Psychology for Dummies (68 page)
Read Psychology for Dummies Online
Authors: Adam Cash
Tags: #Psychology, #General, #Body; Mind & Spirit, #Spirituality
Dahmer, Bundy, Gacy, Ramirez, Jack the Ripper, Fish, the list goes on. Serial murderers represent perhaps the most serious and morbidly fascinating image of criminality. They’re modern-day boogeymen. They commit horrific acts of violence and indulge in strange and perverted acts with their victims. The concept of evil comes quickly to mind when thinking of their deeds.
Psychologists, however, are not scientists of evil. They’re scientists of behavior and mental processes. That doesn’t mean serial murderers’ behaviors and minds cannot be studied from a psychological point of view. Richard von Krafft-Ebbing is understood by many experts to have provided the seminal work on serial killers,
Pscyhopathia Sexualis
(Sexual Psychopathology), published in 1886. Many contend that much of what is known about serial homicide is contained in that work. Before we get into some of that information, however, a quick definition of serial murder is in order.
Serial murder
is commonly viewed among professionals as a sexually motivated “subtype” of sexual homicide. That is, serial murder is sexually motivated. Grubin states that the sexual nature of these crimes is seen in the way a perpetrator’s sexual arousal is connected to his victim’s pain and humiliation.
Serial killers
are distinguished from
mass murderers
(killing a bunch of people at one location at one time) and
spree killers
(killing a number of victims at different locations within hours or days).
Krafft-Ebing identified three main components of sexual homicide that experts still focus on today.
Sadism:
Sexual arousal from the physical suffering, humiliation, or control of a victim is central to the serial killer’s psychology. There’s an absolute need to control another, weaker human being, and great sexual satisfaction is derived from this act.
Fantasy:
Beres defines a fantasy as a group of symbols combined into a story. It’s a mental phenomenon, inside the minds of those who fantasize. I fantasize about being rich. Sexual murderers fantasize about killing and torturing their victims. Their ritualistic behaviors at the crime scenes are seen as outgrowths of their fantasy life, a way to make the fantasy real. Fledgling serial murderers begin to engage in fantasy early in their life, building on the complexity and intensity of the fantasy as they go along.
Compulsion to kill:
Plenty of people have kinky sexual urges and sometimes even destructive fantasies. Couture found that even normal men can have sexual fantasies involving violent and aggressive images, including rape scenes. So, just being a sadist and having a violent fantasy life does not a serial killer make. At least for now, in this society we are responsible on the level of our behavior — no “thought police,” yet. Revitch and Schlesinger believe that acting out sadistic fantasies is made possible by a compulsive need to do so. A
compulsion
is like a burning and irresistible need, driving me to do whatever it is that I need to do. When I finally do it, I feel an intense, almost-orgasmic sense of relief. Revitch and Schlesinger believe that the sequence is something like this: sadism → fantasy → tension state → compulsion → action. The murderous act is, therefore, experienced as an act of release, which is pleasurable and therefore reinforcing of the prior sequence of events and make its repetition likely.
This information is powerful and very interesting. My only fear is that people will go out there and think that they’ve got serial killers all figured out. This discussion is a really crude introduction to the topic of sexual homicide. Some professionals have devoted their entire careers to figuring out how these people tick. It’s not that easy.
Speaking of the professionals devoted to figuring these people out, the attempt to apprehend these individuals based in part on information about their personality and mental state is called
psychological profiling.
Keppel and Walter call it
crime scene assessment.
It’s an attempt to ascertain important information about the perpetrator of the crime(s), such as his physical, behavioral, and demographic characteristics, and figure out the
signature
of the perpetrator. A signature is a component of the crime that is unique to that particular killer and can be found across multiple crime scenes.
Keppel states that two very important features for developing a psychological profile of an offender are his signature and his
modus operandi.
Again, a killer’s signature is the feature of the crime scene that is unique to that offender. It may be the way a rope is tied around a victim’s hands or the particular way the victim is tortured. Modus operandi (MO) refers to the particular method of operation of the killer, including the object of the crime, the means, the time, and so on. The MO can change, but the signature usually doesn’t.
