The Anatomy of Violence

by Adrian Raine

  Copyright © 2013 by Adrian Raine

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

  Pantheon Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-307-90778-3

  Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-307-37884-2

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Raine, Adrian.

  The anatomy of violence : the biological roots of crime / Adrian Raine.

  Pages cm

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 978-0-307-37884-2 (hardback)

  1. Violence—Physiological aspects. 2. Violence—Psychological aspects.

  I. Title.

  RC569.5.V55R35 2013 616.85’82—dc23 2012036952

  www.pantheonbooks.com

  Cover design and illustration by Kelly & Cardon Webb

  Book design by Soonyoung Kwon

  v3.1

  To my sons, Andrew and Philip, in the hope that you will never fall by the wayside as so many in this book have, but will instead move along into happy and fulfilled lives. Don’t worry too much about where the train is going—just decide to get on board for wherever it will take you on life’s adventures. Believe in the spirit of giving at Christmas, remember Tintin, and never forget Sammy Jankis!

  “Oh, Agent Starling, you think you can dissect me with this blunt little tool?”

  Hannibal Lecter admonishing Clarice Starling for using a self-report instrument to assess him in Jonathan Demme’s movie Silence of the Lambs

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Preface

  Introduction

  1. BASIC INSTINCTS

  How Violence Evolved

  2. SEEDS OF SIN

  The Genetic Basis to Crime

  3. MURDEROUS MINDS

  How Violent Brains Malfunction

  4. COLD-BLOODED KILLERS

  The Autonomic Nervous System

  5. BROKEN BRAINS

  The Neuroanatomy of Violence

  6. NATURAL-BORN KILLERS

  Early Health Influences

  7. A RECIPE FOR VIOLENCE

  Malnutrition, Metals, and Mental Health

  8. THE BIOSOCIAL JIGSAW PUZZLE

  Putting the Pieces Together

  9. CURING CRIME

  Biological Interventions

  10. THE BRAIN ON TRIAL

  Legal Implications

  11. THE FUTURE

  Where Will Neurocriminology Take Us?

  Notes

  Index

  Illustrations

  Other Books by This Author

  Preface

  It’s July 19, 2012, and it’s as hot as the hobs of hell here in Philadelphia. The air-conditioning in my work office conked out, so I came home to an airy upstairs library room to write this preface. I should have been filming a crime documentary this afternoon with a crew from Chicago, but they had their equipment stolen this morning. That’s not a surprise, though, as crime strikes all the time here in Philadelphia. Yesterday, I was dealing with two police detectives—Lydon and Boyle—here at my house, which had been burgled yesterday. Just what you want when you come back after midnight from Hong Kong. But I live close to my data, which is one reason I reside here in West Philadelphia.

  Looking around this upstairs library, I’m surrounded by hundreds of rare-edition books on crime and violence that the burglar didn’t take. I suppose he’s not as interested as we are in what causes crime. They’re not my books, mind you. They belong to the people who lived here during the seventy-year period before I moved in. Most belong to Marvin Wolfgang, a world-renowned criminologist who, beginning in 1969, sat and wrote in this very library room. For the thirty years before that, Thorsten Sellin, another world-leading criminologist and Wolfgang’s PhD supervisor, lived here, having bought the house just seven weeks before the outbreak of World War II. I am at his desk. For three-quarters of a century between the two of them—professor and mentor—these intellectual giants in sociology redefined the field of criminology at the University of Pennsylvania, where I myself now work.

  Given that remarkable criminological legacy, my mind inevitably turns to a historical perspective on the fundamental question addressed by this book. Is there a significant biological contribution to the causes and cures of crime? It turns out that that idea was all the rage 150 years ago, when an Italian doctor named Cesare Lombroso broke with intellectual tradition and, taking a novel empirical approach to studying crime, tried to persuade the world of a basis to crime residing in the brain. But as the twentieth century progressed, what was once an innovative viewpoint quickly fizzled out and sociological perspectives took center stage. During that time no criminologist worth his or her salt would have anything to do with an anatomy of violence or the biology of bad behavior.

