The Criminal Brain: Understanding Biological Theories of Crime

Preface

xi Preface All early theories of crime were biological. Indeed, until the early 20th century, biological theories and criminology were virtually synonymous. But then biological theories were pushed aside by sociological explanations of criminal behavior. Although a few die-hard eugenicists kept biological theories alive, by the end of World War II, when people realized what the Nazis had done in the name of biology, these explanations were firmly rejected and consigned to the dustbin of history—to stay there, many hoped, forever. Biological theorizing was not dead, however, but only dormant. Even in the 1960s, when sociological deviance theories were at the height of their influence, biological criminology was staging a comeback. Developing slowly at first and emerging mainly in genetics, neuroscience, and psychology, it gathered momentum as the century came to a close. Many criminologists were insufficiently aware of this new and growing body of research on criminal biology. I was no exception, and to the extent that I was aware of it, like other sociologically oriented criminologists I dismissively lumped the new work with Nazi science, biological determinism, and gulag-like mental hospitals. Yet as I read more deeply, I discovered that much of the new work was scientifically persuasive and that it differed radically from its predecessors. Gone were the determinist, antienvironmentalist explanations of earlier periods. Gone, in fact, was the nature-nurture split itself, with its simplistic assumption that the causes of human behavior can be neatly sorted into two categories, one biological and the other environmental. While many of us weren’t looking, scientists had adopted a new mode of explanation, the biosocial model that promises to dominate criminology and other behavioral sciences for decades to come. The 21st century, so often touted as “the century of biology” in general, is likely to become the biosocial century in criminology. xii Preface The biosocial model recognizes an interaction of biological and social forces. Acknowledging that we are all biological beings, it pictures social forces acting on biology much as a landscape acts on the river running through it, channeling and even redirecting its course. If a poor woman cannot afford nutritious food while she is pregnant—a socioeconomic cause—her baby may be born with biological deficits that place it at greater risk for later criminal behavior than the baby of a well-nourished mother. If young children are traumatized by abuse or even by witnessing abuse, not only do they not forget about it—the traditional view—but the trauma can alter the development of their brains in ways that encourage later criminal behavior. In the new view, the biological and social causes of crime twine together inseparably, constantly interacting. The river and landscape shape one another. This is the approach of much of the new biocriminology. We may be critical of it, but it is crucial that we at least understand it. To foster that understanding is one of the purposes of this book. Given the dangerous potential of biological theories of crime—their apparent implication that we might be able to change offenders’ biology, or that we should prevent them from reproducing—laypeople and specialists alike need to learn how to evaluate research and policy in this area. Biocriminological ideas often have the ring of truth. In a society like ours, saturated with biological assumptions and inclined to explain phenomena biologically—not just crime but sexual preference, intelligence, and the love of peanut butter—we are primed to accept them. Yet we know from experience that today’s scientific truths may become tomorrow’s castoffs. How, then, can we decide when to act on the seemingly hardscientific findings of biocriminology? How can we prepare for a future in which demagogues may propose crime-control programs based on biology? My approach to such questions is to put them in historical context, analyzing how past biological theories of crime related to the social situations in which they emerged, and trying to draw lessons from those examples for the future. The story told here is in many respects the story of the emergence and growth of scientific criminology itself. I investigate the production of criminology over time, looking at how research on crime was defined and redefined as a science, how it reacted to the hard-science discoveries of different eras, and how it was colored by broader political currents. By tracing the birth and growth of enduring ideas in criminology, as well as by recognizing historical patterns in the interplay of politics and [18...