White collar criminals

A reporter for a national TV outlet is looking to interview assessed sociopaths who have committed white collar crimes. Please email me if you or someone you know fits the bill and would like to talk to him.

I can share some of my own thoughts on this topic later (I don't want to taint anyone's opinions before he has a chance to talk to you), but I've explored the association between criminality and sociopaths many times before.

It's true that there is a higher proportion of sociopaths in prison than there are in the general population. However, the same could be said of males -- there is a higher proportion of men in prison than there is in the general population. There is a higher proportion of African Americans in prison than there is in the general population. No one really (legitimately?) makes the argument that African American men are inherently criminal or that there is something innate about a man or an African American that predisposes them to criminality. But you could. Men have higher levels of testosterone than women, a hormone associated with higher levels of impulsivity and aggression. Much junk science has been historically written about the inferiority of the African races (although it is true that everyone but Africans have Neanderthal DNA, who "possessed the gene for language and had sophisticated music, art and tool craftsmanship skills," so there's at least a difference in genetics), but most people seem to feel that the higher proportion of African Americans in prison is due to environmental factors like social disenfranchisement than a genetic predisposition to crime. Similarly, there could be multiple factors connecting sociopaths with criminality, including that most sociopaths who have been studied happen to have been criminals.  

Somewhat relatedly:

Fictional sociopaths: Tom Ripley

A reader sent me a movie clip with this description:

Also, here’s another video that I always resonated with. It’s John Malkovich’s portrayal of Tom Ripley in Ripley’s Game. I’m not sure if you’ve ever seen that movie, but it’s nicely done. You could say Ripley’s game boils down to manipulating what had been a relatively innocent man into committing murder. In fact, the scene starts right after they’ve killed several mobsters on a train. They got off the train and are in a station restroom (the relevant part starts at 3:40 and ends at about 5:10). “The one thing I know is we are constantly being born.” Very true indeed, truer than most people realize.


[Ripley has just helped Jonathan kill three mobsters]

Jonathan Trevanny: [crying] I know I should thank you, because I wouldn't be alive now if you hadn't helped me.... but I can't. I can't say thank you. I don't know anything about you. Who are you?

Tom Ripley: I'm a creation. A gifted improviser. I lack your conscience and, when I was young, that troubled me. It no longer does. I don't worry about being caught because I don't think anyone is watching. The world is not a poorer place because those people are dead — it's not. It's one less car on the road, a little less noise and menace. You were brave today. You'll go home and put some money away for your family. That's all.

Jonathan Trevanny: If you "lack my conscience," then why did you help me on the train?

Tom Ripley: [smiles] I don't know, but it doesn't surprise me. If there's one thing I know, it's that we're constantly being born.

Jonathan Trevanny: But why me? Why did you pick me?

Tom Ripley: Partly because you could. Partly because you insulted me. But mostly because that's the game. [checks watch] We need to catch this flight. Shall we?

John Malcovich's are some of the most convincing portrayals of a sociopath I've seen.

Parent to a sociopath

I finally got around to watching We Need to Talk About Kevin, the film version of the book of the same name, about a school massacre perpetrator and his mother. The story starts with the mother Eva becoming pregnant. She is ambivalent about motherhood. Her son Kevin does not respond to her mediocre attempts to bond or soothe. As he grows just a little older, it becomes clear that he is not normal, perhaps even deeply disturbed.

The film is no chronological and skips between before and after the massacre. Her life before was first young and exciting New York then a downgrade (in her mind) to a suburban estate with her growing family. Her life after is lonely squalor where she is the victim of all vandalism, violence, and sexual antagonism meant to, what? Shame her into denouncing her son? Some of the perpetrators seem to be family to the victims of the massacre, but others apparently are just looking to participate in socially sanctioned aggression and exploitation (her co-worker, after a rebuffed unwelcome advance, snarls "Where do you get off, you stuck up bitch? Do you think anyone else is gonna want you now?"). Her life is ruined. The second part flashes back to her early struggles with motherhood, then power struggles with her son, as evidenced in part by his refusal to be potty trained. In a fit of rage over him deliberately soiling his diaper after she just changed it, she throws him and breaks his arm. When recalling the moment later, he tells her "It’s the most honest thing you ever did. Do you know how they potty train cats? They stick their noses in their own shit. They don’t like it. So they use the box." After coming home from the hospital, he lies to his father about the broken arm, saying he fell off the diaper changing table. He then extorts his mother with the threat of exposure in order to get his way.

She is obviously not mother of the year, but who could be with a son so cold and apparently evil? That at least seems to be the suggestion of the first half of the film -- that there's nothing else she could have done better and we're supposed to feel sorry for her because she was unlucky enough to have birthed a demon. By the middle of the movie, we know what is going to happen, we are just filling in details. We get a little more realistic characterization of the son. The mother puts a cd marked "I love you" into her computer, which infects it with a virus (and all computers from her office connected to the network). She asks, why would you have something like this, what's the point? "There is no point. That's the point." She makes fun of fat people at a rare mother son excursion, to which he points out "You know, you can be kind of harsh sometimes."

Eva: "You’re one to talk."

Kevin: "Yeah, I am. I wonder where I got it."

Apart from a brief childhood sickness, when young Kevin cuddles with her while she reads him a book, their relationship is strained. Oddly, she is shown devotedly visiting him in prison, even though they hardly exchange a word. What's her motivation? Penance? Curiosity? Duty? Not love, is it? We also discover that although she lives a lonely, isolated existence, she has at least in part chosen this life (still lives in the same town despite the antagonism, avoids her mother's plea that she visit for the holidays). Finally, we see that her new home has a bedroom for him with all of his things, including his clothes that she regularly washes and irons to keep fresh. Why? On the second anniversary of the massacre she again visits Kevin in prison. He is about to be transfered to an adult facility. His head is poorly shaved. His face is bruised. He is not his usual confidently unapologetic self. She tells him he doesn't look happy. "Have I ever?"With their time running out, she finally confronts him:

Eva: Why?

Kevin: I used to think I knew. Now I'm not so sure. [pause]

Prison guard: Time's up.

They hug, Eva finally apparently reaching that place of love and acceptance for her son that had for so long eluded her.

