NCJ Number
153382
Date Published
1985
Length
0 pages
Annotation
This edited version of a Phil Donahue Show (television) presents a professor of psychology at Harvard (Richard Herrnstein), a professor of anthropology at Princeton (Ashley Montagu), and a professor of English at the University of Wyoming (John Edgar Wideman) discussing the nature of and the degree to which the genetic composition of a person determines a predisposition toward criminal behavior.
Abstract
Herrnstein is first questioned by Mr. Donahue regarding some of the claims made in Herrnstein's (and Wilson's) book entitled "Crime and Human Nature." Professor Herrnstein discusses the types of body structures generally found among criminals and the personality traits associated with criminals. Among the latter traits are weak attachments to others, lack of insight about how they appear to other people, a sense of fatalism about their behavior, and a tendency to come from families where parents have inconsistent emotional behavior toward their children. In commenting on Herrnstein's book, Professor Montagu notes that it lacks a thorough knowledge of how a person's genetic makeup is flexible and changing based on interactions with social conditions and environmental stimuli. Herrnstein responds that there is a given predisposition toward criminal behavior, as evidenced by criminal behaviors in identical twins but not fraternal twins and in adopted children whose biological parents have engaged in criminal behaviors. Professor Wideman is on the panel because his younger brother engaged in serious criminal behavior (a robbery in which there was a murder) while Professor Wideman did not. Wideman relates the behavioral differences between himself and his brother to the nature of society as experienced differently by the two brothers. The audience expresses some concern about a tendency to label and adopt a fixed negative view of children who manifest antisocial behavior early in life.