Crime Zero Read Free

criminal psychology. He had done his time on the front line and could achieve more now by training and inspiring a new generation of mind hunters. Plus ten years in the minds of the sickest killers had taken its toll. His mother's sudden death eighteen months ago had also made him realize that he hadn't seen enough of her or his grandfather in the last ten years. He had been living out of a tiny apartment in Washington, D.C., traveling the country, and putting no roots down. It was time for him to settle back here on the West Coast, where his grandfather still lived, and sort out his life, rather than try to save everybody else's.
    McCloud, the deputy director of the FBI, had refused his resignation, asking him to reconsider. But with every day that Decker stayed, the more he knew he had to go. He had already picked his successor. So after finishing off this case and interviewing Karl Axelman in San Quentin this afternoon, he would return to Quantico and tell McCloud his decision was final.
    "Thank you for agreeing to come here today, Dr. Kerr," said the defense lawyer with a smile. Ricardo Latona was a squat man with thinning dark hair. He turned to the judge. "The reason we requested this hearing and asked Dr. Kerr to give evidence today is that we believe a new approach to crime is long overdue.
    "It is now apparent from all the research that biology is a central factor in crime, interacting with social, cultural, and economic influences. This knowledge raises key questions. If someone is biologically predisposed to crime, should he be punished or helped? If he is sick, do we dare treat him? Or do we feel that treatment somehow excuses 'criminality' and robs us of the need to punish? Is society civilized enough to equate justice with merciful treatment of a disease, or must it always be linked to punishment?"
    Decker watched Latona pause and turn to Tice, a man who had abducted and murdered three girls and would have murdered a fourth if Decker hadn't prevented him. "Wayne Tice has done wrong," said Latona in his soothing, reasonable voice. "No one denies that, and he has been convicted of terrible crimes. But we intend to show that they were the result of genetically inherited biochemical factors beyond his control, for which a just, humane society would seek medical treatment, not the death penalty."
    Decker groaned. He was no advocate of the death penalty, so long as dangerous people were kept off the street. But the idea that genes determined violent behavior was abhorrent to him and to his work over the past fifteen years. Criminals already had enough excuses to avoid taking responsibility for their actions, without blaming their choice of parents too.
    "Dr. Kerr, could you please outline the key scientific evidence that demonstrates that biology is a central factor in violent behavior and crime?"
    Kathy Kerr cleared her throat and paused for a moment. "Let me start with a few facts. Firstly, biology is only one of several interrelated factors, including cultural, social, and economic influences, which lie at the root of violent crime. But the more we have learned over recent years, the more important we now understand it to be. Secondly, the biggest biological factor is gender. The world over, it is men who commit over ninety percent of all violent crimes."
    Decker remembered back to their Harvard days nine years ago. His criminal psychology Ph.D. on using patterns of behavior to diagnose an offender's state of mind and determine his likelihood to offend again, rather than rely solely on the patient's own opinion, had been much praised. But Kathy Kerr's Ph.D. paper on behavioral genetics entitled "Why Men Commit 90 Percent of All Violent Crimes" had been so groundbreaking it had been published in Nature, one of the world's two most prestigious science journals. He hadn't agreed with it, but he'd had to concede it was brilliant.
    Kathy continued, warming to her subject. "The male brain is different from the female