Neuropsychology of Criminal Behavior

Feggy Ostrosky, Alfredo Ardila, Feggy Ostrosky, Alfredo Ardila

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351607896
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psicología
• Subtopic: Psicología cognitiva y cognición

This book draws on findings from psychology, neurology, and genetics, to offer a multi-dimensional analysis of criminal behavior. It explores the biological bases of emotions such as aggression, anger, and hostility and how they-- combined with social psychological influences, such as family history and environmental conditions-- may lead to violence. Specific case studies, including serial killings, mass murders, family violence, cannibalism, and hitmen, are referenced throughout, providing real-world examples of these theories in action. Issues of free will and the law are discussed as well as suggestions for curbing violent behavior.

CONTENTS

Foreword

1 Understanding Violence

2 The Brain and Emotions

3 The Origins of Violence

4 Psychopathy

5 Serial Killers

6 Mass Murderers

7 Cannibalism

8 Mexican Hitmen

9 Paramilitarism in Colombia

10 Conclusions

Index

FOREWORD

Since 1994, when I—Feggy Ostrosky, the first author—began studying the neurobiology of violence, I have been privileged to be able to access 370 violent people and dangerous criminal offenders detained in high-security prisons in Mexico. Among these was a female serial killer who received the longest sentence in the history of criminal offenders in Mexico (756 years in prison) and is accused of killing 18 elderly women and attempting to kill two others. I have also been given access to several people who have committed multiple homicides, and kingpins and members of organized crime and drug cartels.

I study them in high-security prisons through interviews about life history, electrophysiological studies, neuroimaging, and neuropsychological and genetic testing.

As emotions are so important for moral behavior, I am interested in the question of what happens in the brains of serial killers and those who commit multiple homicides. How do they process moral stimuli? To explore the answers to these questions, we studied the brain correlates of basic and moral emotions in a group of controls and in a group of criminal offenders; brain metabolism and brain activity were recorded while the subjects were viewing fear and neutral faces, as well as pictures of emotionally charged unpleasant scenes with and without moral content, and emotionally pleasant and neutral pictures. In total, 240 color pictures were used. All the stimuli were previously standardized in our laboratory according to four categories: (1) unpleasant pictures with moral content (e.g. physical assaults, war scenes), (2) neutral pictures (e.g. household objects, people), (3) unpleasant pictures without moral content (e.g. body mutilations, dangerous animals), and (4) pleasant pictures, including scenes of people and landscapes.

Antisocial behaviors can cause great suffering, ranging from minor actions, such as cheating during school examinations, to major crimes, such as stealing and killing others in cold blood. Violent behaviors are alarmingly common in our society and are considered a public health problem. What moves human beings to hurt others, including relatives and/or strangers? Can these impulses and actions be prevented or controlled? By studying violent people and their histories, my research has been aimed at understanding the causes of violent behaviors and developing preventive programs and effective treatments. Through my research, I try to answer the questions of whether or not there are critical periods for intervention and what the key issues are that preventive programs should include. Should we work with an offender’s children, caregivers, and/or social group?

Currently, a pressing question in both family and social environments is how to raise honest and self-controlled children in a complex and morally ambiguous world, especially if we consider the fragile bonds that can exist between the family, the school, and the community. What factors contribute to the full development of moral integrity? Two pillars of moral behavior are fairness (which is related to justice) and empathy (i.e. compassion).

Some theories emphasize that rewarding ethical actions and punishing non-ethical acts is a useful strategy for building moral integrity. However, several studies have shown that if we discipline our children based purely on external reinforcement, namely reward or punishment, we are teaching them to avoid dishonest behaviors—such as stealing, cheating, and corruption—only when there is a probability or risk of being caught. It is necessary for our children to properly “internalize” and feel emotionally these values to drive and guide their behavior.

Other people advocate emphasizing the teaching of values; however, raising honest, self-disciplined, and committed individuals requires much more than just simple theoretical stories, lessons, and advice on moral values.

To prevent violence, we believe that it is important to understand what leads individuals to become violent.

At the time of writing, Alfredo Ardila, the second author, was working on the neuropsychological evaluation of homicides in Miami (Florida). A solid collaboration between the first and second authors of this book has been established, resulting in several publications (e.g. Ardila & Ostrosky-Solís, 2009; Ostrosky-Solís et al., 2008; Ostrosky-Solís & Ardila, 2010). An initial systematic analysis of the neuropsychological aspects of aggression was presented in the book Mentes Asesinas: La Violencia en Tu Cerