The anatomy of violence The biological roots of crime

Review by Choice Review

Speaking against the dominant perspective that violence is purely a product of social forces, Raine (criminology, psychiatry, and psychology, Univ. of Pennsylvania) argues that sociopathic and violent behavior arise from complex interactions between social and biological factors. The author presents a wealth of evidence from scientific studies that violence has its roots in the expression of particular genes, abnormalities in brain structure and function, poor nutrition, and childhood exposure to toxins and heavy metals. These biological risk factors, when paired with a maladaptive social environment, can push individuals to exhibit criminal behavior. Raine writes in an engaging manner, turning potentially difficult research findings into a compelling narrative that is seeded with detailed, cringe-inducing accounts of the upbringing and downfall of actual criminals. In the final chapters, readers are asked to consider how society should act to prevent crime via controversial practices such as compulsory biological screening, indefinite detention of at-risk individuals, and parental licenses to raise children. By filtering the current scientific understanding of the biological origins of violence through his personal worldview, Raine offers a book that is highly informative as well as intellectually and ethically challenging. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers; undergraduate students and above. K. G. Akers University of Michigan

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.

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Review by New York Times Review

THE Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso makes for an unlikely hero. In the late 1800s, Lombroso proposed that criminals were evolutionary throwbacks who could be identified by primitive features like sloping foreheads and large jaws, and he went on to posit an evolutionary hierarchy of the races, with northern Italians at its apex. Such ideas inspired Mussolini's racial laws in the 1930s, and are at the core of some of the ugliest social movements of our time. In his provocative book, "The Anatomy of Violence," the psychologist Adrian Raine sets out to rehabilitate Lombroso. If you take away the racism and phrenology, Raine argues, you can see he was "on the path toward a sublime truth": The study of the biological roots of criminal behavior - or "neurocriminology" - will not only yield satisfying insights into human nature, it can incite effective and humane methods for reducing crime. Much of Raine's goal here is to persuade the skeptical reader to take biology seriously. Finding biological markers for crime is difficult because one of the sad truths of human development is that misfortune tends to beget misfortune, and cause and correlation become nearly indistinguishable. A child whose parents are violent criminals might be influenced by their genes, but he is also more likely than most to grow up in poverty, suffer abuse, be exposed to toxic substances and so on. Exploring the effect of a single factor requires the use of clever and indirect methods. To study the influence of genes, one can look at adopted children and ask whether their criminality is predicted by the criminality of the biological parents they have never known. To examine the effects of prenatal environment, and specifically the relationship between malnutrition and antisociality, scientists studied children born after the Dutch "Hunger Winter" in 1944-45, when pregnant women went without food during a Nazi blockade. Not all the research reviewed by Raine is quite this elegant, but on the whole he makes a good case that certain genetic, neurological and physiological factors do predict violent behavior. Some of these findings might be obvious. Few will be shocked to hear that being born a man is linked to later bad behavior - indeed, almost all of the horrific crimes Raine describes are committed by men. Anyone familiar with research in behavioral genetics will be unsurprised to learn that the propensity for violent crime is partly heritable. And it makes sense that certain forms of brain damage, particularly to the parts of the brain that govern impulse control, make people more likely to commit violent acts later in life. Other predictors are more surprising. A low resting heart rate correlates with antisocial behavior. Certain insults to the developing brain, like smoking and drinking by pregnant mothers, have pernicious effects on behavior. And there is evidence that eating a lot of fish leads to a decline in violence, possibly because of the positive neurological effects of the consumption of omega-3 fatty acids. Such findings suggest interventions, and Raine advocates a "public health approach to violence." Many of his proposals focus on early development: encouraging pregnant women not to smoke and drink, and working to ensure that young children get proper nutrition and protection from toxicants - not to mention eating plenty of fish. He argues, convincingly, that such benign and relatively cheap interventions could have huge social benefits. But what about those whom it's too late to help? Here Raine has something more radical in mind. He describes a futuristic situation in which the government initiates a "Minority Report"-style program called "Legal Offensive on Murder: Brain Research Operation for the Screening of Offenders" - LOMBROSO. All men 18 and over will undergo a brain scan and a DNA test, and those whose results indicate future criminality will spend the rest of their lives in a pleasant enough form of indefinite detention. As Raine tells it, this program will lead to a staggering drop in crime, among other benefits. "The jury system of the 2010s was undoubtedly racially biased. . . . LOMBROSO, in contrast, is scrupulously objective and data-driven, and the results have pleased civil libertarians and minority leaders alike." RAINE is aware that this proposal - along with others, like chemical castration for sex offenders - is quite a bit more controversial than better nutrition for tots, and he tries his best to address the ethical concerns. (One point he raises is that the notion of preventive detention shouldn't be all that shocking, since we do it already - in Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere.) But a more immediate objection is that it would never work; the link between genetic and neurological factors is nowhere near strong enough. Low resting heart rate, for instance, can explain only 5 percent of the variation in antisocial behavior. As Raine notes, this is not a trivial relationship; it's stronger than the link between smoking and cancer. But as the foundation for locking someone up for life, it's ludicrous. Raine is confident that we will eventually do better: "Criminals do have broken brains," he writes. "The differences are substantial and can no longer be ignored." His proposal isn't really meant to extend to "criminals" in general - tax evaders and pot smokers presumably don't have broken brains. He's interested in violent crime, which he regards as a kind of cancer: both are products of a combination of genes and environment, and both can be treated. But this is a bad analogy. Cancer is an aberration, an illness, something that can be cleanly excised from the world - if it were eradicated tomorrow, the rest of human life would remain happily intact. In contrast, violence is part of human nature, shared with all other animals, evolved for punishment, defense and predation. Even in the most peaceful communities, an appetite for violence shows up in dreams, fantasies, sports, play, literature, movies and television. And, so long as we don't transform into angels, violence and the threat of violence - as in punishment and deterrence - is needed to rein in our worst instincts. Once we accept violence as an adaptation, it makes sense that its expression is calibrated to the environment. The same individual will behave differently if he comes of age in Detroit, Mich., versus Windsor, Ontario; in New York in the 1980s versus New York now; in a culture of honor versus a culture of dignity. The sharp drop in criminal violence over the last 40 years suggests that violence is not usually a neural anomaly or cognitive malfunction, but rather is often the product of normal decision-making processes, and hence can be influenced by incentives, customs, practices and laws. Raine is right to point out that two individuals raised in the same culture might differ in their propensity for violence, in part because of their genes and early environments. He might be right as well that certain horrific and highly unusual acts of violence really are due to broken brains. But when it comes to everyday violence - even everyday criminal violence, like muggings and spousal abuse and sexual assault - the studies in his book suggest that the influence of biological factors, while real, is often subtle and probabilistic. No matter how much we know about genes, brains and behavior, then, the LOMBROSO program would never be viable. At times, Raine seems aware of this. In "The Anatomy of Violence," he describes a man who grew up with many of the risk factors associated with becoming a violent killer. He had had a difficult birth and suffered from a vitamin deficiency early in life, both of which are correlated with problems in brain areas responsible for self-control. In his mid-20s, he had a low resting heart rate, suggesting a sort of coldness that leads many to seek out violence as a form of stimulation. Most damning of all, a scan of his brain reveals abnormal brain structures, eerily like those of a serial killer. But while this man does seem to be fascinated by violent behavior, he became an eminent scientist and not a criminal. This man is Adrian Raine. Paul Bloom is a professor of psychology at Yale. His latest book, "Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil," will be published in November.

