The Anatomy of Violence

by Adrian Raine

  It may be even less of a choice—and more of a future sociopolitical tipping point that we have seen so many times before—that will bring about a change. Let’s now delve into that future.

  THE LOMBROSO PROGRAM

  It’s 2034. The past decades have seen enormous efforts spent on reducing crime through social programs to increase equality. But it’s not working. The Internet, which so effectively democratized knowledge, has inadvertently resulted in a much smarter breed of crooks who, though failures at school, have succeeded in home-schooling themselves on high-tech ways to evade the surveillance of global CCTV. Clearance rates for homicide have moved from a national high of 65 percent in 201026 to 38 percent in 2034—arrests of suspects were dropping precariously. Serial killings are on the rise. Prisons are not just full to capacity, they are bursting at the seams. Back in 2012, the United States made up 5 percent of the world’s population but was incarcerating 24 percent of the world’s prisoners. That number has grown to 31 percent. Police are working around the clock on overloaded portfolios of unresolved cases.

  The public is growing enraged at decades of failure and the increasingly intolerable condition of living under stifling and ineffective public surveillance. People are fed up with the long legacy of attempted rehabilitation efforts, and alarmed at well-publicized accounts of furloughed criminals committing fresh crimes. But it’s more than that. The economic cost of crime is now astronomical. Back in 2010, the cost of homicide in the United States was estimated at over $300 billion—more than the combined budgets of the Departments of Education, Justice, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Labor, and Homeland Security.27 Way back in 1999, it was estimated to consume 11.9 percent of GDP,28 but in 2034 it is gobbling up 21.8 percent. The more crime got out of control, the less the government could spend on education, health, and housing—and that just fed into more and more crime.

  The tipping point came in 2033, when one “low-risk” mentally ill offender was released early on supposedly supervised medication to help relieve the massive prison overcrowding. Through an administrative oversight his dangerousness assessment report had been mixed up with that of another offender. He was high-risk—not low-risk. Just two weeks after his release he held up a store in Washington, D.C., during which a young woman was killed in cross fire between the ex-con and the police. By sheer bad luck the victim was the U.S. attorney general’s daughter.

  This incident, combined with the mounting economic and public concern, now leads the government to launch the LOMBROSO program—Legal Offensive on Murder: Brain Research Operation for the Screening of Offenders. The logic behind LOMBROSO is surprisingly simple. Back at the turn of the century, in 2006, it was known that 22 percent of all those arrested for murder were probationers and parolees—those who had been released from prison.29 Criminologists in 2009 had then used early machine-learning statistical techniques to predict which parolees would go on to commit homicide. They had only basic demographic and prior-crime data to work with then, and yet they were still able to correctly classify 43 percent as likely to be charged with homicide only two years after their release.30 Of course there was still the false-positive problem—those who were predicted to commit homicide but who did not.31 But a replication study with a longer follow-up period provided better results. By the 2020s, interdisciplinary neurocriminologists, statisticians, and social scientists improved the predictive power of this model by adding brain, genetic, and psychological risk factors into the equation. By the early 2030s they took it a step further by developing algorithms for violence in the community at large. Then, in 2034, the LOMBROSO program was put into place.32 It was a chance for a failing government to reverse its declining popularity in the polls.

  Under LOMBROSO, all males in society aged eighteen and over have to register at their local hospital for a quick brain scan and DNA testing. One simple finger prick for one drop of blood that takes ten seconds. Then a five-minute brain scan for the “Fundamental Five Functions”: First, a structural scan provides the brain’s anatomy. Second, a functional scan shows resting brain activity. Third, enhanced diffusion-tensor imaging is taken to assess the integrity of the white-fiber system in the brain, assessing intricate brain connectivity. Fourth is a reading of the brain’s neurochemistry that has been developed from magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Fifth and finally, the cellular functional scan assesses expression of 23,000 different genes at the cellular level. The computerization of all medical, school, psychological, census, and neighborhood data makes it easy to combine these traditional risk variables alongside the vast amount of DNA and brain data to form an all-encompassing biosocial data set.

  All those convicted of homicide in the United States have been assessed on the Fundamental Five Functions. This was going on for research purposes well before the homicidal tipping point arrived. An equal number of noncriminals was drawn from the community as a comparison group. Fourth-generation machine-learning techniques looked for complex patterns of linear and nonlinear relationships between these predictor variables and the homicide-control grouping. One conceptual advance that was learned in the previous decade and that enhanced the accuracy of violence prediction was the critical importance of factoring in the interaction between social and biological variables. The samples of murderers and controls were randomly divided into three separate pools of data. The first pool of murderers and controls was used as a training set—allowing machine-learning techniques to “learn” how to predict homicide. The second pool of data was used to test out the prediction formula to see if it held water. After further refinement, the formula was tested and finalized on the third data set.

