The following is an exchange between my old school chum David, who is a mental health professional who works in corrections, and another friend Lloyd, who is a retired federal prosecutor. Their views are similar to mine and are enlightening to those who haven't looked evil in the face.
I suspect that conditions in UK are not profoundly different, except our laws are less restrictive, giving civilians more options.
"When I worked for corrections doing forensic psych, "Samenow" was brought out for an intensive training on impacting what had by then been dubbed criminal thinking errors. The program which was put together was based on cognitive behavioral principals, and basically postulates that if the system can help an inmate identify, then challenge and replace the thoughts and behaviors which lead them to eventually act on their criminal fantasies, recidivism would be reduced, as well as the level of seriousness of the recidivistic offenses. I don't know if those suppositions have been realized, as I left DOC in 99, then Adult Probation in '03, so haven't seen the reports/analysis which should have been out long ago.
"As I've mentioned before, Daniel Amen, MD, in a private conversation back in about 1997 or 98, related that he had done quite a few scans (SPECT) of the brains of antisocial personality disorder folks, which revealed that, as long as the ASPD was not thinking about crime, the scans of their brains revealed a less than normal metabolism in all sections of their brains; what Amen termed "a cold brain". He also stated that when he would ask the Anti-Social-Personality-Disorder (ASPD) to think about the last crime they committed, or the one they wanted to commit next, the scans of their brain metabolism flipped from low activity everywhere to higher than normal metabolism everywhere. Which correlates with what different guests of the iron bar hotel chain told me: "there is no drug that even comes close to doing a crime. I feel like God when I'm doing a crime - I can do anything I want and no one can stop me! It's awesome."
"I'm hopeful that the thinking errors program has helped, but I have some doubts about the efficacy of any educational type program for this population. Quoting an ASPD who, when he understood the rationale behind the program he was in class for, stood up, dropped his notebook on his desk then said "you are all fucking lame. Why would I wan't to live like a f%#*kin' lop? Your lives are boring!" To which I responded, "maybe so you could go home at night and have sex with a woman" after which I bounced him out of the class. I'm sure my retort was meaningless to him, and in his eyes, lame, as it did not offer anything he considered to be worth trading for. In his mind, how can having sex (with the same woman!!) compare with feeling like God and taking sex from whoever you want to, whenever you decide to?
"ASPDs do not think like us. We should stop pretending that they do; the eventual consequences of our own stupidity in doing so is simply too great to ignore. Allow me to go back to my conversation with Amen. After he'd shared his findings about the ASPD brain he was quiet for minute, then looked at me and asked, "do you know what the worst part is?" I said no and he responded with "they're out-breeding us by a wide margin - they start having children when they are 14 or 15 years old, and they don't stop until they're in their mid-fifties, plus they typically contribute nothing but their genes to their kids".
"So it's my two-bits that a significant component in the make-up of the average ASPD is genetic, but I admit there are likely some flaws in adopting that view. For an example, unless those genetics occur within a bell shaped curve distribution pattern in which "a tendency toward sociopathy" anchors the left part of the curve, there is no way to explain what I would label "learned or acquired sociopathy" or perhaps "latent sociopathy".
"I eventually came to believe it is likely ASPDs may in fact, represent a flawed subspecies of humanity. There is a feral nature within many of them that is challenging and scary to too many who are charged with catching them, incarcerating and rehabilitating them. I averaged about a thousand clinical interviews per year while with DOC. During that time, I only encountered one inmate who I thought might have a chance at rehabilitation. Just one. None of the others were interested. That feral component of their personality is something they typically try to hide (except for those already in max-max and max-close - they've embraced it, they live it, they feed it and work hard to grow it, which is a hoot to them), and it always surprised me the number of veteran law enforcement folks who couldn't spot it, even when it was in the early stages of having "come out to play".
"Enough. Stay armed, stay vigilant. Oh, I forgot something which might give you some additional insight about my perspectives on this whole topic. When I started my work with DOC, I believed in the concept of evil, but had never thought about it a whole lot beyond that. Now, I will tell you straight up, evil walks among us. I'm serious."
-Dave
-----Original message-----
From: Lloyd
Subject: Re: FW: Re Peter Grant - Memoirs of a Prison Chaplain
Yes, I've got Hare's book. Read it some years ago. He studied inmates at a BC prison. I recall one of his most striking comments was that if he had not had access to the prison population, he would have chosen to study the BC stock exchange. Psychopaths are not limited to prison populations or even stock exchanges. This is obvious by the title of the book by Martha Stout, The Sociopath Next Door which is also highly recommended.
Another book I recommend for anyone trying to understand criminals is Stanton Samenow, Inside the Criminal Mind. He worked under a well known psychiatrist, Samuel Yochelson, at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in DC, who was studying the criminal mind. His first book was in the 1983. In his second one in 2004, this is his conclusion after studying criminals for 3 decades:
"The person who makes crime a way of life has a radically different way of thinking from the individual who behaves responsibly. The two mentalities are so different, it's as though the criminal were a different breed."
Massad Ayoob in his book, The Truth about Self Protection, echoes, Samenow. "These predatory people don't think like you. They aren't people like you. They are a different breed. Talk to doctors and psychiatrists and lawyers and probation officers. These are all people who understand the criminal mind." I would add some cops and prison guards.
In case you are wondering why I just happen to have the above books, remember that I have a MS in Justice from AU and spent 21 years as a reserve police officer (Lt.) in DC. Also spent many years in the Federal bureaucracy which has its share of crazies too. - Lloyd
From: David
Subject: Re: Re Peter Grant - Memoirs of a Prison Chaplain
I haven't read this work, but offer the comment that upon seeing he is a prison chaplain, I would immediately suspect that his perceptions will, like all prison chaplains I've ever spoken with, be faulty, as they are based on preconceptions which are quite common, but which blind their holder to what the reality of that which they profess to want to understand and help.
The first (and perhaps biggest) error is assuming that criminals (anti-social personality disordered people) are actually normal people who are mostly a lot like us and who engaged in criminal activity due to internal changes in their persona, which changes are reactions to some negative life experience they were exposed to and possibly traumatized by, like child abuse. This is completely false, but society clings to this type of belief because we've been taught that everyone can rise above themselves and be rehabilitated. Totally wrong, but it works for the criminals if we believe it!
To get a realistic insight into criminals and criminal thinking, get a copy of Robert Hare's book, "Without Conscience"; Hare is a PhD Psychologist with University of British Columbia and one of the very few out there who truly gets it. The book is a fast read and it was required reading for those of us doing forensics.
Due to prison overcrowding, the idiots who do a first crime and get busted, get weeded out at pre-trial and pre-sentence meetings between their attorney and the DA's office, and will most likely be taken care of by probation, which is sort of like "out-patient" prison. Those folks are the ones who can be rehabbed. Often, their crimes are caused by stupidity, egged on by youthful hormones and such.
The repeat offenders march to a different internal motivating system - one which has far more in common with lust and addiction than it does with most other human traits. These criminals, who make up 99% of our incarcerated inmates, commit crime because they like it - they feel all-powerful when they're doing a crime - and they typically will commit worse crimes as they go along, because of the pull to feel like God again. ….Woah, dude - I'm on a soap box again. Damn - sorry. But get Hare's book - it's a great read; he has a web site you can check out too. -Dave
On Mar 10, 2014, at 9:32 AM, "Ed " wrote:
Was wondering if you had read this by Peter Grant, and if so what you thought of it. Interesting read, not sure I agree with all he says, but I haven’t comparable corrections experience to make a thorough judgement.
http://www.amazon.com/Walls-Wire-Bars-So...+and+souls
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