The Anatomy of Violence

by Adrian Raine

  What is the main message I want to leave you with? I want to suggest that society’s willingness to firmly grasp the neuroethical nettles that entangle neurocriminology, and to sensibly and cautiously integrate innovative clinical neuroscience findings with public policy, will be a critical ingredient for our future success in violence prevention. Building further on a public health approach to violence truly has the capacity to create a healthier future. We can seize the day, change tomorrow, and create a safer world for the next generation. An open and honest dialogue on the issues raised here will prepare the public for future developments—whatever they may be—and help facilitate future success in violence prevention.

  When we finally get to 2034, will it be utopia or dystopia? You may think that the future landscape I have painted has an Orwellian echo—but it need not have a bleak Orwellian ending. You may recall the chant from Orwell’s Animal Farm of “Four legs good, two legs better,” as the privileged pigs tottered around their underling animals on two trotters. Their propaganda had closed down the minds of their comrades and created a class-based, inequitable society. Winston Smith in the end of 1984 was reduced to doublethink—believing in two contradictory views. Perhaps the government’s LOMBROSO program, which would tell us we can protect society and rehabilitate offenders at the same time is a similar contradictory double message. Yet if we retain an open dialogue on these issues we can prise apart doublethink and both keep our cake and eat it too.

  I do believe that in tomorrow’s world we can rise above our feelings of retribution, reach out for rehabilitation, and engage in a more humane discourse on the causes of violence. After all, while we may disagree on the finer points, I believe we can all agree on our priority of preventing future violence. We can have a braver new world where sunshine replaces shadows. You can either stay where you are in the dark with our retributivist perspective, as I myself have been, or you can move ahead into a new day. We do have a choice—and you can choose.

  We cannot continue to maintain an uncompromising mind-set, where one perspective—social or biological—dominates the other in a stranglehold over who calls the shots in curbing violence. Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson in The Spirit of Compromise argue that in the polarized political arena, all sides need to give up ground in a mutual sacrifice for sound governance, adjusting long-cherished principles for the greater good.86 Achieving this in academic criminology is an enormous challenge, requiring traditional social scientists to reverse-thrust on their long-held beliefs and embrace the anatomy of violence—a new body of knowledge that can be suffocating to some in its sophistication. Yet standing steadfast on social principles can equally stifle progress. It is up to you the reader today to help us scientists surface for air, and with your civic perspective move us forward in reevaluating where we should stand tomorrow on the seething hotbeds of violence prevention.

  In the final analysis, you may decide to stand your ground and turn a blind eye to the science this book has summarized and the societal issues I have raised. You may want to believe that a biological basis to violence does not exist, or it’s going to be explained away in some manner. Like an ostrich evading the hunter, you may decide to bury your head in the sand. But if we do not make a move and act on the anatomy of violence, I believe this cancer will continue. And you had better watch out—the ostrich may get shot.

  My sincere hope is that you will not turn a blind eye to the science—I want those ostriches to be alive and well. Nevertheless, you may be completely convinced that the fundamental message of the anatomy of violence is profoundly misguided. But if you happen to be a Christian, consider the words of Oliver Cromwell when he spoke to the Church of Scotland against its intended alliance with King Charles II:

  I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you might be mistaken.87

  And if you are not a Christian, I beseech you in your own bowels—or any other part of your anatomy that you choose—to consider that we all have the capacity to be wrong. In dissecting the anatomy of violence, I have that capacity—don’t you too? More important than persuasion and conviction is open discussion, laying forth scientific reality, and allowing society to judiciously choose how to act in the ensuing light. My sincere hope is that our discussion will continue in the forthcoming decades and move us all into a safer and more humane society.

  Notes

  PREFACE

  1. Wolfgang, M. E. (1973). Cesare Lombroso. In H. Mannheim (ed.), Pioneers in Criminology, pp. 232–91. Montclair, N.J.: Patterson Smith.

  2. Sellin, T. (1937). The Lombrosian myth in criminology. American Journal of Sociology 42, 898–99.

  3. Kellerman, J. (1999). Savage Spawn: Reflections on Violent Children. New York: Random House.

  INTRODUCTION

  1. I was able to buy a replica of this knife at the Bodrum marketplace and realized it was a cheap knife, probably used more for threat and defense rather than as a serious weapon. I had it on my office desk at the University of Southern California as a memento until it was stolen by an office cleaner.

