PSYCHOPATHS AND CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR
A. Concept
The term psychopath has been used repeatedly in history to refer to
mental disorders in a person. Today, however, the term psychopath is used to
describe specific forms or clinical constructs of antisocial personality disorder
related to irresponsible behavior Answer and criminality to someone. However,
debate occurs within the concept and boundaries of psychopathic criteria and
there is debate in the use of terms to describe antisocial personality disorder,
namely dissocial personality, psychopath, or sociopath (Huss, 2014).
Cleckley (in Huss, 2014) mentions several criteria to see a psychopath,
namely:
1. Good intelligence and looks dazzling on the outside
2. The absence of signs of delusions and irrational thoughts
3. Absence of nervous feelings
4. Unreliable
5. Dishonest and insincere
6. Lack of shame and regret
7. Inadequate antisocial behavior
8. Unable to learn from experience and poor judgment
9. Egocentrism of a pathological nature and inability to love
10. Inability to express general emotions
11. Loss of specific insights
12. Unresponsiveness in interpersonal relationships
13. Unpleasant and fantastic behavior with or without the influence of liquor
14. It is rare to find suicidal behavior
15. Underestimating and non-integration of sexual and interpersonal life
16. Inability to achieve life goals.
In the DSM-V, the diagnostic criteria for antisocial personality
disorder are as follows:
1. Pervasive patterns in neglect and violation of the rights of other
individuals occurring from the age of 15 years indicated by three or
more of the following indicators:
a. Failure to conform to social norms characterized by
repeated unlawful acts.
b. Cheating such as cheating, using disguises, repeated lies
aimed at obtaining personal pleasure.
c. Impulsivity and failure to plan goals ahead. Irritability and
aggressiveness are shown by behaviors such as fights or
physical attacks.
d. Carelessness and disregard for the safety of self and others.
e. Consistency of irresponsible behavior indicated by
behavior such as failure to maintain performance and
perform financial obligations.
f. Lack of feelings of remorse towards behavior that violates
or harms others.
2. Individuals are at least 18 years old.
3. There is evidence of conduct disorders with onset before age 15 years.
4. Antisocial behavior is not related to schizophrenia and bipolar
disorder.
B. Reference for Psychopathic Diagnosis
In the process of assessing psychopathy behavior, the psychological
measurement tool most often used is the Hare Psychopathy Checklist or called
PCL. In its development there are 3 versions of PCL, namely The PCL, Revision:
PCL-R, and PCL-R second edition (2003) (Archer, & Wheeler, 2013). In this
paper the PCL-R second edition will be used as the primary measure of
psychopathy behavior, since Hare (2003) (in Archer, & Wheeler, 2013) said this
version is a revised version to minimize abuse in the context of courts and service
selection, as well as the large amount of empirical data that has been Generated
related factors of structure, reliability, validity, and generality of this measuring
instrument that cause the need for this version.
From the PCL-R manual published by Hare in 2003, PCL-R has a total of
20 items and is divided into 4 factors, namely interpersonal, affective, lifestyle, and
anti-social factors. Standard procedures for using PCL-R usually include semi-
structured interviews and reviews of individual data.
The first form of assessment of PCL-R is the interview. The purpose of
the interview in the use of PCL-R is to gather concrete historical information of the
individual, and the interview usually helps the assessor to understand the
interpersonal life of the individual, as well as assist the assessor to evaluate the
consistency of the cases handled. The interview process usually runs for 90 to 120
minutes which can be divided into several sessions that help the assessor to get a
representative sample of styles Individual interactions, and interview topics
typically include education, work and family, relationships with others, drug use,
and anti-social behavior from adolescence of the individual.
The second form of assessment in PCL-R is a review of existing data
related to individuals. The purpose of this individual data review is to evaluate the
correctness and reliability of the information obtained during the interview,
determine the style of interaction individuals during interviews, and obtaining
primary data for PCL-R scoring purposes (Archer & Wheeler, 2013). In this review
process, usually forensic psychologists will get data from existing legal reports, but
forensic psychologists also add what data if considered lacking conduct
interviews with related closest people, such as parents, spouses, friends, etc.
C. Differences between Psychopaths and Antisocial and Sociopaths
1. Psychopathic and Antisocial Differences
Many still consider that psychopaths and antisocial disorder or ASPD are
the same thing, or psychopaths are excessive ASPD conditions (Cold & Ullrich,
2010; Marsden et al., 2019), but in fact the two conditions are different, because
according to Hemphill and Hart someone who has a psychopathic condition has a
comorbidity to have ASPD, but only 15-30% of people who develop ASPD also
have a psychopathic condition.
ASPD or Anti-Social Personality Disorder is a personality disorder that
makes a person less able or unable to feel the feelings, needs, or suffering of others,
or the absence of guilt or regret when he has hurt others. The definition is taken from
the key criteria for diagnosing ASPD contained in the Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Disorder Edition V (2013).
