The Controversy Heightens

In the spring of 1992, talk radio and TV shows with large African American audiences began responding to our educational campaign, beginning with WPFW (Radio Pacifica Network) in Washington, DC and culminating in the summer with news stories and two interview shows on Black Entertainment Television (BET).

The government seemed most affected by the response to two talk shows, "Lead Story" and "Our Voices." Extensive mainstream media coverage would follow; but African American show hosts began the process.

Beyond our personal network of friends and colleagues associated with the Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology, most of our initial support again came from African American activists, starting in Washington, D.C. and then Harlem, Chicago, and Watts. Eventually, public support, like the media interest, broadened to include many individuals, organizations, and cities.

The 26 members of the Congressional Black Caucus sought Goodwin's ouster from ADAMHA and they also protested his appointment as NIMH Director. The Association of Black Psychologists (ABPsi), Blacks in Government (BIG), the Black Business Alliance, the American Counseling Association (the largest in the world), and the National Association for Rights Protection and Advocacy (NARPA) also took strong stands against Goodwin and the proposals for biopsychiatric interventions into the inner city.

The "Crime Gene" Conference
After we had begun our initial efforts to publicize the violence initiative, Ginger Ross Breggin and I received information that the University of Maryland had received funds from the Human Genome Project to hold a conference on "Genetic Factors in Crime." Developed by University of Maryland professor David Wasserman, the conference was scheduled for October 9, 1992 at the university.

After we obtained the conference brochure, we met with three African Americans: Ron Walters, Director of the Department of Political Science at Howard University; Lorne Cress-Love, a WPFW radio columnist; and Sam Yette, former professor of journalism at Howard and author of The Choice. We decided together to call for a halt to the conference.

We based our initial opposition to the conference on its brochure, which promoted research on the "genetic regulation of violent and impulsive behavior." The supposed discovery of genetic factors in psychiatric conditions was put forth as an encouraging precedent. The alleged failure of psychosocial approaches was also cited:

But genetic research also gains impetus from the apparent failure of environmental approaches to crime deterrence, diversion, and rehabilitation-to affect the dramatic increases in crime, especially violent crime, that this country has experienced in the past 30 years.

The conference brochure anticipated the possibility of treating genetically "predisposed" individuals by means of "drugs," as well as unnamed less intrusive therapies. To obtain federal funding for his proposed conference, Wasserman had applied to NIH and the lengthy application read like an elaboration of Goodwin's plans:

Genetic and neurobiological research holds out the prospect of identifying individuals who may be predisposed to certain kinds of criminal conduct. .. and of treating some predispositions with drugs and unintrusive therapies.... Such research will enhance our ability to treat genetic predispositions pharmacologically....

The Human Genome Project
The "Genetic Factors in Crime" conference was funded by NlH's controversial, highly publicized Human Genome Project.8 The Human Genome Project is a large federal program aimed at mobilizing international science to map the complete set of human hereditary factors. Supporters of the Human Genome Project had gone as far as to suggest that homelessness and crime might be solved as a result of its discoveries.

The idea of a conference linking crime and genetics caught the attention of the media and the public. That critics were trying to stop the conference from taking place heightened the drama. Concern spread to England and Germany, countries in which the eugenics8 movement had thrived prior to Hitler taking power. Comparisons were made between the theme of the conference and similar discussions in Nazi Germany. Heated debate was generated in major newspapers and magazines, and in scientific and academic journals. It resulted in panels at political and scientific meetings, as well as dozens of radio interviews and TV coverage.

The Cowering Inferno
A month before the conference, NIH withdrew its grant and the University of Maryland cancelled the conference for lack of funds. But the university did not reject or abandon the idea, continued to seek funding, and set in motion a formal protest over NlH's withdrawal of support. Some defenders of biomedical research into violence accused NIH of backing down out of cowardice. In November 1992, The Journal of NIH Research called NIH the "cowering inferno":

Curiously, however, NIH, NIMH, and HHS cowered from Breggin's criticism and only recently have begun to respond to his accusations.'° In addition to NlH's halting the genetics and crime meeting, NIMH in early September abruptly canceled a workshop on "Clinical Factors in Aggression slated for Sept. 21-22. Goodwin . . was ordered by HHS officials to cancel [media] interviews.

