Mental Disorder And Crime Psychopathy

This report delves into the topic of psychopathy and its connection to crime. It discusses the characteristics of psychopaths, including their lack of conscience and empathy. The report also explores the signs in childhood that indicate the potential for psychopathy in adulthood. Additionally, it examines the prognosis for psychopaths and the challenges in treating this disorder. Overall, the report provides insights into the manipulative nature of psychopaths and their impact on society.

Mental Disorder And Crime -
Psychopathy
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Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Question 1........................................................................................................................................3
Psychopaths and psychopathy................................................................................................3
Question 2........................................................................................................................................4
a) What signs in childhood show the potential to become a psychopath in adulthood?........4
b) What is the prognosis for psychopaths?.............................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7
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INTRODUCTION
Psychopathy is characterised as a personality disorder with range of characteristics which
suggests that an individual could suffer from it. Psychopathy is a mental disorder which involves
many linked conditions (Porter, Woodworth, & Black, (2018). This projects covers discussion
about psychopaths and psychopathy along with the signs in childhood which show the potential
of child to become a psychopath in adulthood. At last, prognosis for psychopaths is covered in
the report.
Question 1
Psychopaths and psychopathy
In psychiatry, psychopath is defined as the antisocial personality disorder in which an
individual shows patterns of manipulation as well as violation to others. Psychopath does not
have conscience and if they lie to someone they can steal their money, they do not feel any moral
qualms, although they may pretend to. Spotting a psychopath is not easy. They can be good at
mimicking emotions, charming and intelligent. A psychopath may pretend to be interested in
others, but they don't really care. They are mood calculating and cold hearted, carefully plot their
actions or moves and utilise aggression in planned out manner to get what they desire. For
instance: if a psychopath is after status or more money in office, they will make plan to eliminate
barriers stand in the way, whether it can be the job or reputation of another person (Verona, &
Vitale, (2018).
Apart from this, a recent research suggests that the brain of a psychopath is not like the brain
of other people. It may have some physical differences which make it hard for the individual to
determine with distress of someone else. These differences can alter the basic body functions.
For instance: when normal people see violence in movie or blood, their breathing quickens, heart
beats faster and palms get sweaty. But, in case of a psychopath, the react oppositely and gets
calmer. This depicts that they are fearless, engage in risky behaviour and they don't have fear of
outcomes of their actions.
Psychopaths make the people fool easily and they are very manipulative, but can appear
normal. Psychopaths lack conscience, empathy and guilt which makes them volatile,
manipulative and criminal sometimes (Dargis, Newman, & Koenigs, (2016). They are
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pathological liar and has grandiose self-worth sense, has shallow emotions and no regard for
order and law. This disorder can be diagnosed by utilising 20 item hare psychopathy checklist. In
this, typical psychopath traits are listed and a qualified examiner rate the symptoms of
psychopathy of a person against the trait list. People with psychopathy have issues in
understanding the emotions of other individuals which partially depicts why they callously
disregard others welfare, why they are selfish and commit violent crimes. It is a kind of
developmental disorder marked through emotional deficits as well as a maximized risk for
antisocial behaviour (DeLisi, (2016).
Some of the common signs of psychopathy includes tendency to lie often, socially
responsible behaviour, recurring issues with the law, violating or disregarding the rights of
others, hurting and manipulating others, difficulty with showing empathy or remorse, inability to
distinguish between wrong and right, general disregard towards responsibility and safety. This
antisocial personality disorder can be difficult to treat due to the individual who are requires
assistance does not believe that there is issue with their behaviour, resulted to this, the seek
treatment rarely.
Question 2
a) What signs in childhood show the potential to become a psychopath in adulthood?
Psychopathy is defined as a continuum and some components are found to some extent
children. Children who are psychopaths are unemotional and cruel much of the time. Children
who are an emotional and callous diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder in young age.
