Brain Injury and Disorder Theories

• Brain Injuries and Disorder:

  Strengths:

  • In a few extreme cases, brain injury or disease has led to major changes in an individual‘s personality and behaviour, including criminality
  • There is some correlation between abnormal EEG readings- which measures brainwave activity and psychotic criminality.
  • Prisoners are more likely than non-prisoners to have brain injury.
• Brain Injuries and Disorder:

  Limitations:

  • Crimes caused by brain injury of disease are rare. The sufferer‘s original personality is more important in whether the engage in crime.
  • It is not clear that abnormal brainwave activity causes psychopathic criminality. Some psychopaths have normal EEG patterns and some normal people have abnormal EEG patterns.
  • Prisoners’ higher likelihood of brain injury could be a result of their criminality (e.g. getting into fights), rather than cause of it.