When we think of murder and violent crime we are often revolted. "How can anyone do that?" "What a disgusting person!" " I hope someone kills them!" and much more. Is this justified though? Do murderers really deserve this vehemence, or are they themselves victims in a way? I want to take a particular example and see how we feel about it.
Who do we blame?
Charles Whitman was a former marine, and those who knew him in early childhood said that he rarely, if ever, lost his temper. Charles Whitman is frequently known for a rather horrific reason. On August 1, 1966, Charles Whitman murdered his mother and his wife before going to the University of Texas, slaughtering fourteen others, and wounding thirty-one. This crime shocked the nation. Upon Charles' death a suicide note was found that said,
I do not quite understand what it is that compels me to type this letter. Perhaps it is to leave some vague reason for the actions I have recently performed. I do not really understand myself these days. I am supposed to be an average reasonable and intelligent young man. However, lately (I cannot recall when it started) I have been a victim of many unusual and irrational thoughts. These thoughts constantly recur, and it requires a tremendous mental effort to concentrate on useful and progressive tasks
And
I imagine it appears that I brutally killed both of my loved ones. I was only trying to do a quick thorough job [...] If my life insurance policy is valid please pay off my debts [...] donate the rest anonymously to a mental health foundation. Maybe research can prevent further tragedies of this type [...] Give our dog to my in-laws. Tell them Kathy loved "Schocie" very much [...] If you can find in yourselves to grant my last wish, cremate me after the autopsy.
It was later discovered that he had visited half a dozen doctors prior to his spree-killing expressing further and further fears that he was unable to control his emotions. In his last meeting with a doctor he sat there for two hours expressing his fear and lack of control over his violent impulses. After his death his requested autopsy was performed and it was discovered that in fact he had a tumor pressing upon his amygdala. The amygdala is a portion of our brain which is involved in regulating our fight-or-flight response and could likely have been responsible for Charles' increasing agitation culminating in his explosive spree of violence.
So what?
These findings change the minds of many who originally believed that Charles was completely responsible for his actions. In fact, could this just as easily have been any of us were we in the same situation? In the article Free Will and Punishment: A Mechanistic View of Human Nature Reduces Retribution by Azim Shariff demonstrates that this phenomena is statistically significant. Many people feel this way. One mother quoted by Josh Greene stated that she had lost two boys in Iraq. One came home and committed suicide, the other was teetering on the edge. He had lost his job, turned to alcohol. The mother said it would be comforting to know that there was an underlying physical ailment, "You're dealing with a ghost when it's PTSD, everything changes once it's something physical."
Ok, but not every murderer has a brain tumor.
This is most certainly true, but in fact it may be the case that they are not the victims of a brain tumor, but are still the victims of bad biology. Adrian Raine, celebrated author, psychologist, professor, and "neurocriminologist" discovered that in fact the brain of a murderer is significantly different than that of their non-murderer counterparts.
Pictured on the left is your average person, and on the right the brain of a killer. Many of you may be wondering what the difference in colors mean. Well the amount of color in a particular region shows how much activity is going on. Blue areas have very little; whereas, red have a lot. It determines this by viewing the oxygen content of blood cells. What we see here is that murderers have a lot less brain activity at the frontal and prefrontal regions. These regions are involved in forward thinking (our ability to determine the consequences of our actions) and our regulatory behavior (the ability to stop ourselves from acting upon every thought.) We all get angry at times. In fact some research has shown that as many as 80% of males, and 60% of females have thought about committing murder within the past year. The vast majority of these people, however, thought about the consequences of their actions and decided not to go through with it. This is the difference, through no action of our own we have the ability to censor our behavior to stop ourselves from acting out our more violent impulses, but the research appears to demonstrate that murderers do not.
Questions
How do we proceed? Because of this is it wrong to actually punish murderers? Should we scan children to determine if they're predisposed to this sort of behaviors?
Anyway, if you got this far thanks for reading! As always, input is appreciated.
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