# Head injuries and criminal behavior **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 13, 2025, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/head-injuries-and-criminal-behavior/1022005 "2025-08-13T09:39:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2025, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/head-injuries-and-criminal-behavior/1022005/1 "2025-08-13T09:39:43Z")
I put this in debates, because right now although it is too soon, it my either become established fact, or dropped by the wayside, so form your opinions carefully! It’s long, so you can skip to the **TL;DR** : if you want. Background follows-- if bored, skip to line below==\> with \*\* I’m posting this because a long time ago, when Border’s (RIP) and Barnes & Noble were nascent, I was sitting in one or the other, sipping coffee, and hooked on a journal article by a practicing MSW therapist who had gone back to school for a PhD specifically to study the commonly believed, but never really demonstrated clinically, idea that child abuse is “passed on” from parent to child. He had worked with lots of people who came to him saying they had been abused, and now wanted to have children, were with a partner, but they wanted not to abuse their own children. He usually saw them twice a week for a few weeks, one time with the partner, if the partner was willing, then saw them once a week until a baby was on the way, at which point if the client requested more frequent meetings, they had them. He tapered them off after the birth if they felt no impulse to hit the baby, or continued if they wanted to, and maybe were referred to a psychiatrist for a drug trial. \*\*[so yadda-yadda, got grant, matched experimental & control groups, designed experiments| He found that some people _who had been abused themselves_ needed help to resist an “abusive impulse,” which some _who had been abused themselves_ did not have in the first place, and there seemed to her little way to predict who was which. But she ran batteries of common tests-- they had the normal spread of IQs, and soforth. She did find one thing-- the experimental group (impulse to abuse) had difficulty copying other people’s hand and body shapes; They would hold an arm up, but orient the hand all wrong, and mix their feet up, getting left and right confused. Cut to the chase, she got permission to do research in prison with violent offenders. She discovered that nearly to a person, violent offenders had experienced a head injury as a child. a few of them had been in car accidents, or fallen off playground equipment, but the vast majority had been abused by a parent of parental figure. So, it appears that in that sense, yes, abuse does get passed down-- get beaten with a head injury, and grow up to give your own kid a head injury, so he’ll beat his kid. That article was a print article, and a summation, or adaptation, of a journal done for the popular press. I have looked and looked for the original print article I read, but it was before everything was online. Today, though, I found [this.](https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1154707/full) It’s an article about head injury and criminality that uses other-body traumas as controls. Significantly, it studies adults who have head trauma as ADULTS, and finds that many of them begin criminal behavior, when they had not before that head trauma, **TL;DR** : Recent research suggests that head injuries may be at the root of criminal behavior. The idea that child abuse in “passed on” in families may just be parents with head injuries from prior abuse, causing head injuries in their own children. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2025, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/head-injuries-and-criminal-behavior/1022005/2 "2025-08-13T11:13:18Z")
I have a hard time believing that a head injury to a child would have exactly the same effect as a head injury to their parent. It us certainly possible that a concussion or mild traumatic brain injury could result in criminal behavior, but that is only one of many possible outcomes. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2025, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/head-injuries-and-criminal-behavior/1022005/3 "2025-08-13T11:33:03Z")
I do recall studies indicating that the children of abusers were more likely to grow up to be abusers; as long as they were the genetic offspring of the abusers. _Adopted_ children on the other hand were no more likely than average to become abusers. The implication being that it’s an _inheritable response_ to abuse, rather than either a purely genetic issue or “the environment”. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2025, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/head-injuries-and-criminal-behavior/1022005/4 "2025-08-13T11:40:09Z")
Genetics may play a role in shaping the structures of the brain, but shots to the head can definitely do something: > **[Phineas Gage | Mental changes and brain damage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage#Mental_changes_and_brain_damage)** > > Gage may have been the first case to suggest the brain's role in determining personality and that damage to specific parts of the brain might induce specific personality changes, but the nature, extent, and duration of these changes have been difficult to establish.\[M\]: 89 \[M10\]: 652-55  Only a handful of sources give direct information on what Gage was like (either before or after the accident),\[note 3\] the mental changes published after his death were much more dramatic than anything report Har... ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2025, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/head-injuries-and-criminal-behavior/1022005/5 "2025-08-13T12:09:08Z")