Park Dietz is a very well-known forensic psychiatrist who sees psychological profiling as a systematic problem-solving activity with five basic steps:
1. The profiler gathers data, including crime scene photos, autopsy reports, witness statements, and forensic lab reports.
2. She attempts to reconstruct the sequence of events before, during, and after the murder.
3. The profiler tries to reconstruct what the perpetrator(s) and victim(s) were experiencing mentally and emotionally that may have led them to act this way. It’s an analysis of their motivations, the “why” of their crime.
4. She uses the information that she has gathered to develop a criminal
typing
— an attempt to fit the offender into a category (sexual sadist or thrill-killer, for example).
5. The profiler tries to use the previous information to figure out what kind of person would do this — man, woman, tall, short, and so on. They even try to figure out what kinds of work he or she may do and any other activities that he or she may engage in. From this information, the expert establishes a profile and gives it to law enforcement officials to use at their discretion.
When someone is arrested and tried for a crime, he has several options when he goes to court. If he is competent enough to stand trial, he might plead innocent, guilty, or not guilty by reason of insanity. Forensic experts are often consulted when a defendant introduces his mental health as a factor in the crime.
Have you ever been to court? Have you ever been a defendant in court? If so, you may have noticed how confusing the whole thing can be. I’ve seen judges give instructions to defendants so fast that you’d think they were speaking another language. Lawyers give you the run down and tell you to sign some paperwork that you’ve never seen before. Next thing you know, you’re free to go. Great! But then you get a bill for restitution in the mail, and you never remember agreeing to pay any restitution. The entire court experience can be pretty confusing and overwhelming. Even people without a mental disorder can have a difficult time understanding the whole legal process. They actually have whole schools devoted to understanding the legal process. They’re called law schools.
In this country, a defendant cannot be tried unless believed capable (competent) to understand the nature and purpose of the proceedings being taken against him/her and unless a defendant is also believed capable of assisting counsel in presenting a defense. Forensic experts are utilized to make this determination (current mental illness or disease and the competence to stand trial).
Competency to stand trial
refers to a situation in which defendants
Are able to understand (or totally deny) the charges against them and report the facts regarding their behavior at the time of the crime
Can reasonably cooperate with their lawyers and assist in their defense
Can understand the court proceedings
If a defendant can’t perform any of these actions, she’s typically found incompetent to stand trial for the crime that she’s accused of. Forensic experts are called upon to make competency recommendations to the court. Contested recommendations regarding a defendant’s competence to stand trial might even be decided by a jury. That’s right, jury involvement to determine if a trial can proceed.
So, what happens to individuals who are found incompetent to stand trial? Can they just go home? The judge doesn’t simply open up the doors of the courthouse and send these people on their way. Although procedures in most states differ somewhat, after defendants are found
incompetent to stand trial,
in most states, such defendants are mandated to psychiatric facilities to receive mental health treatment designed to restore them to competence for a specified length of time or for the length of time they would have served if convicted, or which ever is shorter (most states). This means that someone could be in a hospital for several years (e.g., three years in California on a felony charge). Sometimes if the hospital staff thinks competency cannot be restored, they will return a defendant to court before the expiration of the commitment term with a recommendation for the filing of a conservatorship. A mental health conservatorship is a civil procedure based upon “grave disability” designed to provide supervision of placement, treatment, and/or money management to individuals believed incapable of providing for their own needs for food, clothing, and shelter due to a severe mental illness. In some states there may also be the possibility, under certain circumstances, of establishing a conservatorship due to “dangerousness” rather than “grave disability.”
The determination of conservatorship is usually done following a review of records and consultation with current treatment staff, a formal clinical interview, and perhaps some psychological testing, and contacts with family and others to determine if any alternatives to conservatorship may exist. After a recommendation to file for a conservatorship has been made, a contested hearing may be conducted in a civil courtroom with the forensic expert offering testimony in support of the recommendation to file for conservatorship. The outcome of the competency debate ultimately depends on the findings of the court and most often it is a judge and not a jury making the decision.