Fordham Law Professor Deborah Denno, director of the Neuroscience and Law Center, was quoted in Newsweek about the Las Vegas shooter and theories that link crime and genetics.
The suspect behind the mass shooting in Las Vegas on Sunday might have been at higher risk for criminal behavior because his father was apparently once on the FBI’s most-wanted list, according to controversial theories about links between crime and genetics.
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“I was really blown away by the fact that his father had this history, and it’s really hard to argue that this would have nothing to do with Stephen Paddock’s behavior,” says Deborah Denno, a professor and the founding director of the Neuroscience and Law Center at the Fordham University School of Law in New York City. “He may have inherited certain attributes from his father that would lead to greater impulsivity.”
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Crime experts are careful to point out that it is not necessarily criminal tendencies that might move between generations, but traits and behaviors associated with them, such as low intelligence, alcoholism, antisocial behavior and psychopathy. “There’s not a crime gene,” says Denno, the Fordham professor. “But people do inherit attributes from their immediate family, as well as their distant family, that may heighten the likelihood that they may engage in impulsive behavior, and some of that impulsive behavior may be law-breaking.” For the Paddock case, she says, “this is maybe perhaps filling in some explanatory gaps here.”
The experts also note that the genetic factors are only part of understanding why someone might commit a crime. “It’s not just genetics alone. We all inherit attributes from our family that could be negative,” Denno says, “but if you’re in a certain environment…then that kind of behavior can be transformative.”