There are some signs of psychopathy which can be seen among children as youngest 2 years. In
this age, they show differences in conscience and empathy. The signs which shows that children
might be psychopath in adulthood can be notice when an individual is of 3 years. The moves and
actions of parents’ push children sometimes to depict these signs (Shepherd, Campbell, &
Ogloff, (2018). There are some signs of child behavior which depicts that children are inclined to
commit violent crimes in future. These signs are mentioned below:
Violation of rules: each child has been in the circumstance where understand properly that
they should either own up to truth or lie. But, children with psychopathic traits or characteristics
understand rules violation differently: they get adrenaline and joy from it. The similar goes for
adrenaline that individuals experience when stealing something.
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Animal cruelty: it is one of the obvious sign of psychopathy disorder among children. If a
child is explained that it is not ok to jerk the leash of dog and pull the tail of cat, and the children
understands as well as does not repeat those acts in future, then there is nothing to worry about.
But, if the animal is abused by the children violently or the child even kill them, then this depicts
the sign of psychopathy and shows the potential that the children may become a psychopath in
adulthood. The connection between psychopathy and animal abuse is so obvious that federal
bureau of investigation in United States started recording the cases associated with animal abuse
in yearly criminal reports (Walters, & Di Fazio, (2015).
Enuresis: this is a disorder which often provoke actions of animal abuse, arson and other
things as for a child, this condition is humiliating and resulted to this, children get offended and
angry. If the reaction of parents towards the situation is not well or if the friends of children
mock them, then this can lead them to the wrong turn.
Bullying: not every bully is maniac in future, people can become bullies due to several
reasons including they may want to look like their idols, violent parents, might want power,
attention and so on. These are the signs that can lead children to become a psychopath in
adulthood.
b) What is the prognosis for psychopaths?
Psychopathy is an astonishingly common as the disorders associated with mental health go.
It has been showed in the study that psychopaths lack moral cognition and trauma to frontal
regions being related with aggression, the study shows that it may be rooted in frontal cortex
defects, which is the area related with higher order functions like executive control and
reasoning. There is no cure of this disorder as no vaccine can prevent cold blood murder, no pill
can instil empathy and talk therapy can alter uncaring mind. Many professionals believe that no
medication or therapy can change the brain of people with psychopathy, but other believes that
there are some techniques which can be effective in declining Anti-Social behaviour (Benning,
Venables, & Hall, (2018). Such technique involves decompression model which focuses on the
way in which optimistic reinforcement can be utilised to shape the behaviour of psychopaths. As
people with psychopathic traits do not respond to or learn from the punishment, the
decompression technique administering reward for every prosocial and positive behaviour a
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person demonstrate. This assist in reducing recidivism and likelihood of an individual
committing violent crime.
CONCLUSION
As per the above mentioned report, it has been concluded that psychopaths are very
skilled actors whose single mission is to manipulate others for personal gain. There are some
signs of psychopathy in childhood which show the potential to become a psychopath in
adulthood. These including violation of laws, bullying, animal cruelty etc.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Porter, S., Woodworth, M. T., & Black, P. J. (2018). Psychopathy and aggression.
Verona, E., & Vitale, J. (2018). Psychopathy in women: Assessment, manifestations, and
etiology.
Dargis, M., Newman, J., & Koenigs, M. (2016). Clarifying the link between childhood abuse
history and psychopathic traits in adult criminal offenders. Personality Disorders:
Theory, Research, and Treatment, 7(3), 221.
DeLisi, M. (2016). Why Psychopathy as Unified Theory of Crime?. In Psychopathy as Unified
Theory of Crime (pp. 1-13). Palgrave Macmillan, New York.
Shepherd, S. M., Campbell, R. E., & Ogloff, J. R. (2018). Psychopathy, antisocial personality
disorder, and reconviction in an Australian sample of forensic patients. International
journal of offender therapy and comparative criminology, 62(3), 609-628.
Walters, G. D., & Di Fazio, R. (2015). Psychopathy and the Criminal Lifestyle. The clinical and
forensic assessment of psychopathy: A practitioner's guide, 433.
Benning, S. D., Venables, N. C., & Hall, J. R. (2018). Successful psychopathy.
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