Vol. 11, No. 1, 2005 Page 8
"There are now 71 brain imaging studies showing that murderers, psychopaths, and individuals with aggressive, antisocial personalities have poorer functioning in the prefrontal cortex—that part of the brain involved in regulating and controlling emotion and behaviour.
"More dramatically, we now know that the brains of criminals are physically different from non-criminals, showing an 11% reduction in the volume of grey matter (neurons) in the prefrontal cortex.
"Violent offenders just do not have the emergency brakes to stop their runaway aggressive behaviour.
"Literally speaking, bad brains lead to bad behaviour.... One of the reasons why we have repeatedly failed to stop crime is because we have systematically ignored the biological and genetic contributions to crime causation."
—Psychology professor and
Crime Times Advisory Board Member
Adrian Raine, in "Unlocking Crime:
The Biological Key," BBC News, December 2004