Making a murderer: dissecting the roots of violence with Adrian Raine

We often see in movies people who turn into psychopathic murderers and serial killers but what makes a psychopathic murderer? Should we just blame the environment? Or is faulty brain functioning the true culprit? What parts of the brain are most impaired in murderers? What causes these brain impairments? What have low seated ears and a long ring finger got to do with violence? Are criminals responsible for their crimes? The rapid developments taking place in neuroscience are creating an uncomfortable tension between our concepts of responsibility and retribution on the one hand, and understanding and mercy on the other. Neurocriminology is a new field which is increasingly documenting brain impairments in violent offenders. Adrian Raine is discussing the implications of this new research for our future conceptualization of moral responsibility, free will, and punishment. If the neural circuitry underlying morality is compromised in psychopaths, how moral is it of us to punish prisoners as much as we do? Should neurobiological risk factors be used to help us better predict future violence? And importantly, how can we change the brain to change criminal behavior in order to make tomorrow’s world a safer place for us all?
ADRIAN RAINE is Professor of Criminology, Psychiatry and Psychology at University of Pennsylvania. His main interest is on neurocriminology – a new sub-discipline of Criminology which applies neuroscience techniques to probe the causes and cures of crime. His laboratory focuses on risk and protective factors for childhood conduct disorder, reactive and proactive aggression, adult antisocial personality disorder, homicide, and psychopathy. Among many other books he published "The Anatomy of Violence".

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