A significant and compelling body of scientific literature is accumulating suggesting that the concept of a "criminal brain" is viable.

Mounting research indicates that deficiencies in the frontal or pre-frontal regions of the brain often correlate with various forms of violence and impulsivity that can lead to criminal acts. Deficiencies in other brain areas play a role in contributing to behaviors that are categorized as "criminal." Memory problems, perceptual disorders, and emotional difficulties all may contribute to behaviors that cannot be adequately controlled and that lead to socially unacceptable behaviors.

Of course, much research in relating brain conditions and behaviors is correlational. These studies do not prove causal relationships. Certainly, all people with frontal lobe damage are not violent or criminal. And, it is likely that some people with normal frontal lobes do, indeed, exhibit criminal behavior. The thrust of correlational research is that it suggests relationships and tendencies. The research may not tell the whole picture, but it reasonably tells a significant part of it.

Researchers at the University of Southern California have been studying the size of the pre-frontal lobes and the tendency for that variable to correlate with criminal behavior. Their findings indicate that men who are most prone to rage and violence have significant deficiencies in the pre-frontal lobes, the brain region that enables most people to learn moral sensibilities and exercise self-restraint.

Psychopathologist Adrian Raine’s, The Psychopathology of Crime: Criminal Behavior As a Clinical Disorder, presents a body of research evidence linking biological and criminal behavior. Raine raises the question whether criminal behavior can be considered a psychological disorder on the same level as depression and anxiety or a neuropsychological disorder linked to identifiable brain abnormality. (See also Journal of the American Medical Association article.)

Renato M.E. Sabbatini, neuroscientist at the Univeristy of Săo Paulo, Brazil, and a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Behavioral Physiology of the Max-Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Munich, Germany in a web paper, The Psychopath's Brain presents historical and summary information regarding research and the criminal brain.

Because neuroscientific knowledge about the brain, and about brain and criminal behavior particularly, is still new and insufficient persons who commit crimes are turned over to the criminal justice system with little regard for attempting to understand the causes of the behavior. Philosophically, the Western culture presumes self-responsibility except in the most extreme cases (what the law calls "insanity"). However, mitigating factors that involve neurological disorder must be understood in order to help prevent them and to treat them. Otherwise, the justice and penal systems will continue burgeoning growth without addressing potential root causes of criminal behavior.

According to authors Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck, Timothy McVeigh, the convicted and executed bomber of the federal building in Oklahoma City, sustained three mild head injuries during his youth. No public documents are available to indicate whether or not McVeigh’s brain was sufficiently studied to determine if brain injury may have played a role in his obsessive focus on a personal warfare against the United States government.

In The Executive Brain: Frontal Lobes and the Civilized Mind, by Elkhonon Goldberg of the New York University School of Medicine, the author describes how the frontal lobes enable humans to engage in complex mental processes, how they control judgment and social and ethical behaviors, how vulnerable they are to injury, and how devastating the effects of damage often are, leading to chaotic, disorganized, asocial, and criminal behavior.

Research is converging from many fronts significantly linking serious crime with brain abnormalities. Cultural understanding and treatment of criminal behavior must keep pace with neuroscientific advances. Mitigating circumstances to criminal behavior does not excuse the behavior; understanding those factors provides the foundation for humane understanding and treatment that goes well beyond locking someone up and throwing away the key, or worse.

Thorough neuroscientific investigation in criminal behaviors is essential if any of the following are a part of the history: