Shedding Light on Crime

...Similarly, in assessing black/ white differences in IQ, another of their constitutional factors, theywrite: "To the extent that the ecoriomic, cultural and geographic position of blacks imposes long-term disadvantages on them, average IQ scores may differ between whites and blacks for reasons having little to do with heritability...

...The authors' erudition is remarkable...

...We cannot say whether broken homes breed crime...

...The key here would seem to be whether we can identify and isolate "criminal impulsiveness," and on this point the authors have already made the crucial concession that "there is no such thing as a 'born criminal.'" In several instances their evidence is simply not credible without further elaboration...

...Some of it seems obvious tothepointof irrelevancy...

...In some places, criminals appear practically to rule...

...Taken as a whole, their evidence of constitutional influences is impressive...

...During approximately the same period, burglaries nearly tripled, car thefts more than doubled and robberies more than tripled...

...Wilsonand Richard J. Herrnstein's Crime and Human Nature (Simon and Schuster, 639 pp., $22.95) is a welcome volume...

...Wilson and Herrnstein are extremely dainty with this hot potato, undercutting much of what they had previously said with statements like: "the evidence that black-white differences in crime rates have a constitutional basis is limited, and the explanatory power of such constitutional factors as have been identified is largely unknown...

...Although crime has been rising, lawbreakers have less reason to be concerned about law enforcement agencies than in the past...

...Youthful misadventures are extremely common (I confess: when I was eight years old I stole a yo-yo...

...Crime is an especially intractablesocial problem because its origins seem to lie in the earliest years of childhood...

...Wemay not know ho w to change environmental influences to bring America' s crime rate down to that of, say, Switzerland, but we can be sure that we don't have to alter human nature to do it...

...Yet even the most hard-core "nurturist" does not worry about being mugged by a grandmother...

...Others are impulsive shoppers...

...To the topics that the rest of us babble about—the impact of television on children's behavior, the role of schools in curbing delinquency, the relationship between crime and unemployment—they bring close analysis and the most up-to-date facts...

...Worldwide, males are five to 50 times as likely to be arrested as are females...

...Between 1961-75, the homicide rate in the United States doubled...

...Really...

...Age and sex are clearly biologically determined, and the authors believe they score points with their recitals of statistics...

...the probability of someone going to prison from 10 per cent to 2 per cent...

...According to one estimate, the chance of being robbed was 208 times greater in the U. S. than in Japan...

...Their strongest recommendation is for additional research...

...Finding that muscular individuals are more prone than others to physical activities such as crime may be like attending a ballet performance and discovering that ectomorphs (those with linear frames) have a predilection for the dance...

...We are uncertain about the influence of peer group pressures or the impact of neighborhoods...

...To say, as Wilson and Herrnstein do, that persons of a particular physical build have an abnormal inclination to crime so defies our common-sensical notions that we will sooner assume some kind of statistical error than believe the claim as made...

...Teenagers make up a majority of those arrested for property crimes and roughly one third of the arrests for violent crimes...

...Everybody has an opinion about it, usually concocted out of three parts misinformation and one part prejudice...

...Few will be surprised to learn, for example, that age correlates more strongly with crime than any other single factor...

...Wilson and Herrnstein tell us what mothers have known for millennia: Babies are different in temperament practically from birth (suggesting a genetic component to personality...

...Moreover, others are doing better now...

...considered separately, it is less persuasive...

...Indeed, so studded is this book with "there is not much agreement among scholars" and "we can only surmise" and " we have little more than guesswork to rely on" that one of its major results is to demonstrate how, despite several decades of scholarship, we are in the dark on many basic matters...

...They declare that "constitutional factors are implicated, to an unknown but not trivial degree, in the prevalence of high-rate offending...

...A person with a racist bent might be tempted to conclude from this book that they have a genetic propensity for crime...

...Wilson and Herrnstein explain not only what social scientists actually know about violent crime but also the enormous amount they don't know...

...At the very least, Wilson and Herrnstein argue, educational efforts to combat delinquency should begin before junior high school...