I liked a lot of things about the film. There are some very accurate portrayals of sociopathic behavior. For instance, although Kevin never feels remorse about the massacre, he does show signs of regret -- an acknowledgment that perhaps he has miscalculated or misunderstood the true nature of life, including a sense of permanence of some consequences that many teenagers fail to intuit.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the film is the way it contrasts moral certainty (portrayed as ugly behavior) with self-doubt (portrayed as a sign of hope and the possibility of change). When the mother is at her most self-assured, Kevin hates her the most. It's only when she was weak enough to break his arm that he respects her for being honest. And Kevin's only redeeming moments are when he is sick and at the end when he is unsure whether the massacre was a good idea. These are stark contrasts to the moral indignation of the mother as she repeatedly tells her son off, the son as he repeatedly tells her everything is meaningless and that she is a hypocrite, the townspeople as they rally around to collectively dehumanize her (a small nod to the Scarlet Letter?), the husband who tells her she is a bad mother, etc. The problem with making these sorts of comprehensive judgments about a person are not that they aren't founded in truth, but that people naturally defy such pat assessments. They're simply too dynamic and life is too complicated (and subject more to chance than choice) to say with any degree of certainty that "so-an-so would never do something like that," or even "I would never do something like that." Moral certainty is often based in truth, but it denies so much more than it ever considers.

The film is also a true tragedy in that despite Kevin being particularly sinister and Eva particularly cold, there is nothing inherently wrong with either of these characters. Put in different circumstances, Eva could have been a wonderful mother and Kevin could have channeled his machiavellian traits to more pro-social activities that would have made an equal splash. The problems were in the way they interacted with each other. They were locked in a death struggle, a double drowning. In a desperate effort to ensure that the one would not unduly rule the other's life, they spent all of their time reacting to each other instead of just quietly going about their own lives. I see this with victims on this site too -- becoming so obsessed with making sure that someone does not unjustly assert their will on you that you allow your whole world to revolve around thoughts of the other person. They were both so focused on winning particular battles with each other, thinking that the sum of small wins would add up to a gestalt of victory. They did not consider the possibility that these might be Pyrrhic, or that sometimes when you win, you lose. Because neither Eva nor Kevin were willing to bend their vision of the world to accommodate other viewpoints, they were both eventually broken.

"Bridging the Gap Between Scientific Evidence and Public Policy"

To address some of the misconceptions I've been seeing recently about sociopaths, a peer-reviewed academic article on public policy implications of sociopaths. From the summary to: "Psychopathic Personality: Bridging the Gap Between Scientific Evidence and Public Policy" co-authored by Jennifer Skeem, among others:


Few psychological concepts evoke simultaneously as much fascination and misunderstanding as psychopathic personality, or psychopathy. Typically, individuals with psychopathy are misconceived as fundamentally different from the rest of humanity and as inalterably dangerous. Popular portrayals of “psychopaths” are diverse and conflicting, ranging from uncommonly impulsive and violent criminal offenders to corporate figures who callously and skillfully manuever their way to the highest rungs of the social ladder.


Despite this diversity of perspectives, a single well validated measure of psychopathy, the Psychopathy ChecklistRevised (PCL-R; Hare, 1991; 2003), has come to dominate clinical and legal practice over recent years. The items of the PCL-R cover two basic content domains—an interpersonalaffective domain that encompasses core traits such as callousness and manipulativeness and an antisocial domain that entails disinhibition and chronic antisocial behavior. In most Western countries, the PCL-R and its derivatives are routinely applied to inform legal decisions about criminal offenders that hinge upon issues of dangerousness and treatability. In fact, clinicians in many cases choose the PCL-R over other, purpose-built risk-assessment tools to inform their opinions about what sentence offenders should receive, whether they should be indefinitely incarcerated as a “dangerous offender” or “sexually violent predator,” or whether they should be transferred from juvenile to adult court.
***
Despite the predominance of the PCL-R measurement model in recent years, vigorous scientific debates have continued regarding what psychopathy is and what it is not. Should adaptive, positive-adjustment features (on one hand) and criminal and antisocial behaviors (on the other) be considered essential features of the construct? Are anxious and emotionally reactive people that are identified as psychopaths by the PCL-R and other measures truly psychopathic? More fundamentally, is psychopathy a unitary entity (i.e., a global syndrome with a discrete underlying cause), or is it rather a configuration of several distinguishable, but intersecting trait dimensions? 

Although these and other controversies remain unresolved, theory and research on the PCL-R and alternative measures have begun to clarify the scope and boundaries of the psychopathy construct. In the current comprehensive review, we provide an integrative descriptive framework—the triarchic model—to help the reader make sense of differing conceptualizations. The essence of this model is that alternative perspectives on psychopathy emphasize, to varying degrees, three distinct observable (phenotypic) characteristics: boldness (or fearless dominance), meanness, and disinhibition. The triarchic framework is helpful for clarifying and reconciling seemingly disparate historical conceptions, modern operationalizations, and contemporary research programs on psychopathy.

In many cases, the findings we review converge to challenge common assumptions that underpin modern applications of psychopathy measures and to call for cautions in their use. For example, contemporary measures of psychopathy, including the PCL-R, appear to evidence no special powers in predicting violence or other crime. Instead, they are about as predictive as purpose-built violence-risk-assessment tools, perhaps because they assess many of the same risk factors as those broader-band tools. Specifically, the PCL-R and other psychopathy measures derive most of their predictive utility from their “Factor 2” assessment of antisocial and disinhibitory tendencies; the “Factor 1” component of such measures, reflecting interpersonal and affective features more specific to psychopathy, play at best a small predictive role. Similarly, current measures of psychopathy do not appear to moderate the effects of treatment on violent and other criminal behavior. That is, an increasing number of studies suggest that psychopathic individuals are not uniquely “hopeless” cases who should be disqualified from treatment, but instead are general “high-risk” cases who need to be targeted for intensive treatment to maximize public safety.

Misunderstandings about the criminal propensities and treatability of individuals achieving high scores on measures like the PCL-R have been perpetuated by professionals who interpret such high scores in a stereotypic manner, without considering nuances or issues of heterogeneity. A key message of our review is that classical psychopathy, whether measured by the PCL-R or other measures, is not monolithic; instead, it represents a constellation of multiple traits that may include, in varying degrees, the phenotypic domains of boldness, meanness, and disinhibition. Measures such as the PCL-R that do not directly assess features of low anxiety, fearlessness, or boldness more broadly tend to identify heterogeneous subgroups of individuals as psychopathic. As a consequence, efforts to apply one-size-fits-all public policies to psychopathic individuals may be doomed to failure. In aggregrate, these conclusions may help to shed light on what psychopathy is, and what it is not, and to guide policy interventions directed toward improved public health and public safety.