Meanwhile, psychopaths themselves are conditions where a person only
follows lust without thinking about the good or bad of behavior based on that
passion, or in accordance with Freud's explanation, that psychopaths are people
whose egos focus on the id which contains lust and sexual instincts, and the super
ego who cannot balance the ego and id of the person. According to Rozali (2018),
the behavior of psychopaths who experience antisocial personality disorder can be
characterized as follows:
1. Antisocial behavior
2. Manipulators
3. Aggressiveness
4. Sadistic
5. Absence of remorse and guilt.
The reason why the two are often considered the same, or considered as one
that is more dominant than the other is, because a psychopath can have diagnostic
conditions owned by antisocial personality disorder, but does not guarantee that a
psychopath also has antisocial disorder, vice versa, someone who has antisocial
disorder is also not guaranteed to be a psychopathic person.
But uniquely, someone who is a psychopath but does not have ASPD has the
nickname successful psychopath or white-collar psychopath, where the psychopath
has brilliant intelligence, success, and has a position that guarantees because of the
intelligence and ability he has as a psychopath. Even some of these successful
psychopaths can sit as representatives of the people as well as in large companies
because of their strong ambitions towards their passions.
2. Differences between Psychopaths and Sociopaths
Unlike antisocial disorder, psychopaths and sociopaths are not always
physically or mentally brutal. Psychopaths and Sociopaths, consider not only
behavior, but also factors including feelings of callousness, unemotional thought
patterns, and helplessness which are affective factors. Psychopaths are believed to
arise due to neurological abnormalities, whereas sociopaths result from
environmental factors (e.g., severe adverse environment, abuse, inconsistency or
lack of upbringing). Sociopaths may have psychopathic abnormalities or traits to a
lesser extent, and adverse environments foster deviant traits and allow the brain to
change thus encouraging neurological abnormalities or psychopathic traits to emerge
(Johnson, 2019).
D. Relationship of Violence with Psychopathic Criminal Behavior
Risk assessments of psychopaths found that a psychopath is synonymous
with consistent criminal behavior and a high risk of repeating the same behavior
(recidivist) (Huss, 2014). Huss (2014) states that common criminal behavior
among psychopaths is divided into instrumental violence and reactive violence. The
results of Williamson et al.'s research show that instrumental offenders tend to be
psychopaths, and symptoms of impulsivity in psychopaths can result in reactive
criminal behavior. Instrumental crimes are crimes that are carefully planned to
achieve a certain goal, for example the behavior of a husband to kill his wife in
order to get insurance funds. In addition, reactive crime is criminal behavior that
arises from emotional responses about an event faced, such as spontaneous
husband behavior killed his wife when he found out she was having an affair.
Gretton et al. (in Huss, 2014) found that psychopaths often engage in sexual
violence behavior and violent behavior carried out is classified as severe. This is
because psychopaths usually have sexual relations with anyone without any
emotional attachment, so it is most likely that violence in sexual relationships is
carried out by psychopaths. In addition, it is not uncommon to find psychopaths
involved in rape.
E. Aspects that influence the psychopathic condition
1. Social-Emotional Factors
One of the most dominant factors in determining a person as a psychopath
is social-emotional. There are several characteristics possessed by a
psychopath, such as showing excessive charm lack of empathy, difficulty in
regretting and admitting mistakes, manipulative and pathological deception,
and it is difficult to take responsibility with the obligations that he has. These
factors have a relationship with interpersonal relationships and affection of a
psychopath.
A psychopath is often seen as a very convincing figure, but a psychopath
has difficulty in maintaining interpersonal relationships over a relatively long
period of time. This happens because psychopaths tend to only give a good
first impression. Quasi-emotion or sham emotion) often experienced by
psychopaths, which is a state in which interpersonal relationships are not good
because of the difficulty He empathizes and understands the feelings of others.
2. Cognitive Factors and Social Learning
Often found cognitive problems in a psychopath. This can be seen from the
way psychopaths present themselves as smart figures, for example in committing
crimes, psychopaths will think of plans carefully and will prepare well. This
smart figure is also one way to attract a good first impression on others.
However, the consideration of Cleckley (in Huss, 2014) a psychopath also has a
cognitive deficit that is a psychopath is unable to learn from the mistakes he has
made. Even though the psychopath knows that the actions he does are
detrimental actions, psychopaths tend to repeat these actions.
In general, a person will stop certain behaviors when they get negative
reinforcement or punishment, but this is not the case with psychopaths. A
psychopath is not ignorant of behavior they shouldn't do, but it does have an
impulsive nature. The inability of a psychopath to learn through rewards arising
from the behavior he does is referred to as passive avoidance learning.
According to Huss (2014), this phenomenon is based on moral values that are
not internalized in psychopaths. Although they get punishment for the criminal
acts they commit, they also get positive reinforcement because they feel that the
crimes they have committed have been successful.
3. Biological Factors
In several previous studies, researchers examined the emotional response of a
psychopath based on heart rate and skin conductance and found that psychopaths
have a tendency to respond close to normal compared to other people in general
when given a stressful stimulus (Huss, 2014). Then the researchers explored the
brain parts of psychopaths, and found that psychopaths do not have differences
in brain structure, but the differences lie physiologically. It was found that a
psychopath has a less responsive amygdala, limbic system, and frontal cortex
than other people. These parts of the brain have functions in regulating emotions
and human executive functions, including cognitive and moral functions and
empathy (Huss, 2014).
D