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [June 23, 2013]

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Review by Booklist Review

Once reviled because of its ties to eugenics, the idea that criminal impulses are rooted in biology has been reinvigorated by the Human Genome Project. Criminologist Raine applauds a growing cross-disciplinary approach and the growth of neurocriminology that looks at the biological and social factors behind criminal behavior, but his focus is firmly on the biological. Raine explores famous criminal cases, from Ted Bundy to the Unabomber to more obscure figures, and offers compelling research, including brain scans of psychopaths, schizophrenics, and others, to demonstrate the hard science behind some criminal and antisocial behavior from domestic violence to murder. Raine also analyzes research on adoption and twins to study the different impacts of nature versus nurture, as well as environmental factors that affect brain development, including nutrition, smoking, and drug abuse. Finally, Raine explores the practical implications of neurocriminology on the legal system, public health issues, and the future treatment of criminal and antisocial behavior. Although the topic will certainly continue to provoke controversy, Raine offers a highly accessible look at the latest research on the biology behind criminal behavior.--Bush, Vanessa Copyright 2010 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Neurocriminologist Raine is known for pioneering studies gauging long-term effects of environmental factors on neurological development. In his latest (after Psychopathology of Crime), the University of Pennsylvania professor explains how a startling number of early incidents can retard the development of the prefrontal cortex and other neural sites of learning, focus, and emotion, resulting in violence-prone adults. Indeed, from fetuses malnourished in the womb to children "ushered into the vestibule of violence before they could even sit up on their own," to adults living near the Twin Towers on 9/11 (brain scans made three years later "showed a reduction in hippocampal gray-matter volumes"), no one is immune. However, Raine insists that drugs, cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness training, exercise, and periods of "environmental enrichment"-like educating mothers about kids' emotional, educational, and nutritional needs-can mitigate damage, and perhaps stave off violent tendencies down the road. Ultimately, Raine is optimistic: "We can use a set of biosocial keys to unlock the cause of crime-and set free those who are trapped by their biology." Though sometimes dense, this is a passionately argued, well-written, and fascinating take on the biology of violence and its legal and ethical implications. 8-page color insert, b&w photos throughout. Agent: Eric Lupfer, William Morris Endeavor. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

