ideas collection
ongseongwoo
2020fall-thecriminalmind.pptx
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1966 – Charles Whitman
Charles Whitman, 25-year-old engineering student, former Marine killed ~17, wounded 32 in a mass shooting at University of Texas, before being shot/killed by police.
Earlier that day, he also murdered his wife and mother.
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I do not really understand myself these days. I am supposed to be an
average reasonable and intelligent young man. However, lately
(I cannot recall when it started) I have been a victim of many unusual and
irrational thoughts …
Please pay off my debts [and] donate the rest anonymously
to a mental-health foundation. Maybe research can prevent
further tragedies of this type.
Whitman left a note behind. His family agreed to an autopsy and investigators found both a tumor and some other abnormalities in his brain … in the amygdala, a region of the brain that controls emotion. A follow up report concluded that the tumor might have contributed to the shootings.
We can only wonder if Whitman’s family took solace in the idea that perhaps he wasn’t truly responsible for the horrific crime he had committed.
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Crime: who/what is responsible?
mental illness addiction drugs
alcohol poverty racism movies/tv
video games politics immigration
overpopulation dysfunctional families
faulty prison system too many guns
the education system too soft on crime
society is too permissive – lack of respect
We’re no strangers, in the US, to violent crime. To what do we attribute violent behavior??
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Are some people just evil?
For as long as evil (or whatever we perceive as evil) has existed, people have wondered about its source. And where better to look than in the brain?
Everything we’ve ever done, thought or felt in our lives , scientists will tell us, ultimately is traceable to the web of nerve cells firing in a particular way. The brain - the machine that allows us to function as we do.
So [we might ask] if the machine is busted – if the operating system in our head fires in crazy ways - are we fully responsible for the behavior that follows?
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NOTE: Article on slide for illustration purposes only, *you do NOT have to read it*.
Reported in the Archives of Neurology – a 2003 case: 40-year-old schoolteacher with no history of abnormal behavior developed a sudden interest in child pornography, arrested for making sexual advances to his young step-daughter, also claimed he was going to rape a woman he knew. He was assigned to a 12-step program for sex offenders.
BUT he flunked out of the course – he couldn’t seem to control his sexual urges.
A day before he was to enter prison, he went to the ER with a pounding headache, distraught and contemplating suicide. At the same time, still unable to control his sexual impulses, he was propositioning the nurses.
Doctors scanned his brain and found a tumor the size of an egg in the right orbitofrontal cortex, the region that processes decision making and other so-called
“executive functions.” The tumor was removed, and the man’s behavior began to improve.
The judge allowed him to complete a Sexaholics Anonymous Program, and the man eventually moved back home with his wife and stepdaughter.
About a year later the tumor began to grow back, and the man started to collect porn again. Following another operation his sexual urges again subsided.
Should this man be blamed for his admittedly very inappropriate (and illegal) behavior? Should he be held accountable for his actions?
Today we spend more time than ever before looking at people’s brains – often specifically to find out if the answer to criminal behavior lies in the brain.
But if/when researchers do determine one’s brain is damaged – to what degree do we hold individuals responsible for their actions?
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If our brain’s operating system fails …
Are we entirely responsible for our actions?
VIOLENT BEHAVIOR:
If our brain’s operating system fails … are we entirely responsible for our actions?
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Unfortunately, we still have way more questions than answers. But scientists have long understood that a malfunctioning brain could cause all sorts of changes in behavior.
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Many neuroscientists are
concluding that there is a
biological basis to morality.
How did we, historically, attribute specific regions of the brain to various behaviors?
ENTER: Phineas Gage
-25 year old railroad, worker in Vermont.
-suffered a major on the job injury in 1848.
-Gage was the foreman of a crew laying the tracks, tamping lack powder into a hole drilled in rock when he apparently struck a spark.
-the explosion that followed sent the tamping iron – a 3-1/2 foot long bar, an inch in diameter, through his left check and clean out the top of his head, landing some 30 yards behind him.
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Phineas Gage
Audio clip
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“Gage was no longer Gage!”
The surgeon who came to the scene described that he could insert a finger through either side of the wound and actually touch them together. It was a clean hole.
Gage didn’t die – and didn’t even seem to lost much of his ability to function. He returned to work in less than a year. His basic mental faculties – motor skills, memory, speech – were essentially unchanged.
But what did change was his personality.
"Gage was no longer Gage!"
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Brain scientists are still obsessed with the curious case of Phineas Gage …
Scientists continue to be fascinated by Gage’s skull.
Phineas Gage’s misfortune became a scientific “moment.”
One that seemed to provide a direct cause and effect connection – between brain trauma and change in personality.
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The latest neuroscience research is presenting intriguing evidence that the brains of certain kinds of criminals are different from those of the rest of the population.
And – as helpful as this all may be, will be … the results raise all sorts of moral issues. How do we apply this information?
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Current research suggests that maybe some people are more predisposed to committing crimes - because of brain abnormalities.
>One study revealed that brain scans of people diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder – a condition that many convicted criminals have been diagnosed with – show significant differences in their frontal lobes.
>Another study showed that many psychopaths have deformities in their amygdala. Psychopaths lack emotion, lack remorse, guilt.
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Stephen Morse – law professor and professor of psychology: calls it the fundamental psycho-legal error.
the belief that if you discover a cause, you’ve relieved that person of responsibility
It’s been increasingly clear to many researchers that there are significant biological differences between people who commit serious crimes and people who do not.
Certainly not everyone with an “abnormal” brain will engage in violent or otherwise aberrant behavior; at the same time, not all criminals will be found to have brain abnormalities.
There may be a distinct correlation. But correlation is not causation. Many questions remain, among the most pressing:
Can we hold people responsible for their actions, due to brain irregularities? Does this explain, and therefore excuse crime? Or rather does it provide criminals with a convenient excuse?
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If we are responsible …
we can go to jail
we pay the price
we suffer shame and humiliation by going to prison
we suffer guilt and remorse
we can’t afford to take care of our families
we lose the respect of our families, friends, others
we can’t get a job
we’re at greater risk for drug/alcohol dependence
we might become a societal outcast
If we are not responsible …
we receive treatment at a hospital
we can take medication
we are patients, not prisoners
we receive sympathy, empathy, are treated with kindness
people feel sorry for us
people take care of us
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Stephen Morse – law professor and professor of psychology: calls it the fundamental psycho-legal error.
the belief that if you discover a cause, you’ve relieved that person of responsibility
Stephen Morse –law professor and professor of psychology:
calls it the fundamental psycho-legal error.
the belief that if you discover a cause, you’ve
relieved that person of responsibility
