Last night Larry King Live of CNN hosted a discussion about whether criminals can be rehabilitated. I think it will be re-aired this weekend so try to watch. One of the guests drew a distinction between “learned” criminal behavior and psychopathy. She stated she believed that criminals who have learned to be that way can unlearn but psychopaths cannot be rehabilitated. I know many of you also hold this belief so I would like to tell you why I strongly disagree.
First I will tell you my position:
ALL criminality stems from an interaction between a person and a situation. A person is a product of his/her genetics and experiences. So in a sense what makes up personality (the “person”) is learned for everyone including the psychopathic. We are preprogrammed by our genetics to learn certain things better than others.
In terms of situational variables solid research has demonstrated that antisocial associates, poor work and educational performance, substance abuse, poor family ties and poor recreational achievement are all associated with criminality. These variables operate independently from personality variables and are important for even the most psychopathic individuals.
The more psychopathic a person is, the more deeply ingrained is the lifestyle of parasitism and predation BUT even those with lower levels of psychopathy can be very resistant to change and very dangerous to society. The definition of response to treatment depends on what you are looking for. If a person cheats 8 people a week, then goes into a program and cheats 1 person a week, that is a change. Everyone has a different definition of “rehabilitation”.
Coincidentally, I just read a great book, Persons in Context: Building a science of the individual. It is a tribute to Walter Mischel, Ph.D. one of the great thinkers of modern psychology. In his chapter “Intelligence as a Person-Situation Interaction”, Robert Sternberg lists five fallacies of thinking. He says, “There is another dimension to person-situation interaction: the extent to which particular situations elicit ‘stupid’ thinking in intelligent people.” All of his 5 fallacies occur in the context of perceived power or dominance. They are:
- The unrealistic optimism fallacy. This occurs when one believes that one is so smart and so powerful that it is pointless to worry about the outcome of what one does.
- The egocentrism fallacy. This occurs when one comes to think that one’s own interests are the only ones that are important.
- The Omniscience Fallacy. This occurs when people think they know more than they do.
- The Omnipotence Fallacy. This results from the power one wield or believes one wields.
- The invulnerability Fallacy. This derives for the illusion of complete protection.
Dr. Sternberg is one of many scientists who have discovered that the experience of power changes the mind/brain. Some people are more prone than others to these effects of power. Since psychopathic individuals seek out power constantly like a heroin addict seeking a fix, they are never free from all of the above fallacies of thinking. Life is a situation of constant power or perceived power.
In the absence of a loving nature all power pursuit becomes antisocial. Now power pursuit and attainment can also stomp out a person’s loving nature, if it was ever present in the first place.
To rehab the psychopathic we have to strip them of any power and teach them to love and care for others. To my knowledge there is no program that has yet succeeded in doing this even for those “sociopaths” who score at the lower end of the psychopathy scale.
I was looking at the news yesterday and they are doing some experiments with Dark Matter…I think they are attempting to re- create conditions deep down below the earth where there are no light transmissions in order to produce dark matter…so they can study what this ‘stuff’ is all about. They have not got a clue what Dark Matter/Black hole stuff is composed of even…we are still on the threshold of new information…always…
not the man they think I am at home……or in prison…or in space
Hey, and “Mars aint the kind of place to raise your kids…”
“heeeeere am I sitting in my tin can…Faaaar above the world
Planet Earth is blue and there’s nothing I can do….dang de dang de dang…de dang dang”
that’s one of the psychopaths thats been catapulted off talking to Major Tom…one of the victims who is control of the rocket….so David Bowie didn’t tell me…okay stopping now…hee hee
‘psychopaths In Space’ the musical….let me know if you come up with songs we could use…lovefraud production…
Maybe “Startrek” was a metephor for trying to understand the psychopathic mind-set….”…Space, the final frontier…to boldly go where no man has gone before…etc.etc,etc.
Spock might have been a P.
I love it when these posts veer off right before I set out on my day. I leave with a big grin on my face!
shana, 🙂
BulletProof, I can’t believe you wrote this. I was even asked in my deposition who is Bowie? … and what’s with this Ground Control you hummed or sang at work, along with asking me what my e-mails meant when I’d write to friendly co-workers who knew what I was up again … “This is ground control, are you out there?”… “Can you hear me?”….
LOL. NO sense of humor whatsoever with these attorneys. Not only no sense of humor, none knew music …at all. Even when I explained who David Bowie is … the blank look on their faces said it all. I do believe they skipped over the 70s. Dorks.
Wini! LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How do you RE-habilitate someone that has never been “habilitated” so to speak?
Studies and findings of children who were locked up in dark rooms by abusive parents (Genie) and feral children have further confirmed our belief in “Critical Periods” see Piaget.
Whether it was mostly Nature or nurture that created the Spath, these habits and mind sets were ingrained during these “critical periods”.
These critical periods are part of what explains why a 2/3 year old can learn and master three languages at once. And why it is far more difficult for an adult to learn 1 new language.
This is true for everyone, not just people with genetic predispositions, ie: “your average criminal”.
It is very difficult to teach someone who has INGRAINED habits, especially and adult who has far outgrown their “critical period.”
There is also a “sensitive period” discussed by Piaget which, I believe is in line with LF information, (especially Lianne’s Book, “Just like His Father?”) which states that Spaths are missing one or more sides to the inner triangle 1)ability to love 2)Moral reasoning and 3)self control/discipline.
PS: I am a teacher. teacher practically minor in child psychology in New York. I had this very discussion with a parole officer and a police officer, one of whom also has a daughter who is a teacher. We all agreed that to lower crime, one must reach these criminals when they are young, and preferable, when the most likely are NOT YET criminals.