MEASURING BODIES '7 5
1977). Both these studies expose the elementary flaws of method
in most literature claiming a link between XYY and criminality.
XYY males do seem to be represented disproportionately in
mental-penal institutions, but there is no good evidence for high
frequencies in ordinary jails. A maximum of 1 percent of XYY
males in America may spend part of their lives in mental-penal
institutions (Pyeritz et al., 1977, p. 92). Adding to this the number
that may be incarcerated in ordinary jails at the same frequency as
normal XY males, Chorover (1979) estimates that 96 percent of
XYY males will lead ordinary lives and never come to the attention
of penal authorities. Quite a criminal chromosome! Moreover, we
have no evidence that the relatively high proportion of XYY's in
mental-penal institutions has anything to do with high levels of
innate aggressivity.
Other scientists have looked to malfunction in specific areas of
the brain as a cause of criminal behavior. After extensive ghetto
riots during the summer of 1967, three doctors wrote a letter to
the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association (cited in
Chorover, 1979):
It is important to realize that only a small number of the millions of
slum dwellers have taken part in the riots, and that only a subfraction of
these rioters have indulged in arson, sniping and assault. Yet, if slum con-
ditions alone determined and initiated riots, why are the vast majority of
slum dwellers able to resist the temptations of unrestrained violence? Is
there something peculiar about the violent slum dweller that differentiates
him from his peaceful neighbors?
We all tend to generalize from our own areas of expertise.
These doctors are psychosurgeons. But why should the violent
behavior of some desperate and discouraged people point to a spe-
cific disorder of their brain while the corruption and violence of
some congressmen and presidents provokes no similar theory?
Human populations are highly variable for all behaviors; the sim-
ple fact that some do and some don't provides no evidence for a
specific pathology mapped upon the brain of doers. Shall we con-
centrate upon an unfounded speculation for the violence of
some—one that follows the determinist philosophy of blaming the
victim—or shall we try to eliminate the oppression that builds ghet-
tos and saps the spirit of their unemployed in the first place?