Pro-social sociopath (part 3)

Ok, a few more responses about the legitimate foundation of the stigma against sociopaths, and then we'll stop this series.

• you said you salivate at the thought of ruining people (that's been stuck in my head for a while btw). 

Yes, I do. It's an involuntary reaction to a stimulus, like someone becoming sexually aroused. I once heard a (possibly specious?) statistic that men think about sex every seven seconds. And I bet some of those times are triggered by girls younger than 16 years old. Maybe they even wish that it was ok to sleep with girls that young but since it isn't, they don't. And in any case, they can't control the fact that they are attracted to them. It's just the way they're wired. Similarly, I am also wired to enjoy the aggression inherent in power games. And there are certain contexts in which these power games are particularly useful, like in times of war/diplomacy/debate, just like how there's nothing wrong with sex in the right contexts. It's good for society to have a few people around that don't shy away from conflict but actually enjoy it, particularly as long as you can convince us we're on your team. I understand that people are concerned that I actually "ruin" people in that the person is "ruined". I don't. I have always defined and used the term to refer to power games (ruined in this sense means the same thing as it would in the context of a game, "I've ruined her" = I've beat her in a game). I'm not results-oriented about the ruining. I don't actually want to hurt them. But I still make a game out of it. To use the previous example, a man might flirt with a young girl just to see where it could possibly lead without actually intending to sleep with her. Similarly, I will sometimes exercise small degrees of influence over people to see how quickly I can acquire even larger degrees of influence over them. I don't actually use that influence to intentionally or malicious harm them (unless that's what they're asking me to do).

• and that you've never killed anyone but very likely could. how can you not think that would make people hate sociopaths?

Yes, I understand, it would be scary if I had actually ever said that I "very likely could" kill someone or if a significant percentage of sociopaths are killers (I don't know what percentage of sociopaths are killers, and I don't think anyone does, but it can't be that high because there simply aren't that many murders committed). I think what I said was roughly (and even this was taken out of context): "is it possible that I would kill someone? I don't think I would, but it's possible." This is true. In my mind pretty much anything is possible -- I'm naturally very open-minded about what is and is not possible and my educational background has also led me to believe that it is foolish to not believe that it's within the realm of possibility that killing (either as a perpetrator or victim) could be part of my life -- or having a child with down syndrome, or becoming an amputee, or any number of unusual and unlikely but very possible events. I actually think it's weird that people assume that they're much more likely to be the victim of killing than the perpetrator, particularly because if most killers have only killed once, the odds of killer/killed happening to you are not so different. I wish more people would acknowledge that they too could be killers, given the right circumstances, then maybe they would take appropriate precautions to avoid things that might trigger any latent violent tendencies, like I do and have done since the DC metro worker incident from the book. If you have never experienced anything approaching a murderous rage, good for you but I fear you are in the minority of the population and there's no guarantee that you won't ever ("she always seemed so mild-mannered..."). But despite sometimes feeling like or wishing that I could "stick it to" someone, I have no real history of non-consensual violence and I don't really have the skills for killing someone even if I wanted to. My guess is that there is a greater chance of being struck by lightning than being killed by a sociopath and I am certain that there is a much greater chance of being the victim of violence perpetuated by a non-sociopath than by a sociopath. Do you know what kills much more frequently than sociopathy? Love kills. Emotions kill. It happens so often that we have a separate version of homicide for it, voluntary manslaughter. If you really want to decrease your likelihood of being murdered, you'd never get married, disown your family, never have kids. But of course this is stupid to do when the chance of getting murdered by anyone is so low and much lower than dying doing any number of other activities we still willingly engage in (driving automobiles, working, biking, etc.)

• You are as repulsed by the fat girl as anyone else, but you see an opportunity to use her and have no qualms against taking it.

No, let me be very clear -- I am not repulsed. The fat woman does not bother me. Not only am I not repulsed, I don't understand why your feeling of repulsion and your mind-blindness are so strong that you can't imagine anyone not feeling repulsed to the point that you keep insisting that I am. I am not you. And your continued projection of your own failings unto me (along with a laundry list of failings that you imagine me to have) are telling as to how and why there is such a negative (and still unfounded, as far as this recent exercise is concerned) stigma against sociopaths. Why would her appearance offend me at all? I'd love to see someone even attempt to come up with a rational reason why, and yet you all conveniently write off this particularly ugly and antisocial empath trait as being "trivial" or necessary to the survival of humanity by ensuring that there be social conformity. Conformity as to what? Fit of clothing? Is it also ok to make everyone conform to the same religion? Same political beliefs? No? And yet, you all think there's an incredibly compelling reason to shame a fat person out of completely innocuous behavior. This is nonsense. It's irrational and hurtful and it's so common that you can't even imagine what humanity might look like without it. I don't think this example is trivial, rather I think this example and your reactions to it clearly illustrate how convinced empaths seem to be that their fecal matter doesn't stink.

• And when you've used her up, when her value is gone, there's no marriage contract, no division of property, just a social umbilical cord to cut which thrusts her back out into the world, cold, naked and alone.

This is a funny thing to say, especially when the actual marriage success rate is 50%. I guess empaths are all selfish and self-interested? I don't think I've met anyone who consistently acts outside their own self-interest, and I don't think we'd want them to, or at least rational self-interest is the basis of capitalistic economies.

• The person who commits a crime in a moment of temporary madness, or a blackout, is considered to be less dangerous than the one who knowingly and willingly commits an identical crime. The former is not held responsible, and in less need of reform. The latter is responsible for his actions, and heavier penalties are necessary to discourage future crimes.

It's not clear that sociopaths are actually deterred by heavier penalties. In fact, there has been substantial evidence suggesting that sociopath do not respond in the same way to punishment (but they do respond to incentives). If the idea is to actually prevent sociopaths from doing criminal acts, a one-size fits all method is not at all optimal. And I don't believe that sociopaths are incapable of reform. Sociopaths may not respond well to the current methods of prisoner reform, but we are far from having exhausted every possible option in terms of attempted reform of criminal sociopaths.

• Sociopaths do not feel guilt and will never atone, and thus commit social crimes in perpetuity without any legal or social recourse. The solution, then, is to identify people who are sociopaths and ostracize them, strip them of social privileges and cast them out.

