Every day, thousands of crimes of varying degrees of seriousness are committed around the world. As a rule, people with a low level of education and no stable source of income become criminals. People who have addictions and are unable to control their emotions are also more prone to breaking the law. During the investigation of crimes, specialists often notice striking common features that are inherent in lawbreakers. A recent study revealed a less noticeable detail: it turns out that people with a low resting heart rate are propense to commit crimes. Is it time to start anxiously measuring your heart rate?
Heart rate can tell a lot about a person
The authors of the scientific publication Science Alert reported that the frequency of heartbeat can show a person’s propensity to commit crimes. This pattern was identified by scientists back in 2015, however, at that time, the study was conducted only with men. Recently, an article appeared in the scientific journal PLOS ONE, proving the presence of this trend among women as well.
What kind of people commit crimes
Scientists from the U.S., Sweden and Finland examined data on 12,499 women who joined the army at the age of 18. At the time of admission, their pulse and blood pressure were measured, which is done at every medical examination, and this data was important to the researchers. After that, they found out which of them were prosecuted in the following 40 years.
The main things that interested the scientists in the study were the heart rate and criminal history of the female participants
As it turned out, there were not very many criminals among the former military girls, but they still existed. The authors of the scientific work noticed a curious pattern: women with a heart rate of less than 69 beats per minute at rest committed crimes 35% more often than those with a pulse of more than 83 beats per minute. Based on this, it was concluded that a low heart rate is a likely indicator that a person is prone to breaking the law. And it works for both men and women.
The scientists also discovered another interesting trend. Analysis of the data showed that people with low blood pressure are most often prosecuted. Thus, women with a blood pressure of 113 millimeters of mercury column or lower were 26% more likely to commit crimes than those with higher blood pressure.
Why crimes are committed
Scientists do not know what exactly is the reason for the pattern between heart rate, blood pressure and propensity to commit crimes. There is an assumption that people are pushed into breaking the law by low activity in the nervous system, which is evidenced by a too calm heart rhythm. To make it more active, people may unconsciously seek thrills in life and take risks more often.
Perhaps a weak pulse and low blood pressure are pushing people to take risks
But the results of scientific work should not be taken too seriously. If you have now measured your pulse and blood pressure and they are low, it does not mean that you should expect anything bad from you. As mentioned at the beginning of this article, there are many factors that influence people’s propensity to commit crimes, such as the level of education, job availability, and so on. If a person has lived in a disadvantaged neighborhood since childhood, the chances of becoming a criminal also increase many times over – the environment greatly affects a person. And if a man or a woman is doing well in the family, work, and so on, because of their low pulse and blood pressure, they will not go to break the law.
Crime prediction technologies
This scientific discovery can be used to improve technologies for predicting crime. Such tools do exist, and they can predict violations of the law with high accuracy. For example, in the article «How Artificial Intelligence Predicts Crime with 90% Accuracy» we explained how such technology works on the example of the city of Chicago. If you are interested in high technology, we strongly recommend you to read it!
Police have a long history of using high technology to catch criminals
Also, on our website there is a material about how the police will investigate space crimes in the future. This process will be completely different from that on Earth, because in space environment evidence disappears faster or can be severely distorted due to the surrounding conditions. Read more in the article «How police will investigate crimes committed in space».
