Earlier quoted context omitted.
> People who start committing crime earlier are more likely to simply be bad people rather than people who happened to be in bad circumstances. This is an unreasonable claim without the evidence actually being provided. It reads more as the conclusion you expect to see when you pull up a given study. Especially "simply be bad people" is not a particularly scientific phrase, and is a particularly moralistic one.
You've got it backward. The notion that criminals are simply ordinary people who find themselves in certain circumstances is the moralistic concept. It's something people want to be true, because it implies that we can reduce crime by fixing the circumstances that cause people to commit crime. But science shows that criminals are literally wired differently. For example, the brains of youth homicide offenders are dif…
Two things can be true at once. My point was about the quote I pulled. Other perspectives on the topic are a separate matter.
> But science shows that criminals are literally wired differently. For example, the brains of youth homicide offenders are different than those of non-offenders.
Regardless, science doesn't show how these differences form; this phrasing smuggles a nature over nurture perspective as a fact: "more likely to simply be bad people rather than people who happened to be in bad circumstances" (as well as "science shows that criminals are literally wired differently" and "the point is that youth who commit serious crimes are disproportionately likely to be the ones who commit crimes due to factors intrinsic to the individual"). My point is that the statements I quoted are not strictly true, they are what the author expects to be true; I suppose there may be some reason other than morals for said expectation but, seeing as you didn't deny my framing, instead reversing it, I suspect it is accurate.