This daring survey of neurocriminology addresses crime and violent behavior through a new explanatory paradigm rooted in the work of previously discredited theorists such as 19th-century psychiatrist Cesare Lombroso. Raine (criminology, psychiatry, & psychology, Univ. of Pennsylvania; Crime and Schizophrenia: Causes and Cures) argues that recent advances in molecular and behavioral genetics and other factors have introduced a renewal of the biological model of criminal behavior. Chapters explore how violence has evolved, where science stands on "broken brains" and how those malfunctions occur, graphic case studies, legal implications, and rehabilitation through medication and other more radical medical and social interventions. The author reviews an impressive array of international research varying in style and quality from twin studies to brain imagery analyses while also acknowledging how difficult it is to determine cause and effect. Less convincing is a discussion of the relationship between physical "marks of Cain" and antisocial behavior. VERDICT As compared to Steven Pinker's more sweeping The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, this provocative introduction to a "bio-social" model of violent behavior is primarily recommended for students of crime rather than general readers.-Antoinette Brinkman, formerly with Southwest Indiana Mental Health Ctr. Lib., Evansville (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Neurocriminologist Raine (Criminology, Psychiatry and Psychology/Univ. of Pennsylvania; Crime and Schizophrenia, 2006, etc.) asserts that "revolutionary advances into brain imaging are opening a new window in the biological basis of crime." The author emphasizes the importance of biology, along with environment, in shaping the individual. He reprises genetic evidence of a predisposition to criminal behavior and the identification of polymorphisms of genes controlling enzymes that regulate neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine. Brain scans and autopsies show physiological differences in the structure of different regions of the brain, possible effects of brain damage incurred during birth or before as a result of the environment within the womb or from subsequent child abuse. These correlate with a history of violence and different criminal behaviors, making it possible to differentiate the brains of impulsive killers from those of serial killers. Studies of psychopaths show dampened activity in the amygdala, the part of the brain that normally alerts us to danger, and signs of stress, such as perspiring, are absent. Individuals with this psychophysiology are not primarily motivated by risk avoidance but by the rewards. "Different biological, psychological, and social risk factors can interact in shaping either violence or self-sacrificing heroism," writes the author, who makes the controversial conclusion that despite considerations of civil liberties, as neurocriminology develops over the next few decades, preventative incarceration will become an increasingly attractive option. Underlying Raine's presentation is his stated conviction that socially ameliorative measures in dealing with a rising tide of crime will prove ineffective. While Raine explicitly rules out any notion that biology is destiny, and the implication that criminologists such as himself are modern-day eugenicists, his questionable political conclusions are sure to be controversial, especially in the context of the current debate on guns and the prevention of violence.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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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. 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 who 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. 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. At that point, I'd had enough of Bodrum and Turkey, and I told the police I was off to the neighboring island of Kos in Greece in the next two days. Remarkably, they decided to expedite the trial. It was something of a ceremony at the outset. It started off at the police station. I was placed next to my assailant, and we were marched through the center of the town, side by side, to the courthouse. Quite a number of people came out to watch, as I had been featured in Bodrum's local newspaper the previous day, pictured with a prominent white bandage on my throat. Many of them pointed at us and yelled at the defendant. Although whatever they said was incomprehensible to me, it was clear that the defendant was not a popular man. The trial itself was novel, to say the least. The courtroom looked like a scene out of the Nuremberg trials, but in a distorted dream. There was no jury at all. Instead, there were three judges in scarlet robes seated loftily above us. The defendant did not have an attorney. Neither did I, for that matter. Adding to the strangeness, none of the judges could speak or understand any English, and I certainly could not speak Turkish. So they procured a cook who could speak some English and serve as my interpreter. It was all very surreal. I gave my testimony. The judges asked me how I could identify the assailant given that the incident had occurred just after three a.m. and it had been dark. I described to them how the moonlight was streaming through the window by my bed, illuminating one side of the assailant's face as we struggled. That I had frantically wrestled with him and that that gave me a sense of his stature and build. I said that I could not be completely