What makes a criminal?

摘要

OUR attitudes towards crime and punishment are highly political. They often come down to how much we believe a person's particular life circumstances should be taken into account when deciding whether their punishment fits the crime they committed. But criminal justice isn't an evidence-free zone. Behavioural scientist Terrie Moffitt at King's College London has spent her career trying to uncover biological and environmental roots to criminal behaviour. Now she has evidence from brain imaging and genetics to support her idea that there are generally two groups of people who commit crime, each with different causes for their behaviour and different prospects for reform.