The accused, who murdered and raped a trainee doctor at RG Kar Medical College, Kolkata, is being told that he was a habitual criminal, who was addicted to fighting after drinking alcohol and also watching porn. An even more brutal case came from Bareilly, where a serial killer murdered several middle-aged women. In this, the mind of the murderer works differently from that of ordinary people or those who commit murder suddenly out of anger.
Even science doesn’t have all the answers
The word criminal mind was first written in the year 1928. Referring to this in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, it was written that criminally minded people are the most dangerous. They are not a threat to one or two humans, but to the entire humanity. It has been almost 100 years since this term came into existence, but it still remains a challenge for neuroscientists and psychologists. Despite all the progress, science is still confused about whether habitual killers can be predicted in advance.
According to experts, it is not possible to know who can become a dreaded killer in the future by looking at just a few symptoms. Many times a person does something wrong on impulse. Later, while trying to hide it, he keeps doing more wrong. This is not cold blooded murder. To identify such people, psychological theories were also explored along with brain scans.
This part of the brain remains separate
In the early nineties, neurocriminologist Adrian Ryan arrived in American prisons to study cold-blooded murderers. It started from California. This state was infamous for such murders. More than 40 prisoners underwent PET (positron emission tomography) to understand the biochemical functions within the brain. The scan showed that many parts of the killer’s brain had shrunk. Especially the pre-frontal cortex. Let us tell you that this is the part of the brain which teaches self-control. This pre-frontal appeared to be much smaller in those with murderous minds.
When the study came out, instead of praising the scientist, people started calling him mad. Much later, a book called The Anatomy of Violence came out, in which Dr. Ryan had written about his 35 years of experience on the minds of criminals.
Why does this shrinkage occur in the prefrontal cortex of the brain?
According to scientists, there can be many reasons for this, which are also genetic, and sometimes deep head injury is also the reason. This can also happen to those who suffered abuse in childhood. It has often been seen that people who have lived a difficult life, especially those who have seen complications in relationships, have a different mind. However, scientists also believe that people with shrunken cortex are not necessarily criminals.
There are also some psychological characteristics, which make such people different. Like these people are usually badly self-obsessed. They don’t worry about anyone except themselves. If such people get hurt, they can commit murder with full planning. There is no guilt in them. Usually even criminals get scared after a crime, but a cold blooded murderer confesses his crime very calmly.
What goes through the mind while committing murder?
When someone suddenly commits such a crime out of anger, then at that moment he has no fear. Instead he feels powerful and in control. Happiness hormones dopamine and adrenaline increase in his brain. They instigate him to commit murder. But this surge subsides after some time. Then fear and shame take its place.
One category is defensive dismemberment. This is an attempt to hide the mistake, which scared people do. In this, the criminal commits a wrong out of anger, but then out of fear starts destroying the evidence.
Missing genes are also responsible to some extent
There is also a special gene, missing of which can make any person a murderer. It is called MAOA (monoamine oxidase A). It controls neurotransmitter molecules like serotonin and dopamine. These are directly related to mood, emotions, sleep and hunger. If this goes wrong then it doesn’t take long for the human being to go wrong. In such a situation, if the gene that controls them disappears or decreases, then the result can be dangerous.
This is the reason why MAOA is also called warrior gene or serial killer gene.
Men are at greater risk
Men are also more at risk of this missing gene, whereas women work as carriers for it, that is, to carry it from one generation to the next. In most cases, the deficiency of this gene remains undetected despite family love and good eating habits. If this gene is less in children from homes where parents are in an abusive relationship, where there is fighting or abuse, then anger goes out of control. As these children grow up, they start showing criminal behavior and may even commit murder in future.