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Monday, Jan. 20, 2003
Children And Violence: The Search for a
Murder Gene
By MICHAEL D. LEMONICK;Alice Park/New York
With their thick, wavy hair parted neatly on the side, cherubic faces and
unfailingly polite manners, Derek King, 14, and his brother Alex, 13, come across
like choirboys. But the Florida teenagers were sentenced last November to eight
and seven years in prison, respectively, after admitting that they had bludgeoned
their father to death with a baseball bat. The previous year brought two other
trials of Florida kids who had committed murder: Lionel Tate, also 14, got a life
sentence for beating a 6-year-old playmate to death, and Nathaniel Brazill,
another 14-year-old, was sent to prison for 28 years for killing his middle-school
teacher.
What could possibly turn kids this young into brutal killers? The recipe for
violence is almost certainly a mix of bad genes and a bad environment, and the
evidence is strong that the recipe is cooked up very early in life. Until about a
decade ago, most experts assumed that it was a violent or impoverished
upbringing that led to violent adults. "We're depraved," says one of the gang
members in West Side Story, "on account of we're deprived." Indeed, studies had
suggested a correlation between a harsh childhood and later criminality. The link
was strongest for those who had been physically abused as kids. Still, not all
abused children grow up to perpetrate violence in turn. Something else must be
going on.
One possible answer began to emerge after a Dutch woman consulted her
doctor about whether to have kids. Her family had a history of violence, including
rape and attempted murder. Would her children be violent too, she asked? Her
doctor consulted geneticist Hans Brunner, who discovered that the family carried
a defective gene: it made too much of an enzyme, called monoamine oxidase A,
resulting in excessive destruction of neurotransmitters that help keep us calm
and happy.
The finding thrilled some scientists--here, finally, was an explanation for
criminality--and appalled others, who feared that if genes dictate behavior, it
could lead to genetic typecasting of entire races. But lots of violent men don't
have the defective gene, while many non-criminals do. Here, too, the simple
explanation was clearly not the whole story.
Last summer, though, scientists at the University of Wisconsin reported on a
long-term study of 400 boys that had been going on for more than a quartercentury. The scientists had collected DNA from the boys and recorded their
behavior at regular intervals. As with the earlier research, scientists found that
neither genes alone nor childhood abuse alone could explain adult violence. But
of the boys who had both mutation and early abuse, fully 85% had committed a
violent act as an adult. The implication, says Terrie Moffitt, a professor of
psychology at Wisconsin: "Genes influence people's susceptibility or resistance
to environmental 'pathogens.'" Someone with a low genetic propensity will have
to be pushed very hard to become violent; another individual with a different
genetic makeup might have a hair trigger.
But this study is hardly the last word on the genetic roots of violence. There are
almost certainly other genes involved and other kinds of life stress that can
contribute to violence. Moffitt and her colleagues are already planning more
experiments to isolate other factors that might be involved. As for predicting
whether a particular child will become violent, no one can be sure when that
might be possible. For now, we will have to deal with kids like the King brothers
the way we always have: one case at a time. --By Michael D. Lemonick.
Reported by Alice Park/New York
Questions for Consideration… then ANSWERING:
1. In regards to violence, what can we conclude from this article about “nature vs.
nurture?”
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2. It’s the year 2135. Every child born in the US for the past 50 years has had a
genetic test done at birth to determine whether or not they possess the violence
gene. Those who do have a “V” tattooed on their left ear. Using this scenario,
predict the implications of a “violence” gene in:
a. Family Planning/Reproduction
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b. Effects on society: adoption rates; orphanages; abandoned children
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c. Effects on the judicial system (specifically in regard to juvenile crime)
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d. Rights of the individual w/ the defective gene
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e. Behavior of an individual w/ the defective gene
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f. Behavior of others on an individual with a defective gene
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3. ARGUE for or against the statement: We should continue research into genetic
explanations for abnormal psychological behavior. Support your argument with
information from the article, your text, or your own research (cite sources).
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