To understand the problem of violence committed by human beings, especially irrational violence, it is first necessary to understand human behavior: how it works, what factors influence it... To truly understand it, in the most scientific sense possible, based on the best that scientific thought and practice can offer. Because adopting narratives that supposedly explain it, including violence, just because they fit with personal beliefs or feelings, seems to be much more common, not only among non-specialists, but even among those who consider themselves such, just because they graduated in related areas, but demonstrate more ignorance than knowledge, precisely because they disregard legitimate scientific evidence on the topics of their areas of expertise; because they have limited themselves to the politically correct pseudosciences that have become predominant in their areas in the last half century.
So, first, let's talk a little about human behavior, which we can observe with the naked eye, its patterns or intersectional correlations, which are not just parallels between factors that share the same context of influences. This is precisely the first point, that human behavior is relatively predictable, because we can draw behavioral profiles of individuals, but also of groups and subgroups, in relation to their personality traits and intelligence. For example, we know that a person is more shy precisely because we perceive in them a constancy of behaviors characteristic of shyness. The second point is that we can observe, in addition to the patterns of human behavior that result in cognitive and personality profiles, that they are also more stable or difficult to significantly change, even though they also present a limited adaptive plasticity. That is, precisely because they are more stable they are also predictable. Even when chronic instability is observed, such as in the case of mood disorders such as bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder, they still express patterns of "stable instability" or predictable undulation. The third point is that it is common to find an apparently coincidental similarity of behavioral tendencies among close blood relatives, especially between parents and children, and siblings; that we can also notice this similarity between individuals from the same groups defined by race or ethnicity, culture, social class, IQ, type of intelligence, sex, sexual orientation... That we can see, for example, that adopted children do not tend to resemble their adoptive parents in temperament and intelligence, but rather their biological parents, even more so if they come from different social backgrounds, and even when they are raised from a very early age by their adoptive parents, far from their biological families. The fourth point is that we can see that human behavior is more intrinsically than extrinsically oriented, due to the perception of being more stable and predictable and because it manifests itself in a way that is more coherent with the individual's personality traits and intelligence than just in a way that is reciprocally reactive to external circumstances. The fifth point is that we can agree that we are not born as "blank sheets of paper", without pre-formed brains (not yet fully developed) and endowed with specific constitutions, if behavioral tendencies already begin to appear from the first years of life, and that we most likely inherit them from our parents, although more as a recombination of their characteristics, as well as from their closest relatives (siblings...), than as a direct and linear inheritance, based on the third point of primarily coincidental similarity and also by the basic logic that we do not inherit only physical characteristics from our parents. And finally, it is even possible to conclude that all these points corroborate the hypothesis contrary to the one that has become predominant, especially in the human sciences, that we are practically absolute products of the environments in which we live, whether led by sociology or in a more sophisticated way by epigenetics (if that is what this emerging branch seems to be serving, to be used as supposed scientific evidence that the environment is more important than biology in determining human development and behavior and, therefore, as reinforcement for ideologically biased narratives and public policies, based on them, that supposedly aim to combat social problems).
There you have it. If we can agree with everything that was said above about the behavior of our species, we can also do so in a more specific way, for example, in relation to violent behavior: that it is predictable, according to more stable patterns of behavior and correlations with certain groups; more intrinsic and, therefore, more dependent on the/quantity and level of self-control, and other qualities, of an individual, rather than primarily and exclusively on the circumstances in which he or she finds himself or herself; of being more hereditary and, consequently, more expressive/in certain groups and family segments than in others... A significant example of the more prominent role of biology on human behavior and specific to antisocial predispositions is the difference in the frequency of violent behavior between men and women, a universal pattern because it is repeated in all countries, regardless of their socioeconomic or cultural characteristics, and expresses significant hormonal differences between the sexes. But it is also important to keep in mind that there are classes of individuals in terms of their propensity for violent, aggressive or cruel behavior (as well as in relation to other types of behavior): from those who are less prone, through those in whom there is a variable propensity, which may be dependent on the context, to those in whom this tendency is more evident, without the need for a primarily logical context to justify it. Finally, based on the points raised, a series of measures can be drawn up on how to combat crime from its roots. These are:
- Through observation of behaviors, early identification and primary monitoring of individuals who exhibit a high frequency of irrationally antisocial behaviors;
- As a preventive measure, after identification and monitoring, possible social isolation, especially for those who are correctly diagnosed as having antisocial personality disorders and identified as a risk to society;
- As a remedial measure, potentially permanent detention of any individual who commits crimes, especially those considered heinous, which are committed without a complex context that could open the way for some type of logical and/or rational justification; - Subsequent sterilization of these individuals, based on the points above, aiming at the exponential reduction of the phenotypic frequency of individuals who exhibit constant irrationally antisocial behavior, which in turn reflects their own more intrinsic mental characteristics: cerebral, hormonal... Also based on the fact that there is no treatment or cure for this class of mental disorders;
- Improvement of the identification and monitoring of these individuals from childhood, with the possibility of starting to remove them from social life and restricting their rights before they become adults, but without necessarily treating them with compulsory cruelty, understanding that they present deficits in self-control, emotional intelligence and rationality.
