Since the earliest days of intelligence testing, it’s been known that criminals average IQ’s around 90 (about 10 points below the North American average of 100). What’s interesting is that criminals also score 10 points below their non-delinquent siblings who grow up in the same home. Comparing criminals to their siblings is useful because it controls for so many of the socio-economic factors that are so often assumed to confound research on both crime and IQ.
Given that intelligence and morality are two different concepts, some may be surprised by the fact that criminals tend to have lower IQ’s. Indeed criminal geniuses such as the fictional Hannibal Lecter are a pop culture fixture. In the book, The g Factor by Arthur Jensen, three hypotheses are discussed:
1) Criminals have lower IQ’s because they’re not smart enough to achieve success through conventional avenues and thus must stoop to unethical methods.
2) Criminals have lower IQ’s because crimes are often impulsive, and so people who think through the long-term consequences (for themselves and the victims) are more likely to avoid crime.
3) Criminals have lower IQ’s because they’re not smart enough to understand why their crimes are wrong.
Pumpkin Person would like to propose a fourth hypothesis. Criminals have lower IQ’s because some of the same factor(s) that stunted their intellectual development, also stunted their moral development, since both are a function of the brain.
A popular hypothesis among laymen is that criminals actually don’t have lower IQ’s, they just appear to because all the smart ones get away, but this idea was dismissed by Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein in the book The Bell Curve. They argued that there are not enough unsolved crimes for there to be a secret group of high IQ criminals and that among convicted criminals, the duller one commit more crimes, and used both these facts to dismiss the high IQ criminal theory.
However there’s also this saying: Behind every great fortune, there’s a great crime. Perhaps the smartest criminals conceal their crimes so well, we don’t even know one’s been committed.
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Amongst the general population of criminals, there will be a drag downwards on IQ. Most crimes are not particularly well thought-out, and it’s not hard to see that higher-IQ individuals would rather not risk their freedom [in civilized society where they are locked up] for petty profit.
However I imagine at the upper end of the income distribution exists a large number of individuals who are rule benders [as opposed to rule breakers]. These people distort the economic/political scenario to reap large profits. What proportion of the total rich they constitute is up for debate, but it’s quite clear that they are rather above average in the IQ distribution.
You are misstaken, therefore you must be below average IQ wise. My Iq is and always has been 128. I committed crime as a teenager 18-19.no thought given to a plan. Prison is where one learns how to plan provides negative social connections. The agenda behind this whole line of thinking is based on race and class. It’s the environment stupid.
If it is true and I believe it is,one can increase there iq by a few points with education. The Jews are a good example. The average Jew is known to have an IQ of 90. Educated Jews claim iqs of 110. When a group is deprived of educational opportunities the iq drops. It’s not about middle class and poor. We were lied to by our society because we were white . We’re were poor but our whiteness made us middle class by default.the high iq generally get away with crime mainly because most are middle class or above. The choice of crimes and whom they Rob is how they continue to get away with it. They had the ability to find me,a rarity iq128 imprisoned. They claimed to be there to help me, however they robbed me of my intellectual property values after the sold it in the 10’s of millions. This was 1980 so you might imagine the value today.
They are smart in that they pick a victim that believe the lie that they were there to help. It is the environment plan and simple. Otherwise your clam is the darker your Skype n the lower you iq. And if that sentence need explaining you are really dumb.
You have no edit so a few word are wrong . It’s not a juction of iq. It’s a function of cheap tec.
“They argued that there are not enough unsolved crimes for there to be a secret group of high IQ criminals and that among convicted criminals, the duller one commit more crimes, and used both these facts to dismiss the high IQ criminal theory.”
If they were good at getting away with it, you wouldn’t even know that there crimes existed to be unsolved
their*
Not enough unsolved crimes? That’s assuming that all crimes are known. For murders, sure it would be unusual for someone to be murdered and not a single person notice they were missing and their body never discovered. However 50% of murders go unsolved.
But for crimes like drug dealing & prostitution 99% of those crimes the police are completely unaware they even occurred.
My IQ is at least in the 140’s but more likely to be in the 150’s (grandma has a 168) at the two people in my circle of friends who were tested had 169 & 171 IQs and I suspect a couple others of being in this range. We all dealt drugs none of us were ever caught by police. I was a criminal for 20 years. My step dad was in organized crime, he was arrested once but not convicted. He was the smartest man I’ve known, went to college at 15. Did well enough in crime to afford a 2.5 million dollar home. In my experience the very high up do not get caught (I was never very important making at most $1000 a week if I were lucky) It wasn’t until 1957 that the Mafia existence was even proven. 40 years an organization that big made incredible amounts of money and their existence remained unproven.
A study of IQ, number of crimes committed, number of crimes investigated & number of crimes caught for needs to be done to give insight into whether IQ is relative to being caught.
In my case the police were aware I was a criminal, and at least one crime I committed remained unsolved, but the rest they had no idea they happened at all. I can’t even estimate how many drug transactions I’ve made, but certainly many thousands.
I’m sure the incarcerated population are stupid, the vast majority of the time people get busted being sloppy, they get pulled over and didn’t stash their shit or lock in trunk. Stupid. To me getting busted is getting an F as a criminal. To assume all criminals get caught and that the prison system is an accurate representation of the criminal world is ludicrous. In my experience the vast majority of criminals are never caught, but I grew up in a very affluent area, where police don’t want to make arrests because the low crime rate is why remains desirable. So as long as the neighbors don’t complain and you don’t steal or commit violence, they won’t go after you because they’re dealing with the problem criminals. So criminals from lower income areas are far more likely to be incarcerated. Criminals with more education or more income are more likely to avoid conviction. Also keep in mind how do you define criminal? Someone who has committed a crime? Someone who smoked weed once? Or ran a stop sign? Or people who make money from crimes? Or people who make all their money from crimes? Or by people who got caught committing a serious enough crime to get caught.
Any estimate of IQ of criminals based off the most incompetent least Educated and most impoverished criminals, which are those in jail, is not going to give you a representative sample of the criminal underworld. To claim there aren’t enough unsolved crimes to change the results is ludicrous on the face of it. Even murder with a 50% solve rate could easily be skewed if those 50% that got away were geniuses. Only 5% of sexual assaults are even reported. My guess is for every drug sale someone is convicted for, 10’s of thousands are not. And the higher the conviction rate for a crime the more likely those that get away have very high IQ’s.
My family who were once extremely wealthy got their Fortune gambling and kept it through murder and bribes. They bribed officials the equivalent of 2 million in gold to get away with murdering their competition.
I’m sure many of you think I’m full of shit but I gave up crime 20 years ago. Nothing Ive done I can be charged with anymore. I’m free to speak openly without fear of incarceration.