CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR AND FREE WILL: Are some of us just hard-wired to be bad? asks John Cornwell in The Sunday Times (9 July), in a detailed article on research that suggests that although “most cultures in the world believe that virtue and vice involve an individual’s ability to distinguish right from wrong, and to freely choose one or the other […] an influential number of brain researchers disagree. They[…] argue that it is not people, or minds, that commit bad acts, but their brains”.
BIOLOGICAL FACTORS: Those interested in the biology of criminal behaviour might like to take a look at a lengthy post on the BrainEthics Blog (11 July) on MAOA and the risk for impulsivity and violence:
[…A]side from specific demonstrations of how violent offenders have larger or smaller neural damage, little is known about the biological properties of violence.
In a most interesting paper (PDF) published in PNAS, a team of researchers from Austria, Italy and USA headed by Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg have uncovered neurobiological factors that contribute significantly to violence in humans. The team studied the normal allelic variation in the X-linked monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) gene, a gene that has also been shown to be associated with impulsive aggression in humans and animals.
Reference: Meyer-Lindenberg, A. et al. (2006). Neural mechanisms of genetic risk for impulsivity and violence in humans. PNAS 103 (16): pp6269-6274
DEPRAVITY: Via Mind Hacks (12 July), news of a project to develop a measure of depravity:
Depravity is a concept often used in criminal trials when making decisions on the seriousness or gravity of a particular crime. The depravity scale is a project to develop a measure of depravity, and is asking members of the public to help develop it.
- More from Mind Hacks
- Link to the Depravity Project
RACIAL (LINGUISTIC) PROFILING: An article in the online newsletter of Washington University in St Louis (Record, 14 July) highlights the work of John Baugh, who “has found many people made racist, snap judgments about callers with diverse dialects”.
Baugh’s ongoing study shows that over the phone many Americans are able to accurately guess the age, race, sex, ethnicity, region of heritage and other social demographics based on a few sentences, even just a hello.
And then, explains Baugh in the article, to make unfavourable and descriminatory decisions about them, sometimes ending in a court case.
RACIAL PROFILING IN POLICE STOPS: Statistics can only take you so far in understanding a complex phenomenon like police stops, suggests a recent story in the LA Times (12 July).
Latino and African American motorists in most areas of Los Angeles are significantly more likely than whites to be asked during police stops to leave their vehicles and submit to searches, according to the latest study ordered by the city. However, the study group said its detailed analysis of the data cannot determine whether the different treatment is a sign of racial profiling by officers.
Members of the Police Commission, who had been eager to see the results of the $700,000 study, were clearly frustrated that the analysis could not better answer the question of whether officers engage in racial profiling. […]
Racial profiling is one possible explanation, said Michael Smith, an author of the report, but he said there are other possibilities as well. “Ultimately, decisions are made by individuals, and an aggregate analysis like this can’t climb into the minds of officers out there,” Smith told the commission.
CRIME STATISTICS: A thought provoking commentary from John Roman, senior research associate in the Justice Policy Center at the nonpartisan Urban Institute on what we don’t know about crime (Washington Post, 10 July). Roman wonders what the latest FBI crime statistics might actually mean, and discusses how criminologists and law enforcement experts try to interpret and evaluate crime statistcs:
Even though information costs are dropping quickly, criminal justice data are harder than ever to find. Key sources, such as those tracking drug use patterns or describing each criminal incident, have been discontinued or underutilized.
If this crime spike does herald a long-term trend, steps to strengthen data resources, anti-crime initiatives, and other tools need to be taken now, before negative momentum precipitates a crisis. It would help if we knew where to start: Drugs? Gangs? Demographics? Economics? Domestic violence? Again, policymakers and those who deal in policy information don’t know.
He concludes that although there are many theories about what causes crime, and what might stop it, “none of the theories described here can be easily tested until the federal government gets serious about understanding what causes crime in this country. And without that understanding, little can be done to stop crime.”
JACK THE RIPPER: And finally, New Criminologist (16 July) unveils yet another Ripper suspect and wonders has the true identity of Jack the Ripper been revealed at last? (Hint: probably not.) A Polish-Jewish barber named Aaron Kosminski is identified by Chief Inspector Donald Swanson, in annotations to his boss’s memoirs.
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