Sociopaths don't need to feel guilt/atone to choose to behave in socially beneficial ways. And your solution seems difficult to execute. Historically, what typically happens when you disenfranchise a group of people and treat them as less than? Does it work out well? No, because after they are no longer invested in your society (nothing to lose), they will have every incentive to tear it down (French Revolution, and really every other revolution, terrorism, etc.) And if we're imprisoning people based on their status (and an inborn genetic propensity at that), then we're opening the door to any number of atrocities committed against types of people that we might, in all our infinite and flawless wisdom, consider a net loss to society -- disabled people, mentally sick, even poor children who, just like sociopaths, are statistically more likely to grow up and become criminals. And if we're going to eliminate things that seem to cause problems, let's also get rid of religion because it makes people bigots and terrorists, and children in general because killers have to come from somewhere, and money because people don't like that other people have more of it and sometimes they commit crimes or murder for it, corporations, and a slew of other really great ideas for social reform. A certain degree of conformity is beneficial to society, but absolute conformity is absolute death.

• I mean, sociopaths, almost all of them, have antisocial behaviors. And you are asking why humans, who life together, who organize in a society, stigmatize those who have antisocial behaviors?

My point is that everyone has antisocial behaviors. The sociopath's antisocial behaviors may seem uniquely distasteful to you, and it may be difficult for you to acknowledge your own failings, but it's not at all clear that sociopaths as a class of people are a net loss to society. You may have an intuition that this is true, but your intuitions appear to be tainted by your visceral negative reactions to the very idea of sociopaths. So I'm not just going to take your word for it on sociopaths being pure evil, and I don't think any reasonable person should. If your beliefs are really based in fact, they should hold up to even a modest degree of scrutiny. Otherwise, “that which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence." I'm not saying that people can't hate sociopaths -- they can and they do and I'm sure nothing will change that, particularly for some of you. But sociopaths are here, we're queer, and if you want to make our lives worse in some way, at least acknowledge that you are really just blindly enforcing your own personal and subjective set of aesthetic preferences of what humanity should look like onto sociopaths in the same way that you bully fat girls in a tube top. And it's not even effective -- as much as society shames fat girls in tube tops, they keep doing it.

• A clue - empaths, and people of this ilk, especially in a group, as you know, are a thousand times as intelligent as any sociopath.

One more outrageous claim to add to the pile of irrational outrage. But this has been incredibly enlightening to me. I am pretty sure I now know where the intense stigma and dislike for sociopaths comes from, but unfortunately it's not anything that any of you seem to be able to put into words. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Sociopaths on television: Hannibal

One of my friends told me I needed to start watching NBC's Hannibal. He was right. It's great and it's very topical. The main character, Will Graham, is played by the same guy who played a raging aspie in in the movie "Adam" and he says in the pilot episode that he is closer to the "autism and asperger's" side of "the spectrum" than the "sociopaths and narcissists" side. He is also apparently what we would call here an "uber-empath," one who is so empathetic that he can even feel for the killers that he helps the FBI to track. He gets inside the killer's heads in order to predict who they are or their next movement. Unfortunately (spoiler alert!), after having to kill a man in the field who was trying to harm someone else, he acknowledges that he felt a certain thrill in ending a man's life.

The adequately creepy but fortunately not over-the-top Hannibal is played by a Dane (wearing 1970s suits and sports coats even though the setting is contemporary), not surprising casting choice for anyone who has seen Riget or is otherwise a fan of Lars von Trier. Hannibal is also an FBI consultant and quickly becomes something of a sounding board for the protagonist.

Hannibal and will have a conversation his feelings about killing.

Hannibal: It wasn't the act of killing Hobb's that got you down, was it? Did you really feel so bad because killing felt so good?

Will: I liked killing Hobbs.

Hannibal: Killing must feel good to God too. He does it all the time. And are we not created in his image?

Will: It depends on who you ask.

Hannibal: God's terrific. He dropped a church roof on 34 of his worshippers last wednesday in Texas while they sang a hymn.

Will: Did God feel good about that?

Hannibal: He felt powerful.


Overall the show is not too overblown. Not all of the murderers are just flatly labeled sociopaths (as if that alone should explain their evil impulses), although so far all of the sociopaths are murderers (actually, this is not clear yet, there are a couple of characters that could turn out to be more sociopathic than they initially appear). This show has a lot of potential, particularly if they introduce a character who is a sociopath and not a murderer -- there's a lot of ripe ground there and a great chance to really explore the mindsets of different personality types.

On a side note, watching the show makes me wonder what would have happened if I had pursued working for the FBI. I had applied once. I took the tests and passed, even the personality/psychological  test (and people fail this one all of the time, I knew a guy who failed this particular portion). All I had to do was schedule a physical fitness exam to move on (no problem since I actually can do pull-ups, thank you swimming for my upper body strength). I never did, though. One of my friends insisted that I should never work for the government, that the things I get away with in my current field might risk a prison sentence in the government sector. I didn't know if that was really a reasonable concern, but the logic was compelling enough for me to move on to something else.

Free will = not what you think it is

This is an interesting lecture from philosopher and neuroscientist Sam Harris about how the common conception of free will is not scientifically supported. Specifically he debunks two assumptions on the popular conception of free will: (1) we are each free to think and act differently than we did in the past ("you became a police man, but you could have become a firefighter") and (2) we are the conscious source of our thoughts and actions, i.e. we feel like we want to do something so we do that thing. The problem with these assumptions is that "Everything that could possibly constitute your will is either the product of a long chain of prior causes, so you're not responsible for them, or it's the product of randomness, and you're not responsible for that, obviously, or it's some combination of the two."

He has an interesting analogy at the beginning about a man sleeping in a park and getting his face bitten off by an alligator versus a man with the axe. The result is the same, but people hate the man and not the crocodile because wWhat else is a crocodile going to do, coming upon you napping in the park" whereas a man is allegedly in control of his actions.

Another interesting assertion: "Most people imagine that a belief in free will is necessary for morality. . . . The difference between happiness and suffering exists without free will." Still, there are a lot of interesting implications for morality. At 46:00 he talks about how we can make reasonable distinctions between premeditated and impulsive crime given that free will doesn't exist. punishment, morality, etc.

