The Geneaology of Criminology

Race, Evolution and Behavior.

This piece is rather blunt and controversial but nonetheless interesting. The topic might be touchy for some so just please hang in there.

The book’s written by J. Phillipe Rushton who’s a psychology professor at the University of Western Ontario and who argues that racial differences are indeed valid since they do exist and can be genetically proven. 

The piece is based on comparisons made between the three major racial groups; Asians, Blacks and Whites, which are apparently supported by numerous amounts of studies performed. While Prof. Rushton touches on various differences among the groups the one that caught my attention the most was brain size (pgs 22-27).

The idea behind brain size is that as races evolved in separate parts of the world each one adopted a different strategy to survive and reproduce. As each method of survival and reproduction focused on different aspects, the brains developed differently; some bigger some smaller.

What’s awfully interesting about the size difference is that according to “a number of methods, including MRI [and IQ tests]” Orientals on average have the largest brains AND higher IQ scores, Blacks the smallest brains AND IQ scores and Whites fall somewhere in the middle for both categories. What’s even more fascinating is that these results are independent of body size!

As you can imagine Prof. Rushton has been heavily criticized for his findings. On one extreme he’s been called a racist, some people argue his references are bogus and have no scientific grounds and some others label his work as political propaganda while on the other end some people revere his work.

Earlier this month, I heard the following story on NPR regarding the famous “perp walk.” The now former head of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn had recently been arrested for allegedly raping a hotel worker. He, like many others involved in notorious/ high-profile was practically paraded down the street in handcuffs for all (via the media) to see. When subsequently, the case against him pretty much collapsed, people began questioning the use of the perp walk and whether or not it does more harm than good. According to Mr. David Krajicek, who has studied the use of perp walks in law enforcement, this form of public humiliation is used to both shame the accused as well as make the law enforcement agencies appear victorious, as if they are doing their job.

The use and prominence of perp walks (especially in New York City) reminded me very much of the rogue galleries we read about and discussed in class. The biggest problem that I see with them is that, much like in Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s case, the accused is publicly humiliated before he is found guilty. The image of someone in chains and handcuffs can tarnish their reputation indefinitely. Perp walks and rogue galleries are ways of permanently marking someone as a criminal, which can make their transition back to civil society very difficult. Even if they are innocent, a perp walk can make them look guilty. This can influence the outcome of the person’s trial. While Mr. Krajicek stated that perp walks seem to be fading in use, he also said that this was mostly because police departments are getting much better at collecting digitized mug shots and getting them out through the media. It seems that despite the passing of much time since Lombroso, we are still typecasting people we deem as criminals.