Correlation isn’t causality. A blow to the head can certainly change personality and behavior. Not all blows to the head do so. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2025, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/head-injuries-and-criminal-behavior/1022005/6 "2025-08-13T12:55:22Z")
As part of my continuing ed as an actuary, i saw a lot of presentations on traumatic brain injury. (It’s still a growing problem for insurers, as suits against sports organizations, coaches, etc. continue to grow.) Football is a common source of TBI. I hadn’t thought about child abuse, but if parents hit their kid in the head, I’m sure that can cause TBI, too. There are structural deficits in the brain caused by TBI, which can be seen clearly on autopsy. Yeah, not super useful. And they can be caused by repeated minor blows, not just by major concussions. Most of the damage doesn’t happen right away. Just like “mad cow disease” is caused by a misfolded protein that prompts nearby, normal, proteins to refold into a bad shape, it seems that some types of injury to the brain and spinal cord can slowly propagate themselves through nearby normal tissue. So can TBI from child abuse cause a child to lack impulse control as an adult? Yes. It can also cause a person to have more aggressive behavior. Here’s an article i found about brain damage and criminal behavior: > **[Traumatic brain injury: a potential cause of violent crime?](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6171742/)** > > Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the biggest cause of death and disability in children and young people. TBI compromises important neurological functions for self-regulation and social behaviour and increases risk of behavioural disorder and ... > The neuropsychological effects of TBI tend to be amnestic and executive disorders (poor memory, attention, concentration, and planning). Deficits in emotional regulation—characterised by impulsiveness and poor social judgment—are common. Milder TBIs can lead to problems in attentional control and inhibitory functions.[32](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6171742/#R32) Injury to frontal systems can lead to increased risk of impulsive aggression, poor decision making, and lack of control of social behaviour.[33](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6171742/#R33),[34](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6171742/#R34) For example, veterans from the Vietnam War with injuries to the frontal ventromedial cortex (the part of the frontal cortex involved in fear and risk) were rated as more aggressive and violent compared with non-injured controls and patients with lesions in other brain areas.[35](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6171742/#R35) ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2025, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/head-injuries-and-criminal-behavior/1022005/7 "2025-08-13T16:33:25Z")
> **[Prisoner\_TBI\_Prof-a.pdf](https://www.cdc.gov/correctional-health/media/pdfs/Prisoner_TBI_Prof-a.pdf)** > > 1161.38 KB > According to jail and prison studies, > 25-87% of inmates report having > experienced a head injury or TBI 2-4 > as compared to 8.5% in a general > population reporting a history of > TBI.5 > **[80% of young males in prison found to have head injury](https://www.headway.org.uk/about-brain-injury/further-information/research/brain-injury-and-offender-populations/80-of-young-males-in-prison-found-to-have-head-injury/)** > > New research finds that 80% of young men in prison have had a significant head injury at some point. > The researchers 103 recruited young males between the ages of 16-21 from a youth offender institute in Scotland. 80% had a history of significant head injury. Causes of head injuries tended to be fighting and assaults. Of those with a history of head injury, 85% had sustained repeated head injuries over long periods of time. There is also a documentary called Crazy, not insane. A psychiatrist studied serial killers and found most have a history of severe child abuse along with head injuries and mental illness that was likely a result of the child abuse and head injuries. > **[Crazy, Not Insane](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy,_Not_Insane)** > > Crazy, Not Insane is a 2020 American documentary film directed and produced by Alex Gibney. It follows the research of psychiatrist Dr. Dorothy Otnow Lewis who studied the psychology of murders. It is narrated by Laura Dern. > The film had its world premiere at Copenhagen International Documentary Festival (CPH:DOX) on March 18, 2020. It was released on November 18, 2020, by HBO. > The film follows the research of psychiatrist Dr. Dorothy Otnow Lewis who studied the psychology of murders. Richard... But yeah, I think 50 years from now we will recognize how dangerous head injuries are while now we’re just beginning to understand it. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2025, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/head-injuries-and-criminal-behavior/1022005/8 "2025-08-13T16:42:52Z")