"In specific cases we have already changed our view of evil. Whenever we see the cause of someone's behavior, when we see for instance that a murderer had a brain tumor . . . so as to explain his violent impulses, that person suddenly becomes a victim of biology. Our moral intuitions shift utterly. Now I'm arguing that a brain tumor is just a special case of physical events giving rise to thoughts and actions. If we fully understood the neurophysiology of any murderer's brain, it would be as exculpatory as finding a tumor in it. If we could see how the wrong genes were being relentlessly transcribed, if we could see how his early life experience had sculpted the micro structure in his brain in just such a way as to give rise to violent impulses, the whole conception of placing blame on him would erode."

Q&As (part 3)

(cont.)


Do all sociopaths have criminal tendencies?

There is a higher proportion of sociopaths in prison than there are normal people, but most sociopaths are not criminals by profession. Still, there are several traits that may dispose a sociopath to crime: impulsivity, lack of guilty feelings, and risk-seeking, among others.

Research shows that one in twenty-five people is a sociopath, yet most of us believe we’ve never met one. Are we just kidding ourselves? Are you able to spot them?

Statistically, everyone has met at least one sociopath; further, most people will have a closer encounter with a sociopath at some point in their lives, either as a friend, family member, or lover. Sometimes I can tell who they are. I find that many successful sociopaths will leave breadcrumbs for you to discover who they are, the thought being that only other sociopaths would recognize them. I think sociopaths, like serial killers, often have a yearning to be acknowledged for who they are. They want people to admire their exploits and that is hard to do when they are completely hidden, so they make small compromises.

You are a lawyer, and a professor at a law school. How has being a sociopath made you good at those jobs?

Some clients can be despicable people, but even they deserve adequate legal representation. The best lawyers are the ones who are able to detach themselves from emotionally or morally reacting to their clients’ stories. That has never been a problem for me. As for teaching, the best teachers present material in an even, unbiased way that will be the most palatable to the audience. My professors would often try to hide their own personal ideologies or incorporate other, foreign learning styles into their lecture plans. I do these things very naturally.

Do sociopaths have emotions? 

Sociopaths have emotions, but they do not give their emotions the same meaning that most people do. Many people believe that their emotions are expressions of “Truth”-- that if they feel hurt, it is because someone hurt them. Sociopaths experience their emotions largely without context. Except perhaps for anger, sociopaths do not experience a strong cause-and-effect relationship between reality and their emotions. For sociopaths, emotions have a disjointed, dreamlike quality. So a sociopath is not likely to make emotional decisions based on anything besides anger.

Hidden Suffering of the Psychopath

Willem H.J. Martens* has published his book, heavily featuring some of the readers of this website and participants of the forum.  Martens says: "The money (8 dollars) is for our Kahn Institute os Theoretical Psychiatry and Neuroscience."

About the book:

This book provides new insight in the nature of psychopathy. On basis of analysis anonymous self-reports and case reports of members of an internet forum for psychopaths it was concluded that psychopaths are suffering too and demonstrate a different psychodynamic mechanism as was proposed untill now. Dr. Martens is a forensic psychiatrist/psychoanalyst who published in many international journas.


It is for behavioral scientists, forensic psychiatrists/psychotherapists, criminologists and staff members of forensic psychiatric hospitals extremely important to know how persons with psychopathy experience their disorder and how do they think about their behavior, tendencies and attitude. Until now this is not clarified. 

Psychopaths might regard their features, attitude and behavior quite differently than their non-psychopathic counterparts and researchers do. This distinction might be the result of a) ignorance of non-psychopaths about the true nature of this complex disorder, b) a very different perspective of psychopaths and non-psychopaths in analyzing this phenomenon, c) the fact that most empirical data is gathered from incarnated, criminal populations who are very able to manipulate tests (most of them know much about the PCL-R), asessments, researchers, and therapists (just for fun, revenge, hatred, or disgust) and d) a lack of utilization of and unavailability of reliable and voluntary self-reports of psychopaths in informal settings, and so on. Informal, non-academic and non-clinical settings are important because the psychopaths I investigated hate formal academic and clinical settings because they consider them as bulwarks of repressing authority which are harmful for them. They consider current theories and concepts of psychopathy as inadequate, incomplete, incorrect, stereotype which bring about stigmatization. 

I revealed that reliable self-reports of psychopaths (which would not have negative consequences) were posted on the anonymous internet forum discussion for psychopaths (www.SociopathWorld.com). I discovered that Internet Forums of Psychopaths were true goldmines of information which form the missing link in current research, treatment and theorizing. On the internet forum the participants can tell their stories, concerns and discuss their items freely and anonymously. They trust the fellow psychopaths and their stories are really revealing and provide profound analysis of their behavior and many unknown details. Their otherwise defensive attitude appeared to be vanished and it seems that they are able to help and support each other. Potentially persons with very violent tendencies are guided and supported by other forum participants in a rather “social” way in order to stay out of problems and avoid harmfulness. Many visitors of the forum tell that the discussions and the chance to tell their true stories caused relief for them and there were many we were thankful to be part of a sort of community which gave their life structure and new insights.


*Willem H. J. Martens - MD, PhD - Composer and Chair of W. Kahn Institute of Theoretical Psychiatry and Neuroscience and Advisor appointed by the European Commission (Leonardo da Vinci). Address: Henk van Tienhovenstraat 67, 6543JB Nijmegen (Gelderland), The Netherlands.

Fraudster tips

Pretty entertaining and educational -- "People don't want to appear silly, that's why they don't want to ask questions."

Different children

Selections from a NY Times book review about children with unique issues:

Andrew Solomon’s enormous new book, “Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity,” is about children who are born or who grow up in ways their parents never expected.

Mr. Solomon explained that “Far from the Tree” took 11 years. It stemmed from a 1994 article about deafness he wrote for The New York Times Magazine. In the course of reporting it, he said, he realized that many issues confronting the deaf are not unlike those he faced as someone who was gay. 

A few years later, watching a documentary about dwarfism, he saw the same pattern again. Eventually the book grew to also include chapters on Down syndrome, autism, schizophrenia, disability, prodigies, transgender identity, children who are conceived during a rape and those who become criminals.

Mr. Solomon said he included criminal children after deciding that society’s thinking on the subject hadn’t really advanced very much, even while it has on autism and schizophrenia. “We still think it’s the parents’ fault if a child becomes a criminal or that something creepy must have gone on in that household,” he said. He included the children of rape because he discovered that their mothers shared a lot with all the other mothers in the book. “They feel alienated, disaffected, angry — a lot of the things a mother feels about a child with a disability.”

