Scenes of Prison
22. Why Do Criminals Commit Crimes?
O ne crisp fall day, I was sitting in the pantry of our Disciplinary Segregation Unit looking through the large windows facing the Unit compound and watching the inmates as they were taking their turns outside in our exercise cages. Each inmate was alone, and they were locked in six separate, chain-link fenced enclosures measuring roughly eight feet by fifteen feet. Through the chain link fencing, they could communicate freely and pass small items between them, so we kept watch to make sure there wasn’t any trouble.
Our Segregation inmates had already proven themselves to be violent, but it was hard to cause much trouble locked in separate enclosures. Since chain link fencing stretched even across the top of the enclosures, it was very hard to cause mischief, but not impossible. We kept watch.
On this particular day, Jerry was locked in cage number two right in the middle of my side of the yard. Jerry was a young man in his middle 20s. He was average size and weight, and he was gregarious. He could usually be found in animated conversation with other inmates. Today, Jerry had gathered the attention of the other prisoners on the exercise yard, and he was putting on quite a show for them.
As I watched, Jerry gesticulated wildly and gleefully, reenacting a violent scene for the entertainment of the inmates in neighboring cages. Down went his imaginary opponent, and Jerry bent low over the invisible figure who was now prostrate on the ground and pummeled him with fists and feet. Jerry would straighten and pause, laugh, catch his breath, and add some additional detail to the story, then he would reenact the entire scene once again. Jerry was having a pretty good time and so were his onlookers, and it got me thinking about crime.
I had recently read a news article about a scientific study of addiction. I wondered if there was a connection.
In the study, scientists experimented with dogs, and they asked this question: “Was it possible that dogs could become addicted to adrenaline that was produced in their own bodies as a result of an experience?”
They ran the dogs through various behaviors to get them excited, and then they measured the adrenaline that the dogs had produced. They also watched how adrenaline levels varied with the activities the experimenters introduced to the dogs.
In their conclusions, the scientists decided that it was possible for the dogs to become addicted to their own adrenaline.
The implications seemed clear to me. Since the experience produced the adrenaline, and the adrenalin was addictive, then the experience itself was actually addictive, too, in addition to the adrenaline.
I thought about some of the young, new-to-driving teenagers on the streets of our community who get their driver's licenses and then race their motorcycles around our city streets. They often reach speeds of 100 mph or more, and they often kill themselves in collisions with slow-moving vehicles that get in their way. Are they reacting to adrenaline produced in their bodies by the dangerous activity?
I also wondered about crime. Could it be the same mental process?
Jerry was out on the yard reenacting a violent encounter from his past, and he was having a pretty good time. It gave him a great deal of pleasure to relive the experience.
Could it be that he was also having a pretty good time when the violence was actually occurring? I wondered if his adrenaline level was elevated while he was committing his crimes. Was he excited? Very excited? Did his adrenaline levels soar when he committed his crimes? Had he become addicted to this rush of adrenaline? Is that what caused him to continue committing crimes when there was no other reason to do so? To satisfy an addictive craving?
My thoughts next turned to gambling. I remembered people I’d seen at casinos parked in front of slot machines. Many of them were totally focused on the lights, sounds, and movements displayed on the screens in front of them. Cigarettes hung from their lips with long trailing ash poised to drop into their laps while they were too focused on what they were doing to even remember to take a drag. Could it be that gambling produces an adrenaline rush that inexorably traps its practitioners in an addiction to the hormone? Could it be that the addiction we call a gambling addiction is actually an addiction to the hormone adrenaline, which is produced by the activity of gambling? I think maybe it is.
Next, I thought of tolerance. In drug addiction, people initially have strong reactions to the drug, but physical tolerance gradually reduces the potency of the drugs over repeated exposures. Addicts must increase the dose of their chosen drug to regain their desirable high. Gamblers must increase the amount of money they put at risk. Motorcycle riders must increase the speed at which they race their bikes around cars, trucks, and other obstacles. It must be as fast as the motorcycle can go.
If criminals were addicted to an adrenaline rush when they committed a crime, then repeating the crimes would lead to tolerance, and they would need to increase the frequency and the severity of the crimes they committed in order to achieve the same desirable high.
As I thought of the long criminal histories detailing the crimes of most of the maximum security inmates in our prison, I realized that the patterns of increasing tolerance to drugs and the patterns of increasing severity of crimes over time matched perfectly with what one would expect with increasing addictive tolerance to adrenaline. Shoplifting followed by burglary, leading to robbery, assault, and murder. This was a very common pattern. I was getting sold on the notion that addiction to adrenaline was the answer to the question “Why do some people commit crimes and not others?”