This snip is from the cited article, not by @Wesley_Clark themselves, in case that isn’t clear. … > [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > > The researchers 103 recruited young males between the ages of 16-21 from a youth offender institute in Scotland. 80% had a history of significant head injury. Causes of head injuries tended to be fighting and assaults. Of those with a history of head injury, 85% had sustained repeated head injuries over long periods of time. There is a certain circularity to violent criminals being head-injured due to engaging in criminal violence. Said another way, the positive feedback loop of violence begats injury begats more violence begats more injury … will tend to largely obscure the cause of the original violence or the original injury. Which also makes it nearly impossible to determine whether an initial injury set off the feedback cycle of criminality or it was caused by something unrelated to any injury? ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2025, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/head-injuries-and-criminal-behavior/1022005/9 "2025-08-13T16:46:57Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Which also makes it nearly impossible to determine whether an initial injury set off the feedback cycle of criminality or it was caused by something unrelated to any injury? Thats a valid point. But the documentary ‘crazy, not insane’ found that the head injuries found among murderers happened in childhood, long before their criminal behavior started. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2025, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/head-injuries-and-criminal-behavior/1022005/10 "2025-08-13T19:58:25Z")
How many non-murderers had a head injury in childhood? Anecdata: A great many people I know. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2025, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/head-injuries-and-criminal-behavior/1022005/11 "2025-08-13T21:33:58Z")
Not all men are serial killers and sex offenders, but most serial killers and sex offenders are men. Like one of the studies I posted, about 8.5% of people in general have a history of TBI while 25-87% of people in prison have a history of TBI. But again there is the fact that people who engage in crime may be more likely to fight or engage in risky behavior that leads to TBI too. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2025, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/head-injuries-and-criminal-behavior/1022005/12 "2025-08-13T22:04:56Z")
Don’t know about the OP, but I do recall an interesting radio program some time ago discussing medical conditions - TBIs, tumors, etc - that could change behavior, leading to criminal behavior. I forget exactly what - possibly aggression, exposing oneself, theft/kleptomania…. Ought we hold such persons criminally liable? Then consider mental/emotional conditions which could cause tendencies towards criminal behavior. Possibly worsened by childhood abuse/neglect. Getting extreme, how much can we prove we have free will? What is the basis for/goal of how we address various criminal behavior. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2025, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/head-injuries-and-criminal-behavior/1022005/13 "2025-08-13T23:22:03Z")
Elderly with dementia often lose inhibitions. Using foul langage, exposing themselves, petty shoplifting, etc. The fact they’re feeble means their misbehavior tends to be seen as harmless to comical, rather than dangerous to bystanders. How do think about that stuff in this context? Difficult questions all. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2025, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/head-injuries-and-criminal-behavior/1022005/14 "2025-08-13T23:39:16Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > And they can be caused by repeated minor blows, not just by major concussions. This can also cause seizures, apparently, according to my neurologist. He floated the idea that getting the shit slapped out of me on a regular basis may have caused the few seizures I’ve had. I remember some headaches but you really don’t think about that kind of stuff as causing lasting damage. I have no way of knowing what really caused my seizures, but having head trauma as a real possibility is a bit unnerving. I don’t understand what it is that makes some people think, “That’s horrible, I’m going to make sure it never happens to my kid," and other people think, “That’s horrible. I’m going to do it to my kid, too," but I’m definitely, thankfully, the former kind of person. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2025, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/head-injuries-and-criminal-behavior/1022005/15 "2025-08-13T23:45:04Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Thats a valid point. But the documentary ‘crazy, not insane’ found that the head injuries found among murderers happened in childhood, long before their criminal behavior started. I think there was one study referred to in that paper that specifically looked for subjects whose deviant or violent behavior did not begin until after their head injury. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2025, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/head-injuries-and-criminal-behavior/1022005/16 "2025-08-14T03:16:13Z")
