Criminals’ head injuries may be fuelling their offending

MORE than half of criminals may have suffered a head injury that could be fuelling their offending, a new review by British brain experts suggests.

Specialists from the universities of Oxford, Exeter, Manchester, Glasgow and Sheffield, and the Centre for Mental Health, have called for prisoners to be checked for signs of brain injuries.

A review, published today in The Lancet Psychiatry, suggests that bumps to the head from falls, assaults or road accidents can lead to neural injuries that alter the brain structure and increase the risk of violent offending.

The authors claim that up to 60 per cent of people in custody have suffered head injuries. They said helping prisoners receive treatment could prevent further offending, and called on schools and doctors to help identify young people who have suffered head injuries before they go on to commit crime.

However, some experts said it was difficult to say definitively whether trauma caused criminal behaviour.

Ryan Aguiar, a consultant clinical neuropsychologist at Ashworth Secure Hospital in Liverpool, said: “Crime is a much more complex condition that is brought about by a myriad of social, environmental, personality, mental health and situational circumstances. Head injury is only one among many and not even a first among equals.”

Peter Mccabe, the chief executive of Headway, said: “The vast majority of people who sustain a brain injury will not be involved with the criminal justice system. However, some of the effects of brain injury… can lead people into difficulty with the law and evidence suggests over representation of brain injury in offender populations.”