  2. Wilson, J. Q. & Herrnstein, R. (1985). Crime and Human Nature. New York: Simon & Schuster.

  1. BASIC INSTINCTS

  1. Horn, D. G. (2003). The Criminal Body: Lombroso and the Anatomy of Deviance. New York: Routledge.

  2. Gibson, M. (2002). Born to Crime: Cesare Lombroso and the Origins of Biological Criminology, p. 20. Westport, Conn.: Praeger.

  3. Wolfgang, M. E. (1973). Cesare Lombroso. In H. Mannheim (ed.), Pioneers in Criminology, pp. 232–91. Montclair, N.J.: Patterson Smith.

  4. Shakespeare, W. (1914). The Tempest, Act IV, Scene 1. London: Oxford University Press.

  5. Gibson, Born to Crime.

  6. Dawkins, R. (1976). The Selfish Gene. New York: Oxford University Press.

  7. Trivers, R. L. (1971). The evolution of reciprocal altruism. Quarterly Review of Biology 46, 35–57.

  8. Cleckley, H. C. (1976). The Mask of Sanity. St. Louis: Mosby.

  9. Hare, R. D. (2003). The Hare Psychopathy Checklist—Revised (PCL-R), 2nd ed. Toronto, Canada: Multi-Health Systems.

  10. Harpending, H. & Draper, P. (1988). Antisocial behavior and the other side of cultural evolution. In T. E. Moffitt and S. A. Mednick (eds.), Biological Contributions to Crime Causation, pp. 293–307. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff.

  11. Lee, R. B. & DeVore, B. I. (1976). Kalahari Hunter-Gatherers. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

  12. Murphy, Y. & Murphy, R. (1974). Women of the Forest. New York: Columbia University Press.

  13. Harpending & Draper, Antisocial behavior and the other side of cultural evolution.

  14. We should not take the parallel between the Mundurucú and psychopaths too far. The lifestyle of the male Mundurucú does not exactly parallel the Western male psychopath. Western psychopaths do not in general form long-term relationships with either sex, and do not coexist and engage in joint enterprises. In contrast, the male Mundurucú do engage in long-term interpersonal relationships with members of their own sex and engage in all-male cooperative efforts for the benefit of the whole settlement.

  15. Hare, R. D. (1980). A research scale for the assessment of psychopathy in criminal populations. Personality and Individual Differences 1, 111–19.

  16. Chagnon, N. A. (1988). Life histories, blood revenge, and warfare in a tribal population. Science 239, 985–92.

  17. Hare, R. D. (1993). Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of Psychopaths Amongst Us. New York: Guilford Press.

  18. Woodworth, M. & Porter, S. (2002). In cold blood: Characteristics of criminal homicides as a function of psychopathy. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 111, 436–45.

  19. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (2002). WISQARS Leading Causes of Death Reports, 1999–2007, http://webapp.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/leadcaus10.html.

  20. Overpeck, M. D., Brenner, R. A., Trumble, A. C., Trifiletti, L. B. & Berendes, H. W. (1998). Risk factors for infant homici
de in the United States. New England Journal of Medicine 339, 1211–16. While the first year of life is the time when you are most likely to be killed, for some ethnic groups this is rivaled by the risk of being a victim of homicide during adolescence and early adulthood.

  21. Ibid.

  22. Ibid.

  23. Daly, M. & Wilson, M. (1988). Evolutionary social psychology and family homicide. Science 242, 519–24.

  24. Wadsworth, J., Burnell, I., Taylor, B. & Butler, N. (1983). Family type and accidents in preschool-children. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 37, 100–104.

  25. Daly, M. & Wilson, M. (1988). Homicide. Hawthorne, N.Y.: Aldine de Gruyter.

  26. Lightcap, J. L., Kurland, J. A. & Burgess, R. L. (1982). Child-abuse—A test of some predictions from evolutionary-theory. Ethology and Sociobiology 3, 61–67.

  27. Daly & Wilson, Evolutionary social psychology and family homicide.

  28. Ibid.

  29. Ibid.

  30. Gottschall, J. A. & Gottschall, T. A. (2003). Are per-incident rape-pregnancy rates higher than per-incident consensual pregnancy rates? Human Nature 14, 1–20.

  31. Thornhill, R. & Palmer, C. (2000). A Natural History of Rape. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

  32. Singh, D., Dixson, B. J., Jessop, T. S., Morgan, B. & Dixson, A. F. (2010). Cross-cultural consensus for waist-hip ratio and women’s attractiveness. Evolution and Human Behavior 31, 176–81.

