Today’s Wall Street Journal features a sizeable piece by Raine as its “Saturday Essay.”

The title of the essay is “The Criminal Mind” and underneath the title it says “Advances in genetics and neuroscience are revolutionizing our understanding of violent behavior—as well as ideas about how to prevent and punish crime.”

It doesn’t get much more relevant to ponerology than that. And it’s heartening to see Raine given a platform to share his extremely important and provocative ideas in The Wall Street Journal just in advance of the release of his book The Anatomy of Violence: The Biological Roots of Crime.

Raine’s essay touches on:

• The history of criminology as a science and its sometimes unfortunate devolution into pseudoscience
• The rise of neurocriminology
• The roles of genetics, environmental and developmental factors and brain structure and function in the emergence of aggression and antisocial behavior
• The political and social implications of a focus on biological bases for crime
• Recommendations for legal policies that account for our growing ponerologic understanding by both assigning appropriate levels of responsibility to offenders and optimally protecting the rest of society from the threats they pose
• Measures – including some relatively non-invasive ones – that can help significantly reduce the likelihood of harmful behavior in children that display signs of severe aggression

The article is accompanied by the video below. In it, Raine explains the relationship between diminished prefrontal cortex activity and violence, how such prefrontal dysfunction originates and possible treatments for such conditions, as well as how those with normal prefrontal activity but undersized amygdalae can also commit violence in a more planned and calculating fashion.

Raine also offers his opinion in the video about the Tsarnaev brothers who bombed the Boston Marathon.

One of the bonuses of running and promoting this site is that, in the course of doing so, a lot of relevant ideas and people come to my attention. And, once in a while, another whole field of study, related to ponerology, that also brings together many disparate threads, becomes known to me.

This happened recently.

Several weeks ago, I wrote about a study led by criminal justice professor Volkan Topalli. After publishing that piece, I found and followed Dr. Topalli on Twitter. Soon after that, Dr. Topalli retweeted a tweet by the criminology division of the publisher Routledge about a new book, the Routledge International Handbook of Green Criminology.

Green Criminology?

The term intrigued me and I was motivated to do a little more research on it. I’ll share with you some of what I found shortly. But first I’d like to provide some context regarding how this topic relates with the wide-ranging audience interested in ponerology.

I know that, among those drawn to ponerology by a desire to understand the roots of what they consider “evil” behavior, there are those of all political stripes holding every possible view on environmental issues.

There are those who believe that:

• Evil is embodied in corrupt corporations and their possibly pathological leaders who rape and pillage natural resources for profit without concern for sustainability
• Stronger government regulation is needed to restrain these out-of-control, environmentally-damaging companies

There are some who:

• Share concern about environmental sustainability
• Believe that governments, expressing themselves through directly destructive activity related to natural resources, crooked politically-motivated subsidies and establishment and enforcement of the very legal structures that prop up corrupt corporations in the first place, are the real seats of “evil” responsible for environmental damage
• Advocate for less government and a laissez-faire, free-market policy that maximizes privatization as the strategy most likely to move us toward sustainability

Others believe that

• We are in no actual danger of running up against natural resource limits or threatening environmental sustainability
• Those claiming we are in such danger are, in reality, either evil people promoting self-serving political agendas or hoaxes or alarmists scared into their views by them
• We should ignore these malicious or misguided voices and continue, unrestrained, an aggressive policy of industrialization without concern for limits

And there are many who hold some combination of these views on the subject or still other views entirely.

In my case, concern about ecological sustainability was very instrumental in propelling me along the path that brought me to ponerology. The work of Daniel Quinn and Derrick Jensen, in particular, influenced me to focus, at a relatively young age, on the damage engendered on many levels by a cultural mindset, sanctioning infinite growth in spite of finite natural resources, that has become the basis for our economic system and both shaped and been shaped by deeply unhealthy psychological attitudes and belief systems – and, quite possibly, by those with pathological conditions.

During the many years spent following up on the ideas Quinn and Jensen helped introduce to me, I explored, from every angle I could, the environmental debates and the many subjects they involve. Over time, I’ve come to a deeper understanding of people who approach environmentalism from a variety of different perspectives.

