 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
174
vulnerable to any adverse circumstances in their environment — including child abuse — that may foster
crime. Although nurturing parents can compensate for adversity, cold or inconsistent parents may
285 exacerbate it. Prematurity and low birth weight may result from poor prenatal care, a bad diet or excessive
use of alcohol or drugs. Whether the bad care is due to poverty, ignorance or anything else, here we see
criminality arising from biological, though not necessarily genetic, factors. It is now known that these
290 babies are more likely than normal babies to be the victims of child abuse.
25. We do not mean to blame child abuse on the victim by saying that premature and low-birth-weight
infants are more difficult to care for and thus place a great strain on the parents. But unless parents are
295 emotionally prepared for the task of caring for such children, they may vent their frustration at the infant's
unresponsiveness by hitting or neglecting it. Whatever it is in parent and child that leads to prematurity or
low birth weight is compounded by the subsequent interaction between them. Similarly, children with low
300 I.Q.s may have difficulty in understanding rules, but if their parents also have poor verbal skills, they may
have difficulty in communicating rules, and so each party to the conflict exacerbates the defects of the
other.
26. The statement that biology plays a role in explaining human behavior, especially criminal behavior,
305 sometimes elicits a powerful political or ideological reaction. Fearful that what is being proposed is a crude
biological determinism, some critics deny the evidence while others wish the evidence to be confined to
scientific journals. Scientists who have merely proposed studying the possible effects of chromosomal
310 abnormalities on behavior have been ruthlessly,attacked by other scientists, as have those who have made
public the voluminous data showing the heritability of intelligence and temperament.
27. Some people worry that any claim that biological factors influence criminality is tantamount to
315 saying that the higher crime rate of black compared to white Americans has a genetic basis. But no
responsible work in the field leads to any such conclusion. The data show that of all the reasons people
vary in their crime rates, race is far less important than age, sex, intelligence and the other individual
320 factors that vary within races. Any study of the causes of crime must therefore first consider the individual
factors. Differences among races may have many explanations, most of them having nothing to do with
biology.
325 28. The intense reaction to the study of biological factors in crime, we believe, is utterly misguided. In
fact, these discoveries, far from implying that «criminals are bom» and should be locked up forever,
suggest new and imaginative ways of reducing criminality by benign treatment. The opportunity we have is
330 precisely analogous to that which we had when the biological bases of other disorders were established.
Mental as well as physical illness — alcoholism, learning disabilities of various sorts, and perhaps even
susceptibilities to drug addiction — now seem to have genetic components. In each case, new
335 understanding energized the search for treatment and gave it new direction. Now we know that many forms
of depression can be successfully treated with drugs; in time we may learn the same of Alzheimer's disease.
Alcoholics are helped when they understand that some persons, because of their predisposition toward
340 addiction to alcohol, should probably never consume it at all. A chemical treatment of the predisposition is
a realistic possibility. Certain types of slow learners can already be helped by special programs.
29 Crime, admittedly, may be a more difficult program. So many different acts are criminal that it is
345 only with considerable poetic license that we can speak of «criminality» at all. The bank teller who
embezzles $500 to pay off a gambling debt is not engaging in the same behavior as a person who takes
$500 from a liquor store at the point of a gun or one who causes $500 worth of damage by drunkenly
350 driving his car into a parked vehicle. Moreover, crime, unlike alcoholism or dyslexia, exposes a person to
the formal condemnation of society and the possibility of imprisonment. We naturally and rightly worry
about treating all «criminals» alike, or stigmatizing persons whom we think might become criminal by
355 placing them in special programs designed to prevent criminality.
30 But these problems are not insurmountable barriers to better ways of thinking about crime
prevention. Though criminals are of all sorts, we know that a very small fraction of all young males
360 commit so large a fraction of serious street crime that we can properly blame these chronic offenders for
most such crime.
We also know that chronic offenders typically begin their misconduct at an early age.
Early family and preschool programs may be far better repositories for the crime-prevention dollar than
365 rehabilitation programs aimed —
usually futilely — at the 19 — or 20 year-old veteran offender. Preven-
tion programs risk stigmatizing children, but this may be less of a risk than is neglect. If stigma were a
problem to be avoided at all costs, we would have to dismantle most special-needs education programs.
370 31 There is also a case for redirecting research into the causes of crime in ways that take into account