  33. Ward, T., Gannon, T. A. & Keown, K. (2006). Beliefs, values, and action: The judgment model of cognitive distortions in sexual offenders. Aggression and Violent Behavior 11, 323–40.

  34. Levin, R. J. & van Berlo, W. (2004). Sexual arousal and orgasm in subjects who experience forced or non-consensual sexual stimulation: A review. Journal of Clinical Forensic Medicine 11, 82–88.

  35. For counterarguments to the notion that orgasm can facilitate fertility and has an evolutionary basis, see Lloyd, A. E. (2005). The Case of the Female Orgasm: Bias in the Science of Evolution. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

  36. Polaschek, D.L.L., Ward, T. & Hudson, S. M. (1997). Rape and rapists: Theory and treatment. Clinical Psychology Review 17, 117–44.

  37. McKibbin, W. F., Shackelford, T. K., Goetz, A. T. & Starratt, V. G. (2008). Why do men rape? An evolutionary psychological perspective. Review of General Psychology 12, 86–97.

  38. Thornhill, N. W. & Thornhill, R. (1990). An evolutionary analysis of psychological pain following rape, vol. 1, The effects of victim’s age and marital status. Ethology and Sociobiology 11, 155–76.

  39. Russell, D.E.H. (1990). Rape in Marriage. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

  40. Buss, D. M. (2000). The Dangerous Passion: Why Jealousy Is as Necessary as Love and Sex. New York: Free Press.

  41. Daly & Wilson. Evolutionary social psychology and family homicide.

  42. Buss, D. M., Shackelford, T. K., Kirkpatrick, L. A., Choe, J. C., Lim, H. K., et al. (1999). Jealousy and the nature of beliefs about infidelity: Tests of competing hypotheses about sex differences in the United States, Korea, and Japan. Personal Relationships 6, 125–50.

  43. Andrews, P. W., Gangestad, S. W., Miller, G. F., Haselton, M. G., Thornhill, R., et al. (2008). Sex differences in detecting sexual infidelity: Results of a maximum likelihood method for analyzing the sensitivity of sex differences to underreporting. Human Nature: An Interdisciplinary Biosocial Perspective 19, 347–73.

  44. Goetz, A. T. & Causey, K. (2009). Sex differences in perceptions of infidelity: Men often assume the worst. Evolutionary Psychology 7, 253–63.

  45. Gage, A. J. & Hutchinson, P. L. (2006). Power, control, and intimate partner sexual violence in Haiti. Archives of Sexual Behavior 35, 11–24.

  46. Lalumiere, M. L., Harris, G. T., Quinsey, V. L. & Rice, M. E. (2005). The Causes of Rape: Understanding Individual Differences in Male Propensity for Sexual Aggression. Washington, D.C.: APA Press.

  47. Baker, R. (1996). Sperm Wars. New York: Basic Books.

  48. Buss, D. M. (2009). The multiple adaptive problems solved by human aggression. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 32, 271–72.

  49. Daly, M. & Wilson, M. (1990). Killing the competition: Female/female and male/male homicide. Human Nature 1, 81–107.

  50. Wilson, M. & Daly, M. (1985). Competitiveness, risk-taking, and violence: The young male syndrome. Ethology and Sociobiology 6, 59–73.

  51. Buss, D. M. & Shackelford, T. K. (1997). Human aggression in evolutionary psychological perspective. Clinical Psychology Review 17, 605–19.

  52. Tremblay, R. E., Japel, C., Perusse, D., McDuff, P., Bolvin, M., et al. (1999). The search for the age of onset of physical aggression: Rousseau and Bandura revisited. Criminal Behavior and Mental Health 9, 8–23.

  53. Archer, J. (2009). Does sexual selection explain human sex differences in aggression? Behavioral and Brain Sciences 32, 249–311.

  54. Ibid.

  55. Bettencourt, B. A. & Miller, N. (1996). Gender differences in aggression as a function of provocation: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin 119, 422–47.

  56. Campbell, A. (1995). A few good men: Evolutionary psychology and female adolescent aggression. Ethology and Sociobiology 16, 99–123.

  57. Zuckerman, M. (1994). Behavioural Expressions and Biosocial Bases of Sensation Seeking. New York: Cambridge University Press.