sure--but frankly, whether that part ever got translated, I'll never know. After I gave my testimony through the cook, the defendant gave his testimony. Whatever he said in Turkish, the judges were not persuaded. They found him guilty as charged. It was as simple as that. After the verdict one of the judges ushered me and my translator over to the bench. He told us that the defendant would be brought back later for sentencing, and that it would be a prison sentence of several years' duration. Justice is swift and efficient in Turkey, I thought. I had seen on that trip more than one elderly man with a hand missing, a vestige of the days when theft was punished by detaching the offending part of the perpetrator's anatomy. That had seemed harsh when I had seen it earlier on my trip. But at that moment in the courtroom, in spite of the seeming lack of due process, hearing that my attacker would see significant prison time was music to my ears. Justice, as they say, is sweet. Until that experience in Bodrum, violence had been primarily an academic concern for me. I'd tolerated my fair share of small-scale crime up to that point--two burglaries, theft, and an assault--but having one's throat cut can change the way one looks at the world, or at least at one's self. My girlfriend and I left the next day for Greece, but as I simmered under the hot sun on the beach in Kos, I remember suddenly feeling a surge of anger about the whole ordeal. The thief, who easily could have killed me, had gotten off easy. He should have been beaten up. His throat should be cut. He should spend the rest of his life a fitful sleeper, hypersensitive to the slightest sound in the night. A few years inside did not seem like justice. It perhaps should have been enough, but to me, especially at that moment, it wasn't. This experience had a powerful effect on me. It broke through my outer façade of liberal humanitarian values and put me in touch with a deep, primitive sense of retributive justice. From an assured English-bred opponent of the death penalty, I became a person who could no longer be ruled out of a jury pool for a capital crime in the United States. An evolutionary instinct for vengeance was triggered inside me, and it has stayed with me for years. Consequently, I have something of a Jekyll-and-Hyde attitude about my work investigating the biological basis to crime. One conclusion I've drawn from the research presented in this book is that biological factors early in life can propel some kids toward adult violence. Risk factors like poor nutrition, brain trauma from childhood abuse, and genetics are beyond an individual's control, and when those factors are combined with social disadvantages and our society's anemic ability to spot and treat potential offenders, the odds are that people with these disadvantages will turn to crime. That means I likely should cut my assailant some slack. And if the standards of that hospital I was in are anything to go by, I'm sure a grim Turkish prison is very unlikely to change his criminal behavior. Are we doing justice to the offender? That's the Dr. Jekyll in me speaking, and it's the spirit in which my scientific work is conducted. But another man inside me doesn't give a damn about what caused my attacker to develop into a violent offender. Mr. Hyde retorts that the man nearly killed me and he should be nearly killed too. To hell with forgiveness and pseudoscientific drivel about early biological risk factors that constrain free will. Out of professional interest, I should have investigated further, but at the time, in his specific case, I did not care. I do know that during the summer months before attacking me he had already committed nineteen thefts--he owned up to the police after his capture so he would not later be prosecuted for them. None of these victims had been injured--so I put down my bad luck to Mr. Hyde's instinct of leaping up at him and grabbing him by the throat. In any event, Hyde rants that a recidivistic criminal like him should be locked up and the key thrown away forever--we need to protect ourselves from these dangerous villains. In the intervening years I've had more time to reflect on my reactions to that attack. Is defensive aggression genetically built into us? Can my brain be wired to aggressively respond even though my rational mind, trained by years of experience, tells me that's just not the right response? And what do I make of the fact that my physical perception of that suspect in the identity parade biased me to conclude he was the culprit? During that instant there in the hotel lobby, as I gazed on his torso and face, there was literally a "body of evidence" standing in front of me, a man with the anatomy of violence written all over him--a body I'd had tangible experience of during my struggle. That body of evidence, and the sliver of moonlight streaking into the dark bedroom allowing me to see my attacker's face, symbolizes to me in a metaphorical sense the dawning of a new beacon of research light helping us to identify the violent offender--and what makes him tick. A radical change has been taking place in recent years regarding our understanding of how and why people become violent criminals. That change is what The Anatomy of Violence is all about. The dominant model for understanding criminal behavior has been, for most of the twentieth century, one built almost exclusively on social and sociological models. My main argument is that sole reliance on these social perspectives is fundamentally flawed. Biology is also critically