The epiphany that I experienced upon discovering ponerology sprung in part from the fact that it clarified a mindset regarding questions about the emergence of harm that were woven through myriad areas that concerned me and to which I was having great difficulty formulating an approach. It embodied the idea that our starting point should be to learn all that we can about the scientific facts relating to these questions. While conceding that we will never know everything we need to know to make perfect decisions, it argues that maximizing our systematic, objective knowledge will provide us the firmest basis on which to make them.

When I saw Topalli’s retweet about the Routledge International Handbook of Green Criminology, that term – green criminology – provoked in me another similar epiphany.

We may not, in the near future, all come to agree on either what is really happening environmentally or what we should do about it. But hopefully many of us can at least agree that we should establish, to the best of our ability, the facts regarding any egregiously reckless malicious or negligent behavior implicated in ecosystem damage and the people involved in it. Green criminology sounded to me like a field devoted to doing just that from a scientific perspective.

So I did some searching to learn about what green criminology is and what resources are available for people that want to know more or get involved.

One of the first resources I found is the GreenCriminology.org website. This site is run by the International Green Criminology Working Group (IGCWG), which is “a group of academic professionals, students, and others that practice Green Criminology and collaborate on projects and discussions” and was crowdfunded through a Kickstarter campaign that featured the video below.

• “What crimes or harms are inflicted on the environment, and how?”
• “Who commits crime against the environment, and why?”
• “Who suffers as a result of environmental damage, and how?”
• “What are the social, economic and political conditions that lead to environmental crimes?”
• “Which types of harms should be considered as ‘crimes’ and therefore within the remit of a green criminology?”

I then found that University of Colorado Denver, through their School of Public Affairs, supports a research working group on green criminology.

Of course, the Routledge International Handbook of Green Criminology, which was where I first came across the term, looks like a thorough overview of the subject.

And Amazon also features some other books when I do a search for "green criminology". Some of the ones that look interesting include:

It’s somewhat surprising to me that, despite all the investigation I’ve done of pathological conditions and environmental issues, as well as their overlap, I’d never even heard the term “green criminology” before.

Derrick Jensen has explicitly linked our culture’s high level of environmental damage to the influence of psychopathy and has written thousands and thousands of pages and done countless talks on these issues. Yet even in all of his work that I’ve read, seen and heard, I don’t recall him using the term “green criminology.”

I’m thankful that, through promoting this site, I came across people who were able to finally bring it to my attention.

I hope to have more experiences like that in the future. And I am looking forward to learning more about green criminology.

I realize that not everyone interested in ponerology will be similarly interested in this angle on it. Some may even disagree with green criminology’s basic premises for various reasons (though I think, if they take a closer look at some of the writing on GreenCriminology.org, they may find some of their concerns are addressed more openly than they would have expected). And that’s fine. The goal of this site is simply to bring information related to ponerology to people’s attention. From there, they can do with that information what they wish.

But I believe green criminology is a discipline that anyone who cares about ponerology should at least be aware of.  It shines a light on what has often been a blind spot in the consideration of evil. Those who commit “evil” in which the damage is externalized to the broader environment, even if it then indirectly harms a large number of people, have been able, relatively, to escape notice as compared with those who do damage directly to even a small number of others. A tighter integration with green criminology may help correct this imbalance within ponerology’s perspective.

At the same time, I think those interested in green criminology should be aware of ponerology because the information it helps reveal can potentially inspire a more profound level of understanding about why the harmful events that field studies come to pass.

It’s always exciting for me to see connections and relationships develop amongst people with overlapping interests of great depth that pertain to improving health and sustainability. I hope this article will help catalyze some new connections and relationships between the emerging green criminology and ponerology communities. Not everyone in those communities will see eye to eye on every topic. But, surely, there are many within them who will find common ground and can share with each other a good deal of meaningful dialogue and support.

Dr. Kent Kiehl of the Mind Research Network has been one of the more active researchers investigating what we can learn from brain imaging of psychopaths. And he and colleagues have recently published, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, a study entitled “Neuroprediction of future rearrest.”

The study involved having 96 soon-to-be-released male prisoners perform computer tasks that required quick decision-making and inhibition of impulsive responses, while their brains were observed using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The researchers focused in on the brain region known as the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and found that, when controlling for other known risk factors, those prisoners with less ACC activity than their fellow study participants were about twice as likely to be rearrested within 4 years of release as those with higher ACC activity.