  The result is not perfect prediction, but it is pretty darn good—good enough for an outraged society. Those tagged as LP-V (Lombroso Positive—Violence) as a group have a 79 percent chance of committing a serious violent offense within the next five years. Those classified as LP-S (Lombroso Positive—Sex) have an 82 percent chance of committing either rape or pedophilic offenses. Finally, those classified as LP-H (Lombroso Positive—Homicide) have a 51 percent chance of killing someone in the next five years. Some have dual designations.

  The program works like this: those who test positive—the LPs—are held in indefinite detention. In light of the administrative lapse that originally sparked LOMBROSO when test results were mixed up, LPs are given the legal right to challenge the findings and be retested by an independent authority. The detention centers are highly secure, but are not the harsh holding bays of decades gone by. They are equipped as a home away from home. Conjugal visits are allowed on weekends, albeit under surveillance that is a bit too close for comfort for the partners concerned. There are full recreational and educational services. They are allowed to vote. The LPs have full communication access to their family and even friends—after appropriate security checks on those concerned. It sounds quite cushy, but remember that the LPs have not actually committed a crime. Perhaps the main drawback is who they live with, housed as they are in facilities full of other LPs—time bombs waiting to explode.

  Every LP is reassessed every year, as the changes brought about by the detention environment and treatment can bring about significant epigenetic change and hence a change in their LP status. They can be downgraded to tagged probation where they will be back in the community and kept under continuous auditory and visual scrutiny. With time they could entirely lose their LP status, while others could also eventually age out of their LP designation.

  Release is also possible, and long-term detention can be avoided. The LP-S group, for example, can elect to have surgical castration and will be set free immediately, although they have to continue to undergo mandatory weekly testosterone checks to ensure that they are not taking hormone-replacement therapy. Others, depending on their bio-profile, can also be placed on mandatory medication and tested at halfway houses. Most releases, however, are the result of the intensive treatment programs implemented in the LOMBROSO centers.

  Th
ese are scientific interventions, deriving from the experimental criminology movement beginning in 1998 espousing practice based on randomized controlled trials.33 Society accepted that serious recidivistic crime was a clinical disorder when new biological treatments were shown to work. State-of-the-art biopsychosocial treatments are intensively explored for all LPs, but are tailored to their unique biosocial profile. Alongside more traditional cognitive-behavioral therapy sessions, treatments range all the way from sophisticated derivatives of the earlier deep-brain stimulation34 and noninvasive transcranial-magnetic-stimulation techniques35 to next-generation medications that enhance prefrontal functioning. Sophisticated nutritional programs that include omega-3 as well as mindfulness training that incorporates fMRI biofeedback are also options.

  What has created the most consternation to the public is LP-P status—Lombroso Part-Positive. Risk assessment is essentially dimensional—there are degrees of risk. LP-Ps are not exactly high-risk, but they are not low risk either, and need careful monitoring. In the event of a serious offense occurring that cannot be cleared reasonably quickly, law-enforcement agencies have access to the identities of those in the pool of LP-Ps to help narrow their search. They effectively become prime suspects. Politicians skillfully negotiated a solution to the protests that broke out over the invasion of civil liberties and the potential threat to employment and insurance. There is quadruple encryption of the data to protect identities, with only senior police officials having the ability and authority to decrypt the LP-P database on a case-by-case basis.

  At first there were remonstrations over excessive government control and breach of civil liberties. But the government has been able to come up with scientific backing for the validity of its policy. Back in 2009, the importance of science and evidence-based practice had transformed the attorney general’s office through the pioneering efforts of Laurie Robinson, then the assistant attorney general.36 The government argued that, just as we screen for cancer to prevent deaths, we should also screen for violence to prevent loss of life. Critics railed against the enormous expense of the new program, but the government ingeniously issued bonds that were bought by private investors to help finance it. If it works—and the evidence suggests it will—private speculators will get a handsome return on their investment. With increasing political debate, it was argued that the only people who really had anything to worry about are those at high risk for committing homicide. That shut the protestors up.

  THE NATIONAL CHILD SCREENING PROGRAM

  It’s now 2039, and five years after the introduction of the LOMBROSO program. An independent analysis was conducted on the efficacy of the government’s program. After years of gradual increases, the homicide rate has been cut nearly 25 percent. Similar reductions have been seen for rape, pedophilia, and serious crime. Government spending on health, education, and housing have increased, given the savings on the cost of crime that they shared with private investors. Civil libertarians are flabbergasted by the fact that a scheme they thought would be racially prejudicial actually resulted in a lower proportion of minorities being detained as LPs. The jury system of the 2010s was undoubtedly racially biased, with a black offender more likely to be convicted of the same crime as a white offender.37 LOMBROSO, in contrast, is scrupulously objective and data-driven, and the results have pleased civil libertarians and minority leaders alike. After all, it was known all along that minorities are disproportionately the victims of violence,38 and now they are disproportionately benefiting from violence reduction.