...Professors can discuss whether criminal potential is innate, with young, male, slow-witted, and impulsive mesomorphs an especially risky group...

...The question is, why does a small percentage of young males pursue a life of crime, while the overwhelming majority returns to the straight-and-narrow...

...So consistent are the findings tracing criminality back to infancy that Wilson and Herrnstein are led to examine "constitutional" influences—that is, qualities present at birth though not necessarily genetic (since differences in prenatal care can also have an impact...

...We can't even describe the roleof the father in child-rearing...

...nurture" debate...

...Wilson and Herrnstein are extremely sparing in their prescriptions...

...Readers may be forgiven if they finish the chapter on race and crime in a state of confusion...

...Not surprisingly, a great deal of CrimeandHuman Nature makes depressing reading...

...They have no illusions about what punishment can accomplish...

...Gender is another important element...

...The problem is to acquire a better understanding of how those factors interact with familial and other social experiences...

...In any debate over how to deal with our crime epidemic, however, the nurturists, as Wilson and Herrnstein acknowledge, win the argument hands down...

...What is more, they write in a prose style that is mercifully free of statistical jargon...

...The authors, quite aware that they are breaking new ground—or, more accurately, replowing old—explicitly announce their intention to redirect our thinking about violent crime and its causes toward innate properties...

...Finally, one must say that it is hard to get too excited about Wilson and Herrnstein's claims for inborn characteristics, since almost everybody will agree that development results from a complex interaction of genetic and environmental factors...

...Some of the evidence is built on dubious definitions...

...Reversing the eonventional wisdom, several studies even suggest that school might be bad for budding criminals: It forces them to sit through long hours of classes they dislike that serve, when they fail, merely to lower their self-esteem...

...One possible explanation does come to mind: The build in question is called mesomorphic, and described as "muscular...

...It merely wants to be able to walk the streets in safety, and the fact is that with the same basic human material we have done better in the past, when people could stroll through the parks at night...

...A sociologist examining a neighborhood in an Eastern city found that the only residents not living in fear were the young punks who preyed on everyone else—and retaliated against those victims who called the police by victimizing them again...

...Then, after reviewing the literature on the connection between crime and personality, the authors declare that "impulsiveness may explain many things about criminal behavior," and that "impulsiveness in and of itself predisposes a person toward offending...

...For this reason alone, JamesQ...

...Some people are impulsive inlove affairs...

...Further research is as likely to reduce as to increase the significance of those factors...

...As Wilson and Herrnstein show, no matter how the statistical pie is sliced, blacks are responsible for a disproportionate number of the violent offenses committed in the United States...

...Even gray-flanneled bankers have been known to make fools of themselves at parties on a whim...

...By the time schools and other public institutions have the chance to work with difficult youngsters, their pattern has already been set by family experiences beyond the reach of current programs...

...Impulsiveness comes in many forms and varieties...

...The issue of constitutional determinants becomes touchiest when it is linked to race...

...The slogan "Don't be a dropout" may be one more cobblestone on hell's well-paved road...

...There is debate about the deterrent effect of punishment on crime(and everything else surrounding the subject), but the authors argue for swifter, more certain—if not necessarily more severe—penalties, and it is hard to disagree with them...

...Wilson and Herrnstein cite evidence indicating that youthful misconduct is one of the best predictors of trouble in later life, and they point out that" the chronic recidivists begin their misdeeds at a very early age...

...It is an almost encyclopedic compendium of information, and certain to raise the level of any reader's thinking...

...Wilson and Herrnstein observe that between 196279, the probability of an arrest being made for a serious crime (murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, car theft, and arson) fell from 32 per cent to 18 per cent...

...No study seems to have escaped them, from an investigation of the crime patterns of Danish orphans to a survey, done inEngland, of murderers' suicide rates...

...Researchers have found that many young offenders apparently commit fewer crimes after they drop out of school...

...Certainly, the general public is little interested in the constitutional contribution to crime, whatever that may be...

...These pages are perhaps the most controversial in the book, reviving, as they do, the"nature" side of the traditional "nature vs...