We’ve already mentioned, in previous stories, that reduced cingulate cortex function is associated with psychopathy and has been identified in some violent criminal offenders.

The question is, as we zero in on markers like this – whether they be certain anatomical or functional characteristics of the brain, particular genetic features or anything else – what is the most ethical way in which to use this knowledge?

On one hand, it could be considered highly unethical and dangerous to discriminate against, detain or punish anybody – even a previous offender – simply because they happen to exhibit particular biological markers if those markers have not expressed themselves in a specific behavior for which they are being criminally charged. Beginning to do so could open the door to frightening abuses by authorities.

Most of the commenters on the Daily Mail’s story about this study fell on this side of the issue and raised such concerns.

For example, “Dunnyveg” said:

“Actually, low IQ, high testosterone, and a record of previous convictions are the best indicators for recidivism; there is no need for fancy technology. But none of these absolve society from our time-honored principle of innocent until proven guilty. Talk about a potential totalitarian nightmare, this is it….”

“Percival” said:

“Still like technology gullible science fans? Little do you realise these are not to benefit you but to control you, all of it is too control and watch and report back and have you slaves to the system.”

Martin said:

“Well that fills the biggest gap left in achieving the full ’1984 infrastructure’ now they’re rolling out internet TVs that watch you and listen to you (and that some mugs are actually buying) – welcome to the world of ‘thought crime’ ….”

The very idea of predicting and preemptively acting to prevent crimes before they are committed reminds many of the brilliant Philip K. Dick story, later made into a movie by Steven Spielberg, “The Minority Report.”

On the Daily Mail article, “Jeff Pringle” commented:

“Minority Report anyone?”

And Nature began their story on the study with “In a twist that evokes the dystopian science fiction of writer Philip K. Dick…” and, later in the article, mentioned “The Minority Report.”

But, on the other hand, it could be considered unethical not to use our improving predictive ability if failing to do so allows offenders to cause harm and suffering to others that could have, with minimal collateral damage, been prevented. How would you feel if a loved one was harmed by a person who we knew ahead of time, based on various markers and indicators, had an extremely high likelihood of offending but did nothing to stop?

Some may take comfort in the fact that we can, for the moment, postpone fully grappling with these dilemmas. Our predictive ability based on markers like those in Kiehl’s study is still poor enough that it seems clearly unreasonable, at the present time, to base highly consequential legal actions on it alone. Even Kiehl himself concedes as much.

But as our knowledge and technology improve, there may well come a day when the gap between the pros and cons of applying them to predict and prevent crime narrows. Eventually, we may have to decide at exactly which threshold level of predictive reliability it becomes more unethical, even in the face of potential unintended consequences, to allow a person marked as extremely likely to cause harm to act freely than to take action to reduce the threat they pose. The decision about where to draw such a line could arouse furious debate.

One commenter on the Nature article, “Mitch Trachtenberg,” offered a nice middle ground where many of us, despite different viewpoints on the matter, may frequently find ourselves able to meet, when he said:

“This knowledge could be abused by someone refusing to release someone on parole or probation due to “unacceptable-ACC-levels.” But it could really be helpful if the results were used to get someone additional help or even monitoring. Helping people with problems controlling their impulses could be beneficial, and it would be great to have a way of discovering which people in our prison system might well be there for exactly that reason.”

Hopefully Mitch’s idea will prove prescient and we can find a way, at least much of the time, to use this knowledge and these tools in a compassionate way that aims to authentically help people, not just stigmatize or harass them. But it’s hard to imagine a future where we aren’t sometimes faced with incredibly difficult decisions about cases that just don’t allow for any easy middle ground where we can hide.

What are your thoughts on the subject?

How do you weigh the danger of authorities abusing these predictive abilities against the threat posed by individuals with biological markers associated with harming others?

What do you think is the most ethical way to deal with the dilemmas these predictive abilities may one day pose?

Let us know in the comments below.

But, the spate of high-profile examples of white collar corruption in recent years, from the collapse of Lehman Brothers to the Bernie Madoff multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme, has thrust questions about corporate psychopathy to the forefront.