  Except, that is, the sociologist whose ghost lingers close to me beside the fireplace in this upstairs library overlooking Locust Street. Marvin Wolfgang documented in a far-reaching historical analysis of Cesare Lombroso that never in the history of criminology has a person been simultaneously more eulogized and more condemned.1 He noted how Lombroso continues to be held up as a straw man for attack by those hostile to a biological theory of crime causation. He recognized the clear limitations in Lombroso’s research, yet simultaneously saw the enormous contributions that this Italian made.

  Toward the end of his own career, Wolfgang himself became convinced that there was—in part—a biological, cerebral basis to crime. His mentor Thorsten Sellin similarly believed that Lombroso’s biological perspective, focusing as it did on the criminal rather than the crime, was unprecedented in its vitality and influence.2 Sharing their home and library as I do at this moment, I can hardly disagree with them.

  Yet most in the field of criminology would disagree. Biological research on violence was vilified in the 1970s and 1980s, during my formative years as a scientist. Amid interdisciplinary rivalries the perception was that researchers like me were at best biological determinists who ignored social processes—and at worst racist eugenicists.

  Perhaps because of a rebellious and stubborn streak running through me, that negative perspective has never deterred me throughout my thirty-five years of researching the biology of crime. Nevertheless, working as I have within the confines of top-security prisons and ivory-tower universities, I have been shut off from a wider audience who might be just as excited as I am about what new insights a biological perspective can offer. It is that desire to share this research with a wider audience that inspired me to write this book.

  In that context I owe an enormous debt of thanks to Jonathan Kellerman for encouraging me to write a popular book about my work. Jonathan, as one of the world’s foremost writers of crime fiction, has himself written a provocative nonfiction science book, Savage Spawn, on the causes of crime in the wake of a horrific schoolyard shooting.3 About fifteen years ago we had lunch together. Jonathan has a PhD in clinical psychology, had read and absorbed my academic work, and believed I had something important to share with others. He put me in touch with his own agent, and I wrote a proposal. It came to nothing. At that time, no matter how I tried, I could not get any publisher interested.

  But times changed in those fifteen years. On the tails of the genome project, societies across the world have begun to realize the importance of genetic and biological factors in a whole host of processes—and not just medical conditions. Serendipity struck. Eric Lupfer, an alumnus of the University of Pennsylvania and a literary agent at William Morris Endeavor, read a questi
on-and-answer article about my work in our university’s magazine. Eric too recognized the potential public interest in a book on the anatomy of violence, and thanks to his outreach and vision, here I am completing the book in this historic room. I could not have had a more supportive, helpful agent. Sincere thanks are also due to Jeff Alexander at Pantheon for his splendid edits, vision, and guidance in the final throes of my writing—the time spent with him has been magical. Josie Kals and Jocelyn Miller at Pantheon provided invaluable support and help, and I am particularly indebted to my copy editor, Kate Norris, for her meticulous and careful fine-tuning of the manuscript. Thanks also to Helen Conford at Penguin for her strong enthusiasm and encouragement throughout this long march. Eric, Jeff, and Helen have together provided me with a wonderful opportunity for which I am truly grateful.

  That sea change in opinion I mentioned is also filtering through into academia. Leading criminologists across the world are now beginning to follow in Wolfgang and Sellin’s footsteps. They are recognizing the cross-disciplinary potential of a biological approach not as a competitive challenge, but as a cross-fertilizing joint enterprise that combines social with biological perspectives. Even the world’s premier sociology journal, American Sociological Review, is beginning to publish molecular genetic research on crime and violence. Nobody would have dreamed that just fifteen years ago. Now the new subdiscipline of neurocriminology is quickly sweeping us back to the future.

