Our criminal justice system is based on the Biblical principle of retribution, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. We send prisoners to penitentiaries. The word itself means a place to seek penitence, the dictionary definition being to repent for wrongdoing. Punishment for wrongs done, not rehabilitation of the wrong doer is the modus operandi of our prison system. Those who critique society and point to poverty, oppression or other social causes for criminal behavior are scoffed at. This is based on the prevailing attitude that criminals are bad people by choice, that the evil they have done is a result of their own free will. These are bedrock principles of our Western moral philosophy and social belief system.
Scientific research however has shed new light on these underlying societal precepts. One study by C. Nathan DeWall, Ph.D. and colleagues at the University of Kentucky shows that people who feel socially rejected are more likely to see others' actions as hostile and are more likely to behave in hurtful ways toward people they have never even met. The findings help explain why social exclusion is often linked to aggression. The study's lead author states that, "while not everyone who feels rejected reacts violently, we found they tend to act out aggressively in other ways...(when) people feel betrayed by others they tend to see otherwise neutral actions as hostile and behave badly towards others."
An unrelated study by Michael J. Tarr, Ph.D., a Brown University cognitive neuroscientist, suggests that there may be a simple way to address racial bias: Help people improve their ability to distinguish between faces of individuals of a different race. Familiarity does not breed contempt but recognition and empathy. This simple antidote to racial prejudice may help reduce the social isolation that may ultimately contribute to aggressive behavior in vulnerable individuals.
Other researchers, including Rose McDermott, professor of political science at Brown University, have found that individuals with a so-called "warrior gene" display higher levels of aggression in response to provocation. Monoamine oxidase A is an enzyme that breaks down important neurotransmitters in the brain, including dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin. The enzyme is regulated by the monoamine oxidase A gene (MAOA). Humans have various forms of the gene, resulting in different levels of enzymatic activity. People with the low-activity form (MAOA-L) produce less of the enzyme, while the high-activity form (MAOA-H) produces more of the enzyme. Several studies have found a correlation between the low-activity form of MAOA and aggression in observational and survey-based studies.
According to another new study done by a Canadian-Dutch team, women who smoke during pregnancy risk delivering aggressive kids. While previous studies have shown that smoking during gestation causes low birth weight, this research shows mothers who light up during pregnancy can predispose their offspring to an additional risk: violent behavior.
Yet another study by Michael Platt, Ph.D., associate professor of neurobiology at Duke University Medical Center, shows that a genetic variation involving the brain chemical serotonin has been found to shape the social behavior of rhesus macaque monkeys, which could provide researchers with a new model for studying autism, social anxiety and schizophrenia. Humans and macaques are the only members of the primate family to have this particular genetic trait.
What all these studies show is that aggressive, anti-social criminal behavior has deep roots in evolutionary biology, developmental plasticity and exposure or lack thereof to a variety of social and environmental stimuli both in utero and post-natal.
It does no good to ignore the causative agents of criminal behavior. If we understand the root causes of anti-social behavior we can create the conditions that can lead to the re-education and re-integration of people who have engaged in criminal behavior back into society as productive citizens. What purpose does it serve to have a 50 year old in jail for a crime committed when he was 19? What good does it do to spend more money on jails than schools, more money on jailers than teachers? Restorative and rehabilitative justice that seeks to salvage the human wreckage left behind by criminal behavior, the wrecked lives of both the victim and the victimizer is the only way that our society will heal and advance secure in the knowledge that with insight and wisdom we can undo the damage wrought by the blind fate of nature and nurture.