Increasingly, people are recognizing the exponentially greater damage that can be done when “snakes in suits” exert their influence over powerful institutions as compared to when lone individuals commit gruesome, but isolated, acts. In the latter case, several people and families may be tragically affected. In the former, entire economies affecting millions, if not billions of people can be put at risk.

In the wake of this increased awareness, the Journal of Forensic Psychology Practice features a two part review by Angela Dawn Pardue, MS and Matthew B. Robinson, Ph.D. of Appalachian State University and Bruce A. Arrigo, Ph.D. of University of North Carolina entitled “Psychopathy and Corporate Crime: A Preliminary Examination.”

A look at the review’s two parts:

Psychopathy and Corporate Crime: A Preliminary Examination,
Part 1

In this part, the authors:

• “Introduce and discuss the concepts of corporate crime and psychopathy”
• “Examine the leading theories of corporate crime within the discipline of criminology”
• Explain why existing models of corporate crime, which lack sufficient focus on psychopathy, fail to provide adequate understanding.

Psychopathy and Corporate Crime: A Preliminary Examination,
Part 2

In this part, the authors:

• More thoroughly cover psychopathy and its signs and symptoms
• Explain how those signs and symptoms were manifest in many recent cases of corporate crime in a variety of industries
• Advocate that criminology focus more on psychopathy as an important aspect when explaining corporate crime

The review not only calls to mind Snakes in Suits by Robert Hare and Paul Babiak, but also The Corporation, a film in which Hare himself is featured. Since modern corporations, at least in the United States, are afforded “corporate personhood,” the filmmakers asked what kind of person a corporation is. They run down the characteristics of a psychopath, showing how each is displayed in the operations and behavior of today’s corporations.

Because corporations have such enormous power in our world today, it is crucial that public awareness continue to be fostered about the catastrophes that can ensue when pathological people ascend corporate hierarchies. Kudos to the authors of “Psychopathy and Corporate Crime: A Preliminary Examination” and to the Journal of Forensic Psychology Practice for taking on this critical subject, so deeply relevant to ponerology.

And kudos, as well, for reminding us that there is a field – criminology – tasked with investigating why not only shootings and robberies, but also larger-scale economic and political crimes, take place and that, in order to thoroughly do so, criminologists must never ignore the potential role of pathologies like psychopathy and certain personality disorders.

Saleem A.Shah, Ph.D. was a highly esteemed psychologist. In fact, he was so influential that some credit him with helping to establish the specialty of forensic psychology.

While working at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), Shah directed, for nearly 20 years, an interdisciplinary research program focused on antisocial and violent behavior. The program was first called the Center for Studies of Crime and Delinquency and later known as the Antisocial and Violent Behavior Branch.

He had a special interest in the relationship between mental health and the law and, in his role at NIMH, helped form the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law.

Known as a man of strong conscience with deep concern for patients and their rights, he spoke all over the world, urging people to make sure that psychology was used in society in a compassionate and ethical way.

Tragically, Shah died in a car accident in 1992.

The award bearing his name has been presented annually, since 1995, to a young professional who demonstrates “significant early career achievement in forensic psychology or related fields of law.”

You can learn more about Saleem A. Shah, Ph.D. in:

• This archived article published in the Baltimore Sun shortly after his death
• The AAFP’s page describing the Saleem Shah Award for Early Career Excellence in Psychology and Law

As reported in The Crimson White, the student newspaper of the University of Alabama and on the University of Alabama Psychology Department’s website, this year’s recipient, for his research on psychopaths, is Alabama assistant professor of psychology and law Martin Sellbom.

In addition to his work on psychopathy, Sellbom studies personality disorders in general, especially focusing on assessment methods, and runs the school’s Personality, Psychopathology, and Measurement Lab.

In the Crimson article, Sellbom is quoted as saying that he views Daniel Craig’s version of James Bond as a favorite popular example of a psychopath.

Having won the award, Sellbom will speak at the 2013 American Psychology-Law Society Annual Conference.

It reads “Kids Can Be Psychopathic, Too.”

The article focuses heavily on – and introduced me to – the work of Adrian Raine, a professor of criminology, psychiatry and psychology on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania’s Jerry Lee Center of Criminology.