  Friedrich Lösel, the director of the Institute of Criminology at the University of Cambridge, was a kind host to me there while I completed this book. In Cambridge I benefited enormously from discussions with Sir Anthony Bottoms, Manuel Eisner, David Farrington, and Per-Olof Wikström, as well as Friedrich himself. At the University of Pennsylvania, Bill Laufer worked with me to bridge my imaging research with his expertise on white-collar crime. Martha Farah was pivotal in introducing me to neuroethics, while Stephen Morse has tutored me patiently in neurolaw. It has been an honor to work with such extraordinary colleagues. I should also thank Richard Perry, who endowed my chair, as well as Amy Gutmann, who had faith in my controversial work and hired me into her Penn Integrates Knowledge initiative.

  Interest in the biology of violence goes well beyond academia and into the media. Erin Conroy at William Morris Endeavor had masterly intuition in showing Anatomy of Violence to Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa, who then obtained a pilot production commitment for it from CBS. My thanks to you, Erin, and also to you, Howard, for finding something in this book to spark your interest for a new TV series; it has truly meant a lot to me.

  So very many research collaborators, colleagues, and academic friends have helped and inspired me over the years. Among these I am especially indebted in different ways to Freda Adler, Rebecca Ang, Josef Aoun, Laura Baker, Irv Biederman, John Brekke, Patty Brennan, Monte Buchsbaum, Ty Cannon, Avshalom Caspi, Antonio and Hannah Damasio, Mike Dawson, Barbra Dickerman, Ken Dodge, Annis Fung, Daniel Fung, Lisa Gatzke-Kopp, Chenbo Han, Robert Hare, Lori LaCasse, Jerry Lee, Tatia Lee, Rolf and Magda Loeber, Zhong-lin Lu, Don Lynam, John MacDonald, Tashneem Mahoomed, Sarnoff Mednick, Terrie Moffitt, Joe Newman, Chris Patrick, Angela Scarpa, Richard Tremblay, and Stephanie van Goozen. Their friendship, support, and inspiration have meant a lot to me over the years. My students at the University of Pennsylvania have been a true joy to instruct and supervise. Among many I must particularly acknowledge the “Gang of Four”—Yu Gao, Andrea Glenn, Robert Schug, and Yaling Yang—for the privilege of learning from such a talented, gifted, and productive research team.

  We gain inspiration from many sources in different ways. I am especially indebted to my PhD supervisor, Peter Venables, at York University, for his support and encouragement over the past thirty-five years, particularly during the four years I spent working in prison, where for seven months I simply gave up on completing my PhD. He has been a very special person in my life. Dick Passingham did more than anyone in tutoring me to think clearly and simply when I was an undergraduate at Oxford University. In a different vein, Larry Sherman was pivotal in bringing me to criminology at the University of Pennsylvania five years ago. To him I owe an enormous debt of thanks. His vision in believing that neurocriminology is a field of the future has been truly inspirational. Marty Seligman gave me thoughtful advice on writing this book and sparked in my mind one of the futuristic scenarios in the final chapter.

  I learned a great deal from discussions with Julia Lisle, Ed Lock, and John, Marcus, and Sally Sims on social and legal issues in the last chapters. But most of all, I’m extremely grateful to my family—Philip, Andrew, and Jianghong—for being so very patient with me and understanding why I have had so little free time with them of late. They have given me the joy, support, and love that have kept me moving throughout the course of this writing.

  INTRODUCTION

  It was the summer of 1989 in Bodrum, a beautiful seaside resort on the southwestern coast of Turkey, soaked in sun, history, and nightlife. I was on vacation and it had been a long day. I had taken the bus from Iráklion, where I had caught the second-worst case of food poisoning I had ever had in my life, including two days in bed throwing up with backbreaking pain.