Is there something different about criminals? If there is something different, what is it? My musings had led me to a conclusion.
Yes, there is something different about criminals. They have a sensitivity to adrenaline, and they tend to develop an addiction to adrenaline produced in their own bodies when they commit crimes. People who are not criminals don’t have this sensitivity or this vulnerability. They don’t become addicted to adrenaline produced in their bodies if and when they commit some petty crime. Future criminals feel excitement when they commit such a crime and are drawn to repeat the experience.
Some youthful drivers may find high speed addictive because of an adrenaline rush they experience, and some gamblers may find risk-taking with money addictive because of the adrenaline rush. The career criminals we house in our prisons get an adrenaline rush by committing crimes, and over a long period of time, because of tolerance, their crimes increase in frequency and severity. They become habitual criminals and live out their lives in our prisons.
Next, I wondered what would change if our tactics to help criminals reform involved helping them recover from an addiction to experience-produced adrenaline. That was a big topic, and I had no idea what we might do, but I did wonder what experts on addiction might suggest. I wondered what Benjamin and Richard would say. They were my corrections mentors. Perhaps there is an antidote that would neutralize or lessen the potency of adrenaline. Perhaps a vaccine would make them immune.
As I pondered these questions of why criminals commit crimes, I remembered Allen, an inmate I’d known through counseling groups I’d led when I first started in corrections.
Allen was a thief, and he insisted he had discovered the perfect crime, and he bragged about it to anyone who would listen.
Before he was incarcerated, Allen spent his days cruising the country roads in rural Nebraska and stopping at farmhouses in the middle of the day. He’d knock on the door, and if someone answered, he’d ask for directions. If there was no answer, he’d quickly check around the house, and then he’d try the door, and if the door was unlocked (which it usually was), he would go into the house. Once inside, he’d go straight to the money jar.
Farmers have typical places in their houses where they keep their cash. Allen knew all of them. He helped himself to as much as he wanted (he usually left a little), and with their money safely tucked into his pockets, he made a speedy exit. It only took a couple of minutes, and he was on his way to the next house.
The cash he took wouldn’t be immediately missed. Someone would first have to go to the money jar to get some cash before it would be noticed missing. Even then, someone else in the household would be suspected of taking the cash before suspicion would fall on a stranger who happened to knock on the door in the middle of the day when no one was home.
Allen kept count of the number of times he’d repeated this crime, but he said he lost count at 740 houses.
Why had he kept at it? He had so much money that he freely gave it away. He was very popular whenever he went into a bar and bought everyone their drinks. He paid others’ debts. He bought people gifts. Could it be that he became addicted to the adrenaline rush that committing these crimes produced in his body? Was it exciting for him to stand in someone else’s house and help himself to their money, so exciting that he became addicted to it? Did the danger of discovery by a farmer checking to see who had gone into his house in the middle of the day produce an adrenaline rush in him that he found irresistible? Allen’s compulsive thievery surely fit the description of an addict.
There are lots of theories about why people commit crimes, and they all have data to support them. Could it be that I had recognized another causal factor for criminal behavior? I decided to do a test myself, and an opportunity presented itself later in the day when I visited with another inmate. His name was Gus. I was preparing a report about him to submit describing his progress while he’d been in prison.
Gus had a long “rap” sheet, and he began our conversation by explaining the reasons he got involved in crime. He also explained why he had committed the crime that had given him the prison sentence which brought him to our prison. I listened and heard all the standard excuses. He’d fallen in with a bad crowd. He was abused as a child. He was a product of poverty. He made bad mistakes. He made poor choices.
He had all the standard excuses, and they seemed to be memorized. He described them in detail as if he’d practiced the speech. I wondered if he might be an example of a criminal who became addicted to the activity of committing crimes but wanted to conceal it, so I decided to test him. I pretended to be impatient. Finally, I interrupted him.
“Oh, come on,” I said. “That’s all bullshit. You committed all those crimes because they were so much fun.”
There was a pause in our conversation. Gus was silent while he studied my face. Finally, he said: “How did you know?”
Discussion
- The author is pretty sure that an addiction to adrenaline is responsible for much of the crime that occurs. Do you think he’s right?
- Do you have a different explanation for criminal behavior?
- Do you think there could be several causal factors? Which are most important?
- From your knowledge and experience, describe ways to help another person overcome an addiction.
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