Raine is the author of the textbook The Psychopathology of Crime: Criminal Behavior as a Clinical Disorder. And, as described in the article, he holds two highly controversial and enormously challenging beliefs:

• He believes that we will soon be able to use medical tests to determine whether a child is predisposed to grow up to be a psychopath.
• And he also believes that, once we are able to do that, we should screen children for traits linked to psychopathy.

The Philly Mag article itself is well worth the read, as it offers a fascinating look at:

• A brief historical overview of criminology and the nature vs. nature debate
• Structural and functional differences in the brains of psychopaths as opposed to those of non-psychopaths
• How psychopaths are responsible for crime at levels vastly disproportionate to their numbers
• What separates successful from unsuccessful psychopaths
• Genes influencing brain structure that are associated with antisocial and aggressive behavior
• Raine’s research showing certain differences among young children, which he believes are innate and biologically-based, that help predict which ones will exhibit future aggression and criminality
• Why, when it comes to the “chicken or egg” question regarding biological differences and psychopathy, Raine falls on the “biology as cause” side of the debate
• Why many resist biological explanations of “bad” behavior
• Interventions that might help children predisposed to criminal behavior
• Responses from others to Raine’s suggestion that we screen children for psychopathy-linked traits

I highly recommend taking the time to check it out.

But I bring up that article here in order to preface a new and exciting development regarding Adrian Raine that has come to my attention.

One other phenomenon that Hingston’s piece touches on is the recent explosion of media – including films (such as We Need to Talk About Kevin) and television shows (such as Dexter) – dealing with the subject of psychopathy. The article credits Raine’s investigations into the brains of criminals – neurocriminology research – for providing the platform for this explosion. If attributing this credit to Raine is appropriate then it is only fitting that his work will now serve as the basis for a television show in an even more direct manner.

Raine has a new book schedule for release on April 30, 2013 entitled The Anatomy of Violence: The Biological Roots of Crime.

According to TV Guide, the highly successful producers of the show Homeland, Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa, sold a show based on that book to CBS and will write and executive produce a pilot episode.

Deadline.com reports that a third Homeland producer, Alex Cary, has also joined the team.

Another Deadline.com article reports that the pilot will be directed by Mark Pellington (perhaps best known for his work on the powerful video for the Pearl Jam song “Jeremy”) and that David Harewood, who appears in the cast of Homeland (and whose brief but theatrical appearance as the Prince of Morocco in Michael Radford’s film version of The Merchant of Venice I found memorably amusing), is the first actor cast for it. It describes the show as featuring “Raines, a criminal psychologist with an expertise in sociopaths”

It should be very interesting to see how the pilot is received and if the show can go on to further promote Adrian Raine’s deeply important work and provide even more public awareness and education regarding research into the biological roots of aggression and harm and other ponerologic themes.

A new study, described in the Vancouver Sun, touches on this interplay between ideology/religion (in this case, specifically religion) and harmful activity.

The study, led by Volkan Topalli, a criminal justice professor at Georgia State University, was published in an article entitled “With God on My Side: The Paradoxical Relationship Between Religious Belief and Criminality Among Hardcore Street Offenders” in the journal Theoretical Criminology.

Topalli and his co-researchers “found that through ‘purposeful distortion or genuine ignorance,’ hardcore criminals often co-opt religious doctrine to justify or further their crimes.”

I like the word “co-opt” as it really captures the smooth, devious way that dangerous people can assume a doctrine of, say, love and compassion, re-process it and then convincingly promote it in a creatively altered form as a rationale for destructiveness.

In interviews, the study’s subjects demonstrated precisely how they had selectively accepted and twisted various religious teachings in order to reconcile them with their criminal behavior.

Topalli points out that this has implications for the role of faith-based programs often provided to prisoners, since some of those prisoners, rather than internalizing the healthy messages embedded within the religious teachings, will instead simply manipulate the material to further support their criminality. This mirrors the way (as I explained here) that psychopaths, treated with traditional therapeutic approaches that may cultivate empathy and compassion in others, may instead simply observe and learn from their therapists and fellow group participants how to become even more skilled manipulators and exploiters. This is why Robert Hare, world expert on psychopathy, has desperately advocated that certain pathological prisoners not be treated in the same groups or with the same methods that are applied with their fellow inmates.

Topalli’s study concluded with a recommendation that faith-based prison programs not be relied upon alone as a primary deterrent to repeat offending.