Academic freedom or Political Irresponsibility?
The Human Genome Project has enormous prestige. We feared that its support for the genetics conference legitimized a debate with no substance, making it appear as if there must be something worth discussing. After all, why would the Human Genome Project hold a conference with no scientific merit? Why would it hold a conference that moved America one step closer to biomedical social control?

Experience convinced us that whatever might actually be debated at the conference, the press would play up the biological and genetic arguments. Biopsychiatric claims regularly make newspaper headlines, while psychosocial ones almost never do. While conference advocates claimed it would stir up "healthy public controversy," we felt it would encourage the false conclusion that violent criminals are genetically flawed. Opposition to the conference, as it turned out, created a much larger and more searching public discussion than the unopposed conference possibly could have done.

The Justice Department's Version of the Violence Initiative
While our initial focus was on the health agencies, we gradually put together information showing that another part of the government was already sponsoring a large-scale version of Goodwin's plans. Entitled the "Program on Human Development and Criminal Behavior," it is funded by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the MacArthur Foundation, probably with money from NIH as well. In the words of a 1992 brochure from the DOJ, "It represents an unprecedented partnership between federal government and a private foundation."

The director of the project, Felton Earls, as well as codirector Albert J. Reiss, Jr., were key figures in developing the NRC's blueprint for the violence initiative. Earls-himself an African American-is professor of child psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and professor of human behavior and development at the Harvard School of Public Health. Reiss is a professor of sociology at Yale's Institute for Social and Police Studies, and lectures at the law school.

Earl's vision, like Goodwin's, is based on "disease prevention" (Earls, 1991) and aims at screening and identifying individual children as potential offenders in need of preventive treatment or control. According to the DOJ, nine groups of subjects, "starting prenatally and at ages 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, and 24, will be followed for 8 years." A total of 11,000 people will be studied. The project will "link key biological, psychological, and social factors that may play a role in the development of criminal behavior" and search for "biological" and "biomedical" markers for predicting criminality. Again according to the DOJ, the first of the project's "Questions to be answered" is:

Individual differences. What biological, biomedical, and psychological characteristics, some of them present from the beginning of life, put children at risk for delinquency and criminal behavior?

This is entirely consistent with Goodwin's plan.
While Earls also believes in the importance of the environment, he focuses his project on the role of biological and genetic factors in predisposing the individual and perhaps in driving him toward violence and crime. In a 1991 publication, "A Developmental Approach to Understanding and Controlling Violence," he writes that "advances in the fields of behavior genetics, neurobiology, and molecular biology are renewing the hope that the biological determinants of delinquent and criminal behavior may yet be discovered." In discussing "key developmental questions" that he wishes to answer, Earls emphasizes genetic and biological factors.

Earls declares there is evidence for a genetic factor "in violent behavior among individuals." But the Mednick, Brenna and Kandel (1988) study that he cites as evidence comes to the opposite conclusion, stating definitively that it could "find no evidence of hereditary transmission of violent criminal behavior" and that "a genetic predisposition to violence was not supported by this review of our data." (Interestingly, Frederick Goodwin had also incorrectly cited Mednick studies). Earls believes that spinal taps are intrusive and unwarranted by our current state of knowledge, but wants to measure the brain's chemical activity through blood samples, and testosterone levels through saliva.

The project is receiving an estimated $12 million per year for the eight years from all sources, including some previously unidentified money from NIH. The combining of Harvard and Yale, the Department of Justice, NIH, and a prestigious private foundation raises the political specter of psychiatric social control. It is truly Big Brother in scope.