This kind of commonality, he went on, was something he discovered only while writing. “Each of the conditions I describe is very isolating,” he said. “There aren’t that many dwarfs, there aren’t that many schizophrenics. There aren’t that many families dealing with a criminal kid — not so few but not so many. But if you recognize that there is a lot in common in all these experiences, they imply a world in which not only is your condition not so isolating but the fact of your difference unites you with other people.”

“Forewarned is forearmed,” he said. “Some things, on some scale, go wrong in everyone’s life. I think I have perfectionist tendencies, but I know you can’t go into parenthood thinking, ‘I’m going to love my child as long as he’s perfect.’ Rather, it should be, ‘I’m going to love my child whoever he is, and let’s see how he turns out.’ ”

I wonder how many parents can say that about criminal or sociopathic children -- that they appreciate the experience of raising a child with those unique difficulties and that they love their child no matter what. Still, it is a nice, aspirational thought.

Right and wrong

While I was in the bush, one of my companions had an object lost and likely stolen at one of the lodges we stayed at. Our guide was really angry about it, much more so than my friend. He was very religious and was constantly talking about "that is a very bad thing" (was it?).  At one point he said that he also had been tempted to steal objects from his clients that would have been the equivalent of a week's salary or more for him, but that he had never stolen anything in his adult life. And in that moment, I swear to you, I thought, "yeah, neither have I," despite having spent one year on such a shoplifting spree that I stole more days than not, among other exploits. Of course as I kept thinking about it, I remembered my career as a thief but still found it hilarious that I was nodding along with my uber-moral guide about what a bad thing stealing was.

I have written about this before (and forgotten about it, which is too funny given that the last post was all about how I have a tendency to forget anything shady from my past), but more in the terms of self-awareness. Which doesn't necessarily explain what happened shortly after.

I was watching what essentially was a morality play for children. There was a scene about theft, nearly identical to how I used to steal most frequently. One of the characters had stolen and I felt this anxiousness for him. When his friend suggested that they actually pay for the item, I wanted him to do that. I actually felt that stealing was wrong in this situation. I had a moment where I thought to myself, I am cured! I have a conscience. And then I remembered all of the stealing I had done (again) and asked myself, "why do you think that this instance of stealing is wrong but you never were capable of recognizing it before?" Was it because this children's program had simplified the subject enough and given sufficient cues such that even I was able to pick up on the wrongness of the stealing? Am I fine understanding the abstract concepts of right and wrong, just mixed up on the real world applications? Was the program inherently manipulative, my pangs of .... whatever more a tribute to my easy suggestibility than to having successfully birthed a conscience? Was it because the situation was so parallel to my own past, a past that I had to basically negative condition myself out of, Pavlovian aversion therapy style, in order to get myself to stop and to start leading a more legit lifestyle? I still don't know.

Married to a murderer

This was an interesting article from a woman who was married to a known murderer (supposedly reformed), that apparently suffered from other "demons" that caused him to rape and almost kill two women one month into their marriage. It's an interesting tale if you have ever wondered how women could possibly be with someone who is so horrible but still not be aware of his true nature:

The Jason who'd been presented to me was not a man I'd ever met. He wasn't even the 18-year-old I'd tried to envision so many times and whom I'd come to accept as the correctional system's "best guy", someone who would never again pose a threat of violence. He was now a rapist.

He was now a rapist? I mean, you read her description and don't really think she's an idiot. But then she says something like this and you wonder, does she really think that he just suddenly became a different person? That this man is something that her own husband was not?

No remorse

I have been meaning to do a post on this New Yorker article "No Remorse," about the sentencing of adolescent murderers who do not have the same sorts of life experience that would cause them to realize the consequences of their behavior. These teenagers typically do not show the right amount of "remorse" in the minds of some, and are consequently labeled sociopaths, sentenced to life in prison.


The expectation that defendants will display remorse either shortly after their crimes or never is generally accepted as common sense. In a Columbia Law Review study of cases of juveniles charged with violent crimes, the Emory law professor Martha Grace Duncan found that youths who failed to express their contrition promptly and appropriately, as adults would, were often penalized for showing “less grief than the system demands.” In many cases, she writes, the juveniles appeared to be in shock or in a kind of dissociative state and failed to appreciate the permanence of what they had done. “Less under the sway of the reality principle,” they were more prone than adults to engage in forms of denial. But prosecutors and judges interpreted their strange reactions—falling asleep after the crime, giggling, rapping—as signs of irreparable depravity. Duncan found that courts looked for remorse in “psychologically naïve ways, without regard for defense mechanisms, developmental stages, or the ambiguity that inheres in human behavior.”

One of Dakotah’s closest friends, Christina Wardlaw, who sat through the trial, told me that she had to suppress the urge to laugh as she listened to Dakotah’s recorded conversations with the police. “He still saw himself as the same old Dakotah, jabbering and singing and making jokes,” she said. “He had no idea what he’d become.”

Dakotah’s reaction, with its apparent remorselessness, less than three hours after shooting his grandfather, was discussed by three witnesses for the prosecution. It also figured in the jurors’ deliberations. They asked to view Dakotah’s videotaped conversation with the detective again, and an hour after watching the tape, and just three hours after beginning deliberations, they announced that Dakotah was guilty of first-degree homicide.

One juror told me that several people on the jury were troubled by Dakotah’s youth, but they’d been instructed that if the evidence indicated that the offense was premeditated and deliberate the crime was first-degree murder. Age had no place in that calculus. As is required under Michigan law, the jury was not informed that the conviction carried the automatic penalty of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

The video from yesterday reminded me of this article, the cannibal's comment about how there are consequences to killing someone, and if he had known that earlier many people would still be alive. I had a dream about this recently. I had gotten called in to consult with a child who had just murdered a third party to get back at someone else, like murdered a mutual friend to hurt another person. She was young, maybe 8 years old. I saw some video of her before I was going to meet with her and she was talking about it as if she was talking about how she had stolen someone's bicycle. It was very clear that she didn't understand that killing someone had consequences. I wondered -- should I explain to this girl that killing has consequences? If she's normal but just a little immature, like this Dakotah kid seems to be, then those consequences might weigh her down for the rest of the life until she's just a pile of human garbage. On the other hand, isn't knowing that our actions have consequences what helps us make "better" decisions?