This is why i am not in favor of “prison as retribution”. There are people we need to separate from society for the safety of others, but a lot of them are damaged people, and i think we should treat them with compassion, not vengeance. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2025, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/head-injuries-and-criminal-behavior/1022005/17 "2025-08-14T03:45:52Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > Don’t know about the OP, but I do recall an interesting radio program some time ago discussing medical conditions - TBIs, tumors, etc - that could change behavior, leading to criminal behavior. I forget exactly what - possibly aggression, exposing oneself, theft/kleptomania…. Ought we hold such persons criminally liable? > > Then consider mental/emotional conditions which could cause tendencies towards criminal behavior. Possibly worsened by childhood abuse/neglect. > > Getting extreme, how much can we prove we have free will? What is the basis for/goal of how we address various criminal behavior. My understanding is there is a lot of interplay and inter-relatedness between traumatic childhoods, low socio-economic status, mental illness, TBI, substance abuse and criminal behavior. They all basically feed off each other and make each other worse. Mental health conditions like anti-social personality disorder happen in about 3% of the public, but in something like 30-50% of people in prison. Among women, around 25-50% of women in prison may have borderline personality disorder, vs about 2% of women in the general public who have BPD. Major factors in mental illness are genetics and traumatic childhoods, neither of which is under the control of the individual. Ideally we would build a better society where there is less trauma (physical and mental). FWIW, rates of child abuse are going down, so that is good. The rates of sexual abuse of children are 63% lower in 2021 vs 1990, and rates of physical abuse are 64% lower in 2021 vs 1990. > **[updated-trends-2021\_current-final.pdf](https://www.unh.edu/ccrc/sites/default/files/media/2023-03/updated-trends-2021_current-final.pdf)** > > 473.31 KB > [@RivkahChaya](#): > > I think there was one study referred to in that paper that specifically looked for subjects whose deviant or violent behavior did not begin until after their head injury. The article I posted earlier found TBI before people ended up committing crimes. > **[Prisoner\_TBI\_Prof-a.pdf](https://www.cdc.gov/correctional-health/media/pdfs/Prisoner_TBI_Prof-a.pdf)** > > 1161.38 KB - Women inmates who are convicted of a violent crime are more likely to have sustained a pre-crime TBI and/or some other form of physical abuse.11 - Children and teenagers who have been convicted of a crime are more likely to have had a pre-crime TBI17,18 and/or some other kind of physical abuse.17,19,20 The question is what can be done about it? After a TBI, can the damage be reversed with hyperbaric oxygen, TMS, supplements (like omega 3 fats), medications, etc? ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2025, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/head-injuries-and-criminal-behavior/1022005/18 "2025-08-14T16:48:45Z")
Am I missing something? How do we know this is not just correlational? People who are abused have a higher than average chance of abusing (is that really true?) People who are abused also have a higher than average chance of having a TBI. To really look at this we’d have to look at people who were abused but didn’t abuse their children, and compare them to people who were abused that did. I don’t think this idea of an “abusive impulse” really clarifies much - did they go on to abuse their own kids, or not? You can have an abusive impulse and still choose not to abuse. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2025, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/head-injuries-and-criminal-behavior/1022005/19 "2025-08-14T17:02:23Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > And they can be caused by repeated minor blows, not just by major concussions. FYI, that’s _exactly_ what CTE is in the context of football TBIs. The accumulation of sub-concussive impacts causing buildup of tau protein and/or whatever other damage is sustained. There’s a lot of examples out there of former football players having personality changes later in life and all sorts of other problems due to CTE, yet never having had a concussion in their lives. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2025, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/head-injuries-and-criminal-behavior/1022005/20 "2025-08-14T17:26:16Z")
Thank you, i was struggling to remember the name of [Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_traumatic_encephalopathy). Yes, that’s what i was trying to describe. > [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > You can have an abusive impulse and still choose not to abuse. Yes, but certain types of brain damage appear to increase the odds of having abusive/aggressive impulses, and also reduce inhibitions. (And people with CTE typically have other cognitive deficits, inviting confusion, memory loss, and a lot of other issues, as documented in the linked Wikipedia article.) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/head-injuries-and-criminal-behavior/1022005.md?page=2)