Simply imprisoning all those who commit crimes or engage in illegal activities, although efficient in reducing crime, will not be enough in the long term, if there is a risk of an increase in the phenotypic frequency of individuals with antisocial tendencies, if they are not prevented from having descendants, as is the case with many prisoners, who have higher fertility rates than the population outside prisons, maintaining the cycle and reproductive advantage of this highly problematic group.
Finally, the main factors that, in my opinion, make it difficult or problematic for these measures to be fully adopted in a "democratic" society:
- The relative dominance: structural and ideological, of the "good" pseudosciences, biased to the left, which block or hinder any action towards public policy that, in fact, combats the problem of crime objectively and efficiently, but without going beyond the indiscriminate commission of abuses, which would be a contradiction of combating crimes by committing them;
- The problem of the historical legalization of antisocial practices by "elite" groups or those who find themselves in a situation of empowerment over other groups, such as the economic exploitation of workers, with exhaustive working hours, psychological abuse and low wages... Because the adoption of the recommended measures only with lower-class criminals categorically consists of a social cleansing that favors and even expands the power of certain "elite" individuals and groups that also greatly harm the social fabric, for example, due to their dominance in politics, in which they tend to impose measures that favor their personal interests to the detriment of the well-being of society itself, in general.
- The use of these measures as substitutes for those that seek to combat other social problems of great relevance, particularly social inequalities, job insecurity and political corruption... And don't doubt it if this happens, because, unfortunately, the only ones who are most interested in applying them are usually politicians on the right, if/those on the left tend to be averse to them, considering them inhumane or even inefficient and pseudoscientific (which they certainly are not). So, since the former, for the most part, are not interested in combating social inequalities, job insecurity and political corruption, it would be enough for them to send criminals from the bottom of the social hierarchy to be imprisoned, that is, applying the social cleansing warned about in the second counterpoint...
These counterpoints create a major impasse for a surely fair application of these measures, the only ones that can truly combat all forms of crime head-on and at all social levels, from blue-collar to white-collar criminals. Still, the mass incarceration of those involved in organized crime, such as drug trafficking, and other explicitly violent or illicit criminal practices, already alleviates crime rates considerably, as happened in El Salvador, a small Central American country that managed to reduce them from the highest to one of the lowest in the world, through the good sense of having started to arrest anyone who was involved in organized crime (disregarding here excesses that may be being committed, especially the arrest of innocent people who were unfairly associated with gangs). But, until when this mass incarceration will be able to contain crime, it is something to think about, after all, the detainees will eventually leave prison and return to circulate in society... That is why it is necessary to face this problem from all possible angles, to do so based on true scientific practice, seeking to understand what it is about (behavior, violence... origins, tendencies, characteristics and realistic possibilities of confrontation), based on reality and not just a supposed academic "good-naturedness", divorced from the rigor of scientific impartiality, but without disregarding that these are also human individuals, many of whom demonstrate, throughout their lives, a chronic inability to self-control and self-awareness, and to also take into account this aspect of the chronic deficiency of rationally directed behaviors that these individuals present. Finally, we must not forget the moral aspect of the practice of justice in situations of violent crimes: to punish according to the degree of violence, to take into account the level of contextual complexity in which the crime occurs, the characteristics of the individuals involved... To improve the practice of justice as much as possible.
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