt means. Aggressive kids even show increased striatal activity when seeing others in pain, which is just bloody terrifying.
All these anomalies, Raine argues, are not just random defects. They're the product of neurodevelopmental abnormalities. The brains of violent offenders are "literally wired differently."
Pinocchio's Nose and the White-Collar Swindlers
And just when you think you’ve got it sorted, he swings left. What about lying? And white-collar crime?
Pathological liars, he found, have an increase in white matter volume in their prefrontal cortex – 22% more than normal folks, bloody hell. More connections, he argues, makes for a better liar. It gives them the 'cognitive capacity' to weave convincing tales and hide their deceit. He even floats the notion that repeated lying could cause this white matter increase. Like a muscle, the brain adapts to what you make it do. A terrifying thought for every politician out there.
Then there are the white-collar criminals. The embezzlers, the fraudsters, the shysters. Unlike their blue-collar brethren, these bastards aren't stupid; they're often smarter. Raine's research shows them with:
Superior Executive Function: Better at planning, focus.
Heightened Attention: More alert, more engaged.
Increased Cortical Thickness: Especially in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex – the bit that drives you towards abstract monetary rewards. They’re built for the hustle, these types. Designed to manipulate and scheme.
The Broken Brain: A Grim Truth
So there you have it. The unsettling truth. "Criminals do have broken brains, brains that are physically different from those of the rest of us." These aren't just minor kinks; they are substantial, subtle, and often rooted in neurodevelopmental issues. While environment plays its part in shaping these abnormalities – childhood trauma, neglect, brain injuries – the underlying biological vulnerability stands.
It flips your perspective, doesn't it? Makes you wonder if some people were just born to be bad. A grim thought, but one we'd be foolish to ignore. The next time you curse a criminal, remember, their brain might just be shouting louder than their conscience.
So, the next time you hear of a heinous crime, pause. Consider the unseen forces at play within the skull. Because understanding the 'why' might just be the first step to truly tackling the 'what'.
Taken from chapter 5 of Adrian Raine's book, Anatomy of Violence: Broken Brains – The Neuroanatomy of Violence
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