ABSTRACT
This chapter examines an effort at such reconciliation by presenting a conceptual model that addresses the neurology, demography, and phenomenology associated with impulsive criminal violence. The conjecture that victim and slayer are essentially similar is supported by a wide array of data from a variety of sources. National data indicate that criminal homicide is tightly bound within racial groups, with only 11% of the murders in a year interracial, with only 23% of the victims female, and with half the victims young adults aged 20-34. A distinguishing characteristic of those tinderboxes is the recurrent threat of impulsive violence. Impulsivity is a frequent consequence of even relatively minor neurologic injury; whether neurogenic or not, impulsivity as psychometrically inventoried appears to reliably differentiate violent offenders both from nonviolent offenders and from nonoffenders. Opportunity is a key construct in rational choice theory. The notion is interpreted simplistically: The offender-to-be "happens upon" an unattended bicycle, an automobile left running, a woman disrobing.
