Crime In The Brain Essay

This topic is one that has elicited massive interest in quite a number of fields relative to the impact that the findings will have in various sectors. There has been a trend in the scholarly realm to try and understand why criminals act the way they do and why the rest of the population does not act like the criminals. It is for this reason that myriads of researchers have set their focus to understand the physiological characteristics of the criminals and what in their brain causes them to act the way they do. Understanding the human physiology is one thing, however understanding a dysfunctional human being is different thing all together. In quite a number of research, the main reasons that have been cited as the cause of dysfunctional people is the functional ability of their amygdala or their frontal cortex.
As such, when the organ is defective, the person in question is going to exhibit signs of lack of or poor emotional maturity. The frontal cortex on the other hand is part of the brain that is responsible for the decision making. This means that persons that have a dysfunctional frontal cortex are likely to make poor decisions, relative to the social norms; ones that would lead medical practitioners to medically label the person a psychopath. Other than the scholarly realm, these elements in light of the characteristics associated with psychopaths relative to their brain physiology and function are finding their way in the American courts (Inside A psychopath's brain: The sentencing debate, 2010). As such, where a person is considered to have psychopathic characteristics resulting from damage of poor development of parts of his brain, the court may argue that he or she should be exonerated based on this medical evidence (Inside A psychopath's brain: The sentencing debate,