Freedom

This is an interesting exchange between Kevin Dutton, author of The Wisdom of Psychopaths and an apparently (?) psychopathic prisoner he interviewed. First they discuss what Dutton is going to do that evening, out there. Then the prisoner goads Dutton about not pulling the trigger on asking some girl out, then:

"Look Kev, I can see that I've offended you and I really didn't mean to do that. I'm sorry. Enjoy yourself tonight. And when you see her—her, you'll know who she is—think of me."

He winks. I feel a pulse of affection and am filled with self-loathing. I say: "I'm not offended, Mike. Really. I mean it. I've learned a lot. It's brought it home to me just how different we are. You and me. How differently we're wired. It's helped. It really has. And I guess the bottom line is this: That's why you're in here and I'm (I point at the window) out there." I shrug, as if to say it's not my fault. As if, in a parallel universe, things could just as easily have turned out different.

Silence.

Suddenly, I'm aware that there's a chill in the room. It's physical. Palpable. I can feel it on my skin. Under my skin. All over me. This is something I've read about in books. But have, up until this moment, never experienced. I stand for five agonizing seconds in a stare 40 below. Ever so slowly, as if some new kind of gravity has been seeping in unnoticed through the vents, I feel the arm vacate my shoulders.

"Don't let your brain piss you about, Kev. All those exams—sometimes they get in the way. There's only one difference between you and me. Honesty. Bottle. I want it, I go for it. You want it, you don't.

"You're scared, Kev. Scared. You're scared of everything. I can see it in your eyes. Scared of the consequences. Scared of getting caught. Scared of what they'll think. You're scared of what they'll do to you when they come knocking at your door. You're scared of me.

"I mean, look at you. You're right. You're out there, I'm in here. But who's free, Kev? I mean really free? You or me? Think about that tonight. Where are the real bars, Kev? Out there?" (He points at the window.) "Or in here?" (He reaches forward and, ever so lightly, touches my left temple)

I like that thought. Who is really more free?

The right way to do wrong

This book sounds intriguing, a collection of writings from Harry Houdini under the title "The Right Way to Do Wrong":


Originally published in 1906, The Right Way to Do Wrong was a masterclass in subversion conducted by the world’s greatest illusionist. It collected Hou­dini’s findings, from interviews with criminals and police officers, on the most surefire ways to commit crime and get away with it.

This volume presents the best of those writings alongside little-known articles by Houdini on his own brand of deception: magic. Revealing the secrets of his signature tricks, including handcuff and rope escapes, and debunking the methods of his rivals, he proves 
himself to be just as clever and nimble a writer as he was a magician—and surprisingly free with trade secrets! All of which makes this unique selection of works both the ultimate anti-etiquette guide and proof that things are not always as they seem.

Experts on sociopathy

The following were taken from an article on Dr. Robert Hare, psychopathy expert.

History of the term psychopath:

The condition itself has been recognized for centuries, wearing evocative labels such as "madness without delirium" and "moral insanity" until the late 1800s, when "psychopath" was coined by a German clinician. But the term (and its 1930s synonym, sociopath) had always been a sort of catch-all, widely and loosely applied to criminals who seemed violent and unstable.

Why we should care about psychopaths:

Psychopathy may prove to be as important a construct in this century as IQ was in the last (and just as susceptible to abuse), because, thanks to Hare, we now understand that the great majority of psychopaths are not violent criminals and never will be. Hundreds of thousands of psychopaths live and work and prey among us.

On their inability to respond to punishment or learn from negative experiences:

For his first paper, now a classic, Hare had his subjects watch a countdown timer. When it reached zero, they got a "harmless but painful" electric shock while an electrode taped to their fingers measured perspiration. Normal people would start sweating as the countdown proceeded, nervously anticipating the shock. Psychopaths didn't sweat. They didn't fear punishment--which, presumably, also holds true outside the laboratory.

On the sociopaths' lack of familiarity with emotional language:

Hare made another intriguing discovery by observing the hand gestures (called beats) people make while speaking. Research has shown that such gestures do more than add visual emphasis to our words (many people gesture while they're on the telephone, for example); it seems they actually help our brains find words. That's why the frequency of beats increases when someone is having trouble finding words, or is speaking a second language instead of his or her mother tongue. In a 1991 paper, Hare and his colleagues reported that psychopaths, especially when talking about things they should find emotional, such as their families, produce a higher frequency of beats than normal people. It's as if emotional language is a second language--a foreign language, in effect--to the psychopath.

On the potential for abuse:

"We'll let people out [of prison] on the basis of scores on this, and we'll put them in. And we'll take children who do badly on some version of this and segregate them or something. It wasn't designed to do any of these things. The problems that politicians are trying to solve are fundamentally more complicated than the one that Bob has solved."

On using the diagnosis to argue in favor of the death penalty:

"A psychological instrument and diagnosis should not be a determinant of whether someone gets the death sentence. That's more of an ethical and political decision."

On the sociopath's level of humanity:

Are these people qualitatively different from us? "I would think yes," says Hare. "Do they form a discrete taxon or category? I would say probably--the evidence is suggesting that. But does this mean that's because they have a broken motor? I don't know. It could be a natural variation." True saints, completely selfless individuals, are rare and unnatural too, he points out, but we don't talk about their being diseased.

On the possibility of a cure:

Asked if he thinks there will ever be a cure for psychopathy--a drug, an operation--Hare steps back and examines the question. "The psychopath will say 'A cure for what?' I don't feel comfortable calling it a disease. Much of their behaviour, even the neurobiological patterns we observe, could be because they're using different strategies to get around the world. These strategies don't have to involve faulty wiring, just different wiring."

Canadian Psycho: Luka Rocco Magnotta

I'm sorry to be so late on this, but there is apparently another (?!) "Canadian Psycho" on the loose, but not really because apparently the Mounties actually did manage to get him into custody. (Am I doing ok with the Canadianisms?)  He is the murdering star of "1 ice pick 1 lunatic". As reported by Thestar.com.

Aspiring model, self-professed bisexual porn star, hustler, small-time felon, palpable narcissist, dissected in recent weeks by profilers-for-hire as classic psychopath, the Scarborough born Magnotta — born Eric Clinton Newman, formally changing his name in 2006 — was obsessed with cosmetic surgery to alter the features he didn’t like and, reportedly, to look more like James Dean . What remained throughout was the signature sensuous pout, the bedroom mouth of a man described by a former transgendered girlfriend as actually a dud in the sack, disinterested in sex and woefully unskilled as amorous partner. Magnotta also, she claimed, hit himself compulsively.