  Everyone feels discernibly safer. Oddly enough, many LPs are not too dissatisfied with their lot. Conditions are fairly reasonable. The food is quite good and nutritious. Those with partners have sex every weekend but without the social obligations and hassles that go with it. Their kids are not around to have screaming arguments with. There is no work to produce work pressure. They have TV, movies, books, gym, swimming, basketball, and other recreational activities. There is less stress all around. Even the treatment is not a problem, and in fact the therapy sessions are stimulating and provocative and something they look forward to. Ironically, what they least like is being around people like themselves, the other LPs. Overall, though, it isn’t all that bad—a bit like being in a summer camp but without having to pay. Or like resting up in the hospital but without feeling ill.

  The astonishing success of the program was one of the reasons for the reelection of the party that had initially introduced LOMBROSO. And yet there is still a significant level of serious teenage violence, with two separate mass killings in shopping malls in the same year involving young teenagers. Homicide rates are also not as low as they were in the good old days of 2013, even though they have come down. The government and its scientific advisors sat back from the glow of the independent review that lauded the program as a breakthrough. They hunched around a conference table and thought it through. “It’s never too late to prevent violence” had been the mantra of the scientific advisors in 2034. Now, in 2039, they have a new prevention mantra—“It’s never too early to stop the rot.” If LOMBROSO is working well with a screening at eighteen years of age, then why not screen earlier?

  In 2040, the National Child Screening Program (NCSP) is announced. All children ten years of age are given a comprehensive medical, psychological, social, and behavioral evaluation that incorporates all prior school, social, and medical-record data. Anxiety and stress in youngsters are on the rise, just as autism was at the turn of the century, together with obesity, depression, and a host of other medical and psychiatric conditions. The screening program is ostensibly an evaluation of dyslexia and learning disabilities, allergies, vision, and obesity—indeed, all physical and mental health problems that go along with children entering puberty earlier than they used to. What is also included in the health screening under the rubric of “behavior problems” are “emotion-regulation problems” and “violence potential.” After all, violence is now widely viewed as an international public-health problem.

  Prospective longitudinal studies are increasingly documenting the biosocial package of early factors giving rise to adult crime. Together with advanced machine-learning statistical techniques, they are doing a decent job of predicting future crime from childhood data. Not as well as LOMBROSO did at eighteen, because it’s harder to predict crime from an earlier age—but with persuasive predictive power nonetheless.

  Under the new NCSP, parents of some ten-year-olds are informed that their child is a rotten apple. The NCSP determines that little Johnny has a 48 percent chance of developing into a serious violent offender in adulthood, and a 14 percent chance of committing homicide. That’s the bad news.

  The good news, however, is that the NCSP has developed residential treatment programs that should be successful in cutting these odds by more than half, to 18 percent for serious violence and 6 percent for homicide. It does, of course, mean that Johnny will have to be taken away for two years for intensive biosocial therapy, but after that he will be back home.

  Yes, it is true that it is not a perfect solution. There will still be a chance that he will become an offender anyway, even if his parents do opt for the residential treatment. And yes, the overall odds that he will become a serious violent offender without intervention are a fraction less than half. But there you have it—it’s your choice. What will you decide for your little Johnny?

  What would you decide if you were Johnny’s mother or father? Put yourself in their situation. Do you want your child whisked off to an institution for treatment and branded as a potential future offender? What are you going to tell your relatives and friends and neighbors? Think of the stigma. What about Johnny losing his friends? And what bad new friends will he make in this residential program for criminals-in-the-making that might make real a self-fulfilling prophecy?

  On the other hand … are you just going to stand by and do nothing? You know full well that Johnny has a very significant chance of ruining not just his own life, but your life, and the liv
es of innocent victims. These are lives you could save if you only act.

  On balance, the majority of parents give up their children for residential treatment. Bill and Faith Kinkel decide to put their son Kip into treatment—it is, if nothing else, a welcome break from their endless struggle to get him back on the rails. Yes, in the NCSP even good parents like the Kinkels have children who are identified as violence-prone—it’s the well-off as well as the underserved who are affected.

  In 2042 there is a controversial change to the NCSP initiative after two eleven-year-old schoolchildren coldheartedly tortured and killed a three-year-old child, having abducted him from a shopping mall while his mother was distracted. The act was caught on the global CCTV network. It turned out that both of the killers had been identified by the NCSP the previous year as being in dire need of residential treatment, but their respective parents had elected to decline intervention. Analysts argued that children in the red zone likely have parents who do not have the best interests of their children at heart. They are not responsible parents and not good decision-makers—reasons their child is in the red zone in the first place. NCSP officials now need to act “in loco parentis”—to step into the parents’ shoes and make the decision. The treatment now becomes compulsory.

  Just two years later, in 2044, research analysts on the LOMBROSO program make another recommendation to the government that results in a further addendum to the National Child Screening Program. If a child is in the red zone, isn’t his biological father likely a bad apple too? What’s he up to these days? After all, like father, like son. Perhaps he missed his LP screen when he was eighteen. His new status as the biological parent of the offspring identified in the NCSP needs to be factored into the equation. He is now brought into detention pending reevaluation of his LP status; 2044 is slowly but surely sounding all too like 1984.