Kent Kiehl’s Search for the Criminal Brain America’s self-proclaimed “psychopath whisperer” says he can predict criminality in incarcerated people. Is the legal system buying it?

Abstract

Since the 19th century, researchers have attempted to uncover the biological roots of criminality. The process has been both scientifically dubious and ethically fraught. While biological theories of criminal behavior faded after World War II, they arose again in the 1990s and early 2000s, when new brain imaging techniques collided with a growing interest in understanding how biological drivers of crime, if they exist, could be analyzed to understand, and even predict, criminal behavior. This thesis examines the research and claims of a prominent neuropsychologist within that historical context. He claims to have conducted promising brain research on incarcerated people that could uncover biological markers of criminal behavior, or even predict future criminality. Yet methodological and ethical questions have been raised about his research. Is it scientifically valid to have a brain-based view of criminal behavior? Is it ethically valid to assume that criminal behavior can be decoded from the brains of people incarcerated in a system that disproportionately impacts people of color and those from low socio-economic backgrounds? His critics are doubtful.