  It was very hot that July night, and I could not sleep. I had kept the windows open to try to stay cool. I tossed and turned, still somewhat sick and sleepless—in and out of consciousness, as my girlfriend slept in the room’s other single bed. It was just after three a.m. when I became aware of a stranger standing above me. At that time I was teaching a class on criminal behavior, and I would tell my students that when they became aware of an intruder in their apartment, they should feign being asleep. Ninety percent of the time thieves just wanted to grab the goods and then get out. Let them go—then call 911. You run no risk and have a fighting chance of getting your possessions back without a violent confrontation.

  So what did I do when I saw the intruder at my bedside? I fought. In the milliseconds that it took my visual cortex to interpret the shadowy figure and signal this to the amygdala, which jump-starts the fight-flight response, I leaped out of my bed. In little more than a second, I had instinctively grabbed the intruder. I was on automatic pilot.

  Information from the senses reaches the amygdala twice as fast as it gets to the frontal lobe. So before my frontal cortex could rein back the amygdala’s aggressive response, I’d already made a threatening move toward the burglar. This in turn immediately activated the intruder’s fight-flight system. Unfortunately for me, his instinct to fight also kicked in.

  The next thing I knew I was being hit so quickly that it felt like the man had four fists. He hit me so hard on the head that I saw a streak of white light flash before my eyes. He also hit me in the throat. He seemed to hit me all over.

  I was violently thrown against the door. I felt the doorknob and I must confess the thought of escape sprang into my mind. But at that instant I heard piercing screams from my girlfriend, struggling with the man. She eventually ended up with bruises on her arms, but I think these were defense wounds and that the intruder only wanted to keep her quiet. Seeing them struggle, the instinctive reaction that had originally come upon me when I was in bed returned. I leaped at him again and somehow managed to push him out of the open window.

  In that instant I felt an immediate sense of safety and relief. But the euphoria evaporated after I turned on the light switch and saw the blood running down my chest. I tried to shout out, but what came out of my mouth was a hoarse whimper.

  Completely unknown to me in the midst of that mismatched contest was that the assailant had been holding a knife. Quite a long one, with a red handle and a six-inch blade, it turned out.1 But I was lucky. As I warded off his blows with my arms, the blade of the cheap knife had snapped off, leaving only a few millimeters of metal left on the handle. So when he attempted to cut my throat, the damage was far less than it might have been.

  The police arrived surprisingly quickly. The hotel was right beside an army barracks. There had been a sentry on duty wh
o had heard the shouts and screams and he raised the alarm. The hotel had been quickly surrounded, so that when the police arrived they believed that the perpetrator was still inside the hotel.

  Meanwhile I was taken to the hospital. It was rudimentary and bare. I was laid on my back on what felt like a hard concrete slab, while the doctor put a few stitches in my throat. The window of the hospital room was open, and I could hear in the distance that a party was still going on. The strains of the music wafted through the window, the Beatles’ “Hard Day’s Night,” of all songs.

  Afterward, the police wanted me back at the hotel to go over what had happened. All the residents were now standing in the lobby, even though it must have been about five a.m. by then.

  The police had thoroughly gone through the rooms of all the residents in search of my assailant. I learned later that one man had looked a bit flushed when the police pulled him from his bed, and he had a red mark on his torso that looked fresh. He was in the upstairs room right next to me. So he was one of the two suspects waiting for me when I entered the lobby.

  Both were young Turkish men. Both were naked from the waist up—just as the attacker had been. One was quite a good-looking man, but otherwise there was nothing out of the ordinary about him. The second suspect had a rougher look. He was also stocky and muscular, and what flashed through my mind at that moment was that he had the classic mesomorphic physique that early criminologists believed typified criminals.2 He also had a striking scar on his upper arm. His nose looked as if it had been broken. His looks persuaded me. He had to be the man who’d tried to cut my throat.

  The police pulled him aside and had a quiet word with him. But not so quiet that the manager of the hotel couldn’t overhear and translate the conversation back to me. The police told him they simply wanted to clear up the case, and if he’d admit that he was the perpetrator, they would let him go. So the gullible guy made his admission, and was promptly arrested.