How to spot a murderer's brain

Scans of a normal brain, left, beside that of murderer Antonio Bustamante, who was spared the death penalty after a jury was shown these pictures. Photograph: Public domain

Adrian Raine, who describes himself as a neurocriminologist, moved from Britain to the US.

In Britain, the causes of crime were allowed to be exclusively social and environmental, the result of disturbed or impoverished nurture, rather than fated and genetic nature. To suggest otherwise ... was to doom yourself to an absence of funding.

Raine cites two very recent brain-imaging studies to back this up. One is a study in New Mexico in which prisoners are scanned on release. "What they are discovering is that if the functioning of the anterior cingulate, part of the limbic system, is lower than normal before release, they are twice as likely to be reconvicted in the next three years. And that marker is more accurate a guide than all other social factors," Raine says. A second study apparently shows if a released prisoner has a significantly smaller volume in the amygdala, the almond-shaped part of the brain crucial for processing memory and emotion, he or she is three times more likely to reoffend. "Now, this is only two studies, but what they are beginning to show is proof of concept, that if we added neurological factors into the equation we could do a better job at predicting future behaviour."

It is perhaps not too wildly far-fetched to imagine that such scans will one day be as routine as immunisation programmes; the bigger question then will be how we begin to react to the results. Raine rather likes the idea of public health programmes as crime prevention: "The teenage brain is still very malleable.

What, exactly, was the purpose of that post?

Cain and Able.

Oh; it WOULD be nice to use a video image of the inside of someones head to make SURE that they didn't kill an innocent person AGAIN; but, would we not save MORE if we could STOP them before the act the FIRST time?

I wonder what the statistics say about RELEASED murderers.

Do THEY kill more; percentage-wise, than the general population?

Do THEY kill more; percentage-wise, than the general population?

Dunno.

But IIRC, Cornelia Wallace, wife of George, had Alabama prisoners as part of the household staff at the governor's residence in Montgomery.

She said she much preferred the convicted murderers to the other felons. They apparently weren't as conniving as the embezzles, muggers, thieves and other common criminals.

but, would we not save MORE if we could STOP them before the act the FIRST time?

Oh, yes, of course.

The key word in your question is "if" and "if" is the biggest and most dangerous little word in the English language.

"If" we had the ability to reliably predict who would become a murderer, we could do that. But (another dangerous word!) BUT, until such a time as we can demonstrate that we actually do have that ability, the cost to an otherwise free society of some over-arching all-powerful self-absorbed and self-interested government deciding whither the threat and having the ability to lock up any uppity citizen because they might some day commit a crime is simply too high.

We can survive a few thousands or even tens of thousands random murders. (Current rate: about 15,000/year)

We cannot survive the systematic rounding up of tens of millions or even millions of potential troublemakers.

Do you seriously want this or any other administration to have that power?

Keep in mind that Bill Ayers, just a guy in Obama's neighborhood, just a guy he barely knew, in whose living room Obama launched his political career, openly advocated murdering 25,000,000 Americans, simply because it would be easier than attempting to "re-educate" them.

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