important in understanding violence, and probing through its anatomical underpinnings will be vital for treating the epidemic of violence and crime afflicting our societies. Today this perspective is slowly but surely seeping into public consciousness, largely because of two recent scientific developments. First, molecular and behavioral genetics is increasingly demonstrating that many behaviors have in part a genetic basis. Genes shape physiological functioning, which in turn affects our thinking, personality, and behavior--including the propensity to break the laws of the land, whatever those laws may be. Second, revolutionary advances in brain imaging are opening a new window into the biological basis of crime. Together these two advances are prodding us to redefine our sense of self. They have jointly placed us on the threshold of the new discipline that I call neurocriminology--the neural basis to crime--which involves the application of the principles and techniques of neuroscience to understand the origins of antisocial behavior. By better understanding these origins, we will improve our ability to prevent the misery and harm crime causes. The anatomy of violence encapsulates this exciting and vibrant new approach to the discipline of criminology that Lombroso himself spawned but that had been all but abandoned throughout the twentieth century. There is a third development that is not so much scientific as an undeniable historical fact. The heavy emphasis on an exclusively social approach to crime and violence throughout the last century did nothing to turn the rising tide of this perennial problem. It is widely acknowledged in criminology that as crime went up throughout the 1970s and 1980s our society largely gave up on the rehabilitation of inmates. Prisons became holding bays for the unrepentant--not retreats for the rehabilitation of lost souls, as the Pennsylvania Prison Society espoused in the early nineteenth century. That single-minded approach has just not worked. Thinking of human behavior from a biological perspective is no longer controversial--you can hardly open a newspaper or magazine today without reading about a new breakthrough in how genes and the brain shape our personality and influence the moral and financial decisions we make, or what we buy, or whether we turn out to vote or not. So why would they not also influence whether we commit a crime or not? The pendulum is slowly but surely swinging us back to Lombroso's dramatic nineteenth-century intuition, and forcing us to revisit the tangled ethical quandaries and legitimate social fears inherent in applying a neurocriminological approach. But when one considers the myriad ways in which violence plagues us, the stakes are too high, and the potential good is too great, to ignore the compelling scientific evidence we are discovering about the biological roots of crime. I have three central objectives in writing this book: First, to inform readers of the intriguing new scientific research that I and other scientists have conducted in recent years, focusing on the biological basis for crime and violence. Second, I want to stress that social factors are critical both in interacting with biological forces in causing crime, and in directly producing the biological changes that predispose a person to violence. Third, I want to explore with you the practical implications of this emerging neurocriminological knowledge, ranging from treatment to the legal system to social policy--both today and in the future. I have written this book for the general reader who has at least a passing interest in crime, as well as for undergraduate and graduate students who want an accessible introduction to a new and exciting perspective on crime and violence. Anyone with an inquisitive mind, who is curious about what makes the criminal offender tick will, I hope, find something of interest in these pages. In The Anatomy of Violence I'm going to reveal the internal mechanisms of violent crime as well as the way external forces interact with them to produce criminals. I will lay out what biological research is revealing on the root causes of crime. These deep roots are now being dug up using neuroscience tools, exposing the biological culprits giving rise to violence. Throughout I have included case studies of a rogues' gallery of killers to illustrate my points. More than anything I hope that this book will open your mind not just to how biological research can contribute to our understanding of violence, but also how it may lead to benign and acceptable ways of reducing the suffering violence causes to societies throughout the world. Biology is not destiny. We can unlock the causes of crime with a set of biosocial keys forged from a new generation of integrative interdisciplinary research combined with a public-health perspective. But we need to exchange views in an open and honest dialogue in order to ensure sensible use of this new knowledge for the good of everyone, to develop a framework for further research, and to firmly grasp the neuroethical issues surrounding neurocriminology to more effectively apply this new knowledge. We'll begin our discussion with that pivotal moment when a scientist other than myself stared at the anatomy of a different violent offender, and began the long and precarious journey along the causeway of neurocriminology. Excerpted from The Anatomy of Violence: The Biological Roots of Crime by Adrian Raine All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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