We originally heard a rumor that the violence initiative controversy was making it difficult for Earls to get communities to accept his project. Eventually Earls himself declared that due to our campaign against his project, he was forced to drop biologically intrusive elements, such as spinal taps.

THE CURRENT STATUS OF THE SECOND VIOLENCE INITIATIVE

The federal umbrella program called the violence initiative was withdrawn as a result of the controversy initiated by the Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology. While individual programs continued to be sponsored by the federal government, there would be no overall coordinated policy. Frederick Goodwin, meanwhile, resigned from the federal government to become a professor at George Washington University.

The overall result, however, is not nearly so positive. As documented in The War Against Children, many biopsychiatric leaders in the federal government continue to view violence as genetic and biological in origin, and many federally funded projects investigating such views continued unabated. A multimillion dollar program, for example, is promoting the use of Ritalin for the control of disruptive behavior. Other projects continue to seek genetic and biological causes for violence.

Earls's violence initiative project has finally located a welcoming city-Chicago. At this moment, it has already begun implementation, although leaders in that city are organizing to counter it. While it seemingly has given up its original biological research aims, Earls's program remains focused on the individual and the family, instead of on racist national policies that create the problems in the inner city.

Finally, the "Genetic Factors in Crime" conference was held in 1995 by the University of Maryland, although with a more balanced format. NIH decided that the funds had been taken away improperly.

For Whom the Bell Tolls
As the controversy over the violence initiative simmered down, another scientific assault was mounted on the African American community. This new racist manifestation grows from the same political and social roots as the violence initiative. It is spearheaded by the best-selling 1994 book, The Bell Curve, authored by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray. The book purports to prove that Africans, including black Americans, are genetically deficient in intelligence. It promotes programs that would ultimately cut off aid to most black mothers and their children. The concept that African American youth are both genetically violent and genetically stupid resurrects the discredited King Kong image of black American males.

VIOLENCE AS A PUBLIC HEALTH ISSUE

A public health approach to crime prevention sounds scientific and humane. It gains authority from a respected tradition of life-saving interventions. But is the violence initiative really in the tradition of public health?

In reality, public health moves beyond medicine's typical emphasis on individual vulnerability. It focuses on the broader environmental and social factors that affect human well-being and disease.

When public health officials realized that foul water can spread disease, individuals were no longer blamed for getting physically ill. It wasn't the "bad habits" or "weak heredity" of the poor, but deadly micro-organisms in the city water. Instead of spinning wheels over why some people got sicker than others, water quality and sanitation were improved, with dramatic results.

Smog remains a serious public health threat. While there is considerable individual variability in reaction to air pollution- some people hardly notice it and others die from it-the public health strategy attacks the source of the problem. When air quality improves, all individuals benefit and severe reactions are minimized.

Recently there have been incidents of food poisoning at fast food restaurants. Some people got sicker than others, and some may not have gotten sick at all; but instead of focusing on these individual differences, the public health approach led to tighter regulation of the safety of meat.

The government focus on vulnerable individuals actually abandons public health in favor of traditional medicine. It obscures the reality that the high rates of physical aggression cannot be understood outside the larger environmental context. While it is important to hold individuals morally responsible for their conduct, when the rate of crime seems to abruptly escalate within an oppressed minority, it becomes critical to look for causes beyond the individual and ultimately beyond the local community.

Why would the government pervert the concept of public health? The violence initiative was timed with the election year to distract voters from larger political factors impinging on the inner city, such as poverty, unemployment, inadequate or absent health care, the unavailability of housing, the decay of the schools, and racism. It supported the growing political tendency to blame poverty, crime and other social phenomena on individuals and their families rather than on public policy, economics, and broader social issues, such as racism. It is time to unambiguously condemn all pseudo-scientific research that distracts America from its fundamental social and economic problems, including racism.

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© June 2005 by Afro Staff