Brain Dysfunction in Criminal Behavior Research Paper

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Brain Dysfunction and Criminal Behavior

Criminal behavior can be caused by many things, social inequality, class differences, drug or alcohol addiction, peer pressure to name a few. These are all external conditions which can lead to criminal behavior. However, scientists are now starting to discover the link between dysfunction of the actions of the brain and a person's propensity to engage in criminal conduct. Individuals with brain dysfunction either caused by deformity in development or through a serious head injury have been linked to criminality and those who have committed serious criminal behaviors such as serial murder have, in many cases, been found to have experienced a severe injury to the brain or a congenital deformity when the brain was developing. Having said that, brain dysfunction does not inherently lead to criminality, as is proven by the fact that many people with head injuries or malformation do not become criminals, nor do all criminals possess brain dysfunction. It is therefore necessary to understand the connection between dysfunction and criminality but not to assume that it is the only factor which determines a person's potential criminal conduct.

The relationship between neurological dysfunction and criminal likelihood has been investigated recently with vigor particularly in the United States where there is a very high crime rate. Criminologists, sociologists, and politicians have been trying to find a link or connection which not only might explain away criminality but might also lead to an understanding or discovery of ways in which this trend might be curbed in the future. One recent study conducted by the Mayo Clinic showed that brain scans of twenty-one people with antisocial personality disorder indicated on average "on average an 18-percent reduction in the volume of the brain's middle frontal gyrus, and a 9% reduction in the volume of the orbital frontal gyrus -- two sections in the brain's frontal lobe" (Moskowitz 2011).

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A high proportion of people who have been involved in crimes, particularly those who have been incarcerated for serious crimes have been found by psychologists and psychiatrists to have antisocial personality disorder. People with this condition are typically incapable of seeing things as right and wrong in terms of the normal social morality and therefore do not inhibit their behavior because of what society says is right or wrong to do. Another study from 2009 which was conducted by the Archives of General Psychiatry examined twenty-seven people who were diagnosed psychopaths (Moskowitz 2011). Brain scans of these individuals found deformations in a different part of the person's brain, the amygdale, which showed a thinning of the outer layer of that portion of the brain called the cortex. Psychopaths, those who have been diagnosed with psychopathy, are statistically prone to commit serious crimes, particularly acts such as murder and rape. The reason for this is that psychopaths cannot think of anything besides their own desires and the satisfaction of their own yearnings. These two cases indicate the link between brain dysfunction and likely criminal behaviors.

Research by Brower and Price (2001) indicates that the major issue that neurologists need to look at in terms of a link between brain….....

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