  58. Campbell, A few good men.

  59. Ibid.

  60. Archer, Does sexual selection explain human sex differences in aggression?

  61. Buss, D. N. & Dedden, L. A. (1990). Derogation of competitors. Journal of Personality and Social Relationships 7, 395–422.

  62. Ibid.

  2. SEEDS OF SIN

  1. 60 Minutes: Murder Gene: Man on Death Row Bases Appeal on the Belief That His Criminal Tendencies Are Inherited (2001). CBS television, February 27.

  2. It is thought that this “malfunction” or spontaneous event of identical twinning occurs when a blastocyst collapses and splits the progenitor cells in two, with the same genetic material in both sides of the embryo, resulting in the development of two identical embryos.

  3. Baker, L. A., Barton, M. & Raine, A. (2002). The Southern California Twin Register at the University of Southern California. Twin Research 5, 456–59.

  4. Baker, L. A., Jacobsen, K., Raine, A., Lozano, D. I. & Bezdjian, S. (2007). Genetic and environmental bases of childhood antisocial behavior: A multi-informant twin study. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 116, 219–35.

  5. Ibid.

  6. The heritability of 98 percent that we obtain from our twin study is very high, and might be applying to children who are seen to be antisocial by all informants of their behavior. In contrast, other children may be antisocial, but their parents and teachers are not aware of their antisocial behavior.

  7. Baker, L., Raine, A., Liu, J. & Jacobsen, K. C. (2008). Genetic and environmental influences on reactive and proactive aggression in children. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology 36, 1265–78.

  8. Burt, S. A. (2009). Are there meaningful etiological differences within antisocial behavior? Results of a meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review 29, 163–78.

  9. Arseneault, L., Moffitt, T. E., Caspi, A., Taylor, A., Rijsdijk, F. V., et al. (2003). Strong genetic effects on cross-situational antisocial behaviour among 5-year-old children according to mothers, teachers, examiner-observers, and twins’ self-reports. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines 44, 832–48.

  10. Viding E., Jones, A. P., Frick, P. J., Moffitt, T. E. & Plomin, R. (2008). Heritability of antisocial behaviour at 9: Do callous-unemotional traits matter? Developmental Science 11, 17–22.

  11. Grove, W. M., Eckert, E. D., Heston, L., Bouchard, T. J., Segal, N., et al. (1990). Heritability of substance abuse and antisocial behavior: A study of monozygotic twins reared apart. Biological Psychiatry 27, 1293–1304.

  12. Christiansen, K. O. (1977). A review of criminality among twins. In S. A. Mednick and K. O. Christiansen (eds.), Biosocial Bases of Criminal Behavio
r, pp. 45–88. New York: Gardner Press.

  13. Schwesinger, G. (1952). The effect of differential parent-child relations on identical twin resemblance in personality. Acta Geneticae Medicae et Germellologiae. Cited in ibid.

  14. Grove, et al. Heritability of substance abuse and antisocial behavior.

  15. Baker, et al. Genetic and environmental bases of childhood antisocial behavior.

  16. Moffitt T. E. (2005). The new look of behavioral genetics in developmental psychopathology: Gene-environment interplay in antisocial behaviors. Psychological Bulletin 131, 533–54.

  17. Bouchard, T. J. & McGue, M. (2003). Genetic and environmental influences on human psychological differences. Journal of Neurobiology 54, 4–45.

  18. Mednick, S. A., Gabrielli, W. H. & Hutchings, B. (1984). Genetic influences in criminal convictions: Evidence from an adoption cohort. Science 224, 891–94.

  19. Raine, A. (1993). The Psychopathology of Crime: Criminal Behavior as a Clinical Disorder. San Diego: Academic Press.

  20. Moffitt, T. E., Ross, S. & Raine, A. (2011). Crime and biology. In J. Q. Wilson and J. Petersilia (eds.), Crime and Public Policy, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  21. Ibid.

  22. Ibid.

  23. Ibid.

  24. In contrast to twin studies, several adoption studies have not shown heritability for violence. One explanation is that adoption studies rely on convictions for violence as their measure, yet conviction data is a notoriously poor measure, as most people who are violent are never even arrested, let alone convicted. In contrast, twin studies have relied more on laboratory, parent, teacher, child, and adult ratings of aggressive and violent behavior, which assess degree of aggression and hence have a much broader, more reliable, and more systematic radar screen compared with conviction data, which offers a much simpler yes/no dichotomy.