In videotaped interviews, he touches delicately at his face.

“A lot of people tell me I’m devastatingly good-looking.’’
***
“If I don’t have my looks, then I don’t have any life. My looks and my body are my life.’’

Estranged from family, he’d already been accused by animal lover groups of torturing and killing kittens, suffocating them in plastic bags, feeding them to snakes, and posting the evidence online. This would be textbook emerging psychopathic behaviour, characteristics evident early to one relative who told the Peterborough Examiner: “He’s a nut job. I did not trust him. Eric is the type of individual . . . I think he’s mentally ill. He has delusions of grandeur. He concocts stories that he tends to believe and they in turn become fact in his mind.’’

“I am a survivor of mental illness and I’m not ashamed of it. I went through a very traumatic childhood and in my teen years experimented with drugs and alcohol. At first, I thought this was the problem . . . it wasn’t. I am manic depressive and bi-polar. One day I’m normal, the next I can’t get out of my bed and then next week I want to conquer the world. Very confusing to someone who doesn’t understand.’’

Compulsively exhibitionistic, in thrall to himself, but no more than a cipher for most of an utterly superficial life, as insubstantial as a hologram. His only known object of interest was Luka Magnotta — when not calling himself Vladimir Romanov or Angel or K. Trammel, perhaps inspired by the ice-pick murdering Catherine Trammel character from Basic Instinct.

So many identities, shedding bits of himself, forensically, in the short period that he remained a fugitive at large — he’d professed, online, to being expert in disappearing — tracked first to Paris, where he made others uncomfortable in a bistro. French police found porn magazines and air sickness bags from his flight in a room where Magnotta had stayed before lamming it when Interpol publicized his name.

“I do not necessarily feel the need to redeem my reputation since the people that know me best will be more than happy to vouch for my honesty in conduct and I can provide many satisfied and loyal references if necessary.”

Magnotta was arrested June 4 in a Berlin Internet café, where he’d been surfing the web, reading about himself.

Is he really a psychopath? Parts seem to fit, yes, but I actually would bet borderline over both psychopath and bipolar. Thoughts?

Lighter sentencing for genetic predispositions

This NY Times article discusses new experimental evidence that suggests that when judges (not juries) sentence criminals for whom there is evidence of genetic predisposition to violence and crime (in this experiment, psychopaths), they give lighter sentences than they otherwise would:

The new experiment focused on sentencing by judges, not jury verdicts. It found that neurobiological evidence reduced judges’ sentences by an average of about 7 percent for a fictional defendant convicted of battery and identified as a psychopath.


In the study, three researchers at the University of Utah tracked down 181 state judges from 19 states who agreed to read a fictional case file and assign a sentence to an offender, “Jonathan Donahue,” convicted of beating a restaurant manager senseless with the butt of a gun. All of the judges learned in their files that Mr. Donahue had been identified as a psychopath based on a standard interview — that is, he had a history of aggressive acts without showing empathy.

The case files distributed to the judges were identical, except that half included testimony from a scientist described as “a neurobiologist and renowned expert on the causes of psychopathy,” who said that the defendant had inherited a gene linked to violent, aggressive behavior. This testimony described how the gene variant altered the development of brain areas that generate and manage emotion.
***
The judges who read this testimony gave Mr. Donahue sentences that ranged from one to 41 years in prison, a number that varied with state guidelines. But the average was 13 years — a full year less than the average sentence issued by the judges who had not seen the testimony about genetics and the brain.
***
“But then those who read about the biological mechanism subtracted a year, as if to say, ‘This guy is really dangerous and scary, and we should treat him as such, but the biological evidence suggests that we can’t hold him as responsible for the behavior,’ ” said James Tabery, an assistant professor of philosophy at Utah.
***
This mixed result — added punishment for the defendant’s being identified as a psychopath, tempered by empathy for his having a possible genetic predisposition — provides a good illustration of what legal researchers call the double-edged sword of biobehavioral evidence. On one hand, a biological predisposition suggests that a person is likely to be dangerous in the future and should get a longer sentence; on the other, it implies a lower threshold of responsibility. The evidence could cut either way, depending on the judge.

Sociopaths by definition criminal?

Some have suggested that sociopaths are by definition criminal. Even if that were clinically true, I think it is false practically speaking. The whole study of sociopathy is junk science at worst and misguided at best. Almost all studies of sociopaths have been done with the prison population, if not all. You study the prison population, and criminality will obviously end up as one of the defining characteristics of a sociopath. This is irresponsible. It would be like studying black people only amongst the prison population and listing criminality as a defining characteristic of being black. What if we studied homosexuality only amongst the prison population and extrapolated to the entire gay community? Would we think that homosexual sex was always antagonistic, a nonconsensual way of exerting social dominance? As one sociopath reader puts it:

Having respect for property doesn't mean it's not property. People keep their yards clean, and I prefer to keep my life, and those in it, clean. I don't think a person has to be essentially malicious to be a sociopath. As a sociopath, your perceived mal-intent boils down to how you'd treat your environment. It's unfortunate there's no broader diagnosis that doesn't require a preoccupation with cruel or criminal behavior. It doesn't seem so different from using a specific diagnoses for obsessive people who have a thing for cars, without having one for obsessive people in general. If you remove the specific interest, you still have an obsessive person; though, if you were to remove the obsessive traits, you would have a normal person with a hobby. If you remove the destructive tendencies from a textbook sociopath, you still have a man without a conscience--what I believe is the foundation of the disorder; however, if you give that same man a conscience instead, what's the essential difference between him and the rest of humanity?

The diagnosis of sociopathy now is just like any medical diagnosis ending in -itis: doctors generally don't care why whatever you have is swollen, they're fine using that one symptom to "diagnose" the disorder. Similarly equating us with criminal behavior, although not entirely inaccurate, is not very useful. Sure, we may sometimes commit crimes, but so do a lot of the otherwise law-abiding seeming people who haven't gotten caught and the other 80%-ish of the prison population who aren't sociopaths. And how is it that the rest of the sociopath population is not in prison? Are we all just very good at not getting caught? What a scary world that would be if all of us sociopaths were out committing heinous crimes all the time and walking amongst you. No wonder there are so many people deathly terrified of sociopaths.