Violent Criminal Actors - History of Violence

Well, you might know one of the things that you're you're passionate about is that this idea of, of violence and predators isn't new and it's something that society has been struggling with for as long as there's been society. So if you would, talk a little bit about that history. Yeah, I think it's, I think it's fair to say that, you know, that violence against other humans is just another form of inter-species predation, you know, in, in the animal kingdom, it's less common, uh, dangerous inter-species predation isn't, isn't particularly, uh, frequently seen meaning, uh, animals will fight within species, but not really to injure each other, uh, snakes, other animals. You've seen obviously pictures of elks and rams the fights are impressive, but no one is injured really. And if they are injured, it's not that severe.

They usually fight until dominance is expressed and one of them accepts that, and, and leaves the area. Uh, you know, in, intra-species violence, that way is, is much more constrained. Inter-species violence is, you know, obviously to the death, uh, because some of it is, is predation for, for consumption, but humans as, as intra-species, uh, we're pretty good at killing each other, unlike other species. And so that use of violence against each other has been around as long as there've been groups of humans together, but it, since it's persistent, but not universal, it, it poses a kind of a dilemma because normally if something persists in human behavior, there has to be a benefit, uh, either an evolutionary benefit it makes it more likely that your genes will get passed on or a material benefit. Um, but it comes with a lot of attendant risks.

And so it's a little bit of a challenge to figure out why does something that's so harmful both to the recipient and to the, and to the actor of physical violence persist. Um, and it's been around long enough that, um, a tremendous amount of thinking has been done about it and thinking about it has evolved over the years. What are some of the ways that, that, that thinking has evolved? Well, if you just track the names, uh, you know, the currently you would, you would refer to someone that we would consider a violent criminal actor as having antisocial personality disorder, you'll see it abbreviated APD, uh, previously it was a sociopathic personality. And before that was, uh, referred to as psychopaths.

And if you think about antisocial personality disorder, we're saying that it's a personality disorder, like other personality disorders starts very early in life, the formation of personality, the fixed pattern of interaction with the world. It's pervasive, meaning it affects every domain of life. And it's persistent, it lasts from childhood on. Personality disorder will be present from the formation of personality till the end of the person's life with not much change. Now, antisocial personality disorder is characterized by what they refer to as persistent disregard for and violation of the rights of others.

They are exploitative, deceptive, manipulative, they're huge deficits in their ability to empathize others and to take the perspective of others, mostly in terms of how their actions will impact others, uh, about suffering mostly. They're very often criminal. They wind up in court systems over and over and over again, and very often violent. But if you think about it, it's, it's seen as a disorder of your interaction with others and antisocial disorder. Now, sociopathic personality, if you can go back in time a little bit sociopathic means that again, a disorder of, you know, pathology, of your relatedness to others, and it was thought of as a pathological separateness and inability to engage with normative social structures, if that makes any sense.

I mean, when you say it that way, it sounds like some of the ways we hear be able to find autism, Well, that's more a social and anti-social the, the autistic doesn't need interaction with others to feel complete, but a sociopathic personality will exploit others, but mostly it was thought back then, because their inability to find meaning and connection to others. I don't know if that makes sense. Now, but an even earlier definition was that of the psychopath. And that was perceived very much as an individual disorder, that's marked by deviance for its own sake and a joy in the misfortune of others and a delight in harming others. And that's kind of the worst case scenario then for us is someone who isn't behaving for an obvious gain, Um.

we can't, uh, not flash cash around, we can't leave our front, not leave our front door open, this is someone who isn't looking for the watch, isn't looking for, break in the house, they're actually just looking to be violent. The gain is internal. Um, and there've been a lot of theorists about what the interior life of the sociopath is like, but it's really guessing because they're not very forthcoming about what it's like and remarkably glib and shallow in talking about their own internal experiences. And you've had a chance to talk to some of these people firsthand. True.

Uh, what are the kinds of things that you hear in terms of motivation? Um, in, in a clinical setting, a sociopath tends to be, um, rather glib and superficial about what they've done, but there's no sense of, at least I didn't experience a sense of fear in being with them, uh, being in a room with a psychopath isn't itself, frightening, there's a kind of frightening emptiness, um, and they, they enjoy scaring squares, they enjoy scaring or attempting to scare staff. And, um, I can remember the, um, the first, uh, true diagnosable psychopath, uh, saying to me, "I could kill you if I felt like it." And he just wanted me to know. Now is he speaking physically or emotionally he was comfortable with killing you if he felt like? He could kill me if he felt like it.

Making it clear in his mind that he was only allowing me to live. Now, the, the, uh, so that, that feeling of not just emptiness, but that, that a sociopath might feel but of a desire to injure other people for its own sake. Uh, one theorist once said that, "a psychopath wants the world to look on the outside "like he feels on the inside." Filled with pain and rage and destruction. And is there any, any explanation for why, someone says, why might someone feel this way? Not really.

There's, you know, there, there's a lot of research about the, the, the organic causes of it, where there may be just brain differences that caused this kind of lack of empathy, right from the very earliest, earliest ages and experiences. And when it comes to these definitions and the history of the way we've dealt with these people, where, where are we now and, and how, how do you think that, what are the most positive changes, I guess, in dealing with these people that you've seen? In terms of treatment, not much. Um, but you will see with longer, um, prison sentences, sometimes, uh, psychopaths will age out. There seems to be enough brain changes and chemistry over 40 or 50 years of life.

If they can survive that long, and normally in a controlled setting, they'll sort of age through, uh, their, their acute behavior and they become easier to manage and less, uh, overtly and frankly dangerous.