Predisposition to Violence Found

Boys who were rejected by their mothers early in life and suffered birth complications are predisposed to committing violent crimes as adults, a new study shows.

The 35-year study – the first of its kind – found those baby boys were more prone to commit murders, rapes and armed robberies as adults, according to the American Medical Association's Archives of General Psychiatry.

While only 4.5 per cent of the subjects had both risk factors, this small group accounted for 18 per cent of all violent crimes, said psychology professor Adrian Raine of the University of Southern California, who was involved in the study published yesterday.

If we can provide pre-natal and post-natal services, we could reduce violence by 18 per cent, he said, adding that the violent crimes include attempted murder, assault, illegal possession of a weapon and threats of violence.

Birth complications included breech deliveries, forceps deliveries, being delivered with the umbilical cord around the neck and suffering a lack of oxygen, according to the study of 4,269 boys born in Copenhagen between September 1959 and December 1961.

The boys were picked because Denmark's National Crime Register holds the most systematic and accurate crime records in the world, Raine said in a telephone interview.

Researchers followed the boys into young adulthood and checked their criminal status from age 17 to 19 with the register, where all police contacts and court decisions involving Danish citizens are recorded.

Early childhood rejection was defined as whether the pregnancy was unwanted, the mother tried to abort the fetus or the infant was placed in a full-time institution such as a hospital or social service care for more than four months during the first year of life.

However, the mere presence of either birth complications or maternal rejection did not predispose a child to violence, Raine said. But when you place the two together, it's like an explosion.

That's because children with birth complications sometimes suffer brain dysfunction that can lead to a lower intelligence, school failure and then work failure, he said.

And children who have not bonded with their mothers in the first year of life sometimes become affection-less and unable to have meaningful, intimate relationships.

If you don't care about bonding with someone, shoving a knife in someone's back or blowing a hole in their head may not bother you, he said.

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