Criminal Mind

Sorry for being an hour late!

Blood has a distinctive smell, an attractive color, and special physical motion. It’s a sexy liquid, and very addictive. Therefore, once you get used to it, it’s not easy to detach from it. It’s not surprising that a criminal craves for victims over and over. What triggers a criminal’s desire for bloodshed? Researchers have been working for decades to establish whether offenders’ minds and genes are different from normal individuals’ brain structure. Are they the same? Indeed, a criminal behavior by its own is altered. Yet, can we justify the difference to not punish criminals? This can extend to the efficiency of punishments, but I may avoid it for now.

Shamefully, killing can be justified in various ways based on the race of the murderer. Therefore, special people may enjoy the luxury of mental sickness when they face a death sentence. It’s not my place to argue regarding the validity of research which explain the criminal mind. However, I will tell you that it has three pillars: genes, brain structure, and environment. I don’t like genetics; it shows that we are helpless. Oh, you’re gay because of gay gene. For god’s sake if there’s a homosexual gene, how could it be inherited over generations? Anyway, I think genetic evidence is just a latch attorney use it to lessen the client’s sentence.

There’s an amusing and important study conducted in 1973 called The Rosenhan Experiment. It questioned the reliability of psychiatric diagnosis. Five sane people presented to psychiatry hospitals complaining of symptoms of physiological illness. Then, they tried to convince the doctors that they’re normal. Unfortunately, the doctors and medical staff failed to recognize that.  Apparently, we have no problem judging people based on unreliable science. The beginning of such a criminal psychiatry was to discover any predicted psychopath individual. This way, we can limit, alter, or change the possibility of a criminal. If this is right, we should have discovered the preventive criminal psychiatry. But all we could do so far is retrograde detection. How can we manipulate a brain on psychological level so it would be less aggressive? Perhaps, to be better safe than sorry, we ought to just kill every psychopath! However, all the psychopath psychiatry leads toward being more merciful to those criminals, they’re different and helpless, so how to protect the community by killing them?  

What’s the problem if we just kill the killer? Is there any real way to correct that killer and stop another homicidal incidence? Does he/she deserve another chance while the only chance for another individual is execution? Prison, in usual status, is not an educational or rehab institute as it provides food and roof for free, and social rejection later on. The recidivism rate within three years after release reaches about 7 out of 10 persons. Usually recidivism is associated with psychopathy, therefore I question the efficacy of psychiatry approach and medication. Nevertheless, I don’t imply that Islamic punishment system is efficient, except for killing the killer.

To tell the truth, the trend which attributes such misbehavior a bit further from psychiatry is comforting to me. At least, they may explain the psychopathy finding to a structural variation. There’s an identical pattern in criminals that shows in PET scan in an experiment conducted by Fallon, (Fallon’s Scan.) This implies a miscommunication between two brain aspects: The orbital cortex, which is a part in the frontal lobe just behind eyes; and the amygdala, which controls the primitive drives of appetite and aggression. If the orbital cortex is damaged, or malfunctioning, it may manifest as a criminal or aggressive behavior where the id takes over. Such a finding may imply that for such a physical damage, we need a physical correction. I don’t support to cut hands or behead people, but prisons are just incubating more criminals.

In the middle of all the chaos, even if an individual is predisposed to be criminal due to genetic and brain alteration, would that individual indeed be a criminal? We need to add a third element: maltreatment in childhood. Nevertheless, this triad pattern can be found in criminals and non-criminal people, the field is still young. Anyway, this science may initiate a new law section, where we can excuse the criminals for their actions. I’m not sure if we’re going to blame the divine power which delivered this human being in this form. I don’t mean to start this dilemma. Still, if we are forgiving such people, why didn’t we apply the same scale on Hitler or other insane dictators? At least, in a previous entry we established some association or causation between greatness and illness. Until then, we should differentiate between who to blame and who to punish.