The Anatomy of Violence: The Biological Roots of Crime - Raine - 2013 - Article

The minority report aims to stop crime before it happens. Following this reasoning, the Parental License Act is introduced which states that all parents have to have a license before they are allowed to have children. This dystopia might become reality one day. The first steps in this direction have already been taken, for instance Guantanamo Bay.

What is this article about?

The Biological Roots of Crime describes the idea that we will soon be able to use brain scan techniques to identify the risk of becoming a criminal. By now, we are already able to identify correlations between the development of certain brain areas and criminal behaviours. This might affect our future legal system.

What is the LOMBROSO program?

LOMBROSO stands for Legal Offensive on Murder: Brain Research Operation for the Screening of Offenders. LOMBROSO is a program in which all males are supposed to go to a hospital to have their brain scanned as soon as they turn eighteen. By doing so, it will be possible to identify criminal risk groups. Men identified as Lombroso Positive-Violence will have a 79% chance of committing a violent crime within the next five years.

Members of the category Lombroso Positive-Sex have a chance of 82% to commit rape or podophilic offenses. Males identified in the category Lombroso Positive- Homicide have a 51% chance of killing someone in the upcoming five years. Those who are identified to fall in one of these categories will be held in detention forever. These detention centers will be highly secure, but are built as a “home away from home” since its inhabitants have not committed a crime yet.

Due to this systems success, it will be taken even further. By 2049, the government will introduce the National Screening program NCSD in which all 10-year old boys will undergo a comprehensive medical, psychological, social and behavioral evaluation.

After a high risk of becoming a criminal has been identified, the parents of these children are advised to get them into residential treatment programs. These programs will be able to cut the odds of becoming criminal by more than half. Two years later, this intervention is not a parental, but a compulsory decision since parents of such a “rotten apple” are thought to be not capable of taking the responsibility of such an important decision.

What changed eight years later?

The minority report aims to stop crime before it happens. Following this reasoning, the Parental License Act is introduced which states that all parents have to have a license before they are allowed to have children. This dystopia might become reality one day. The first steps in this direction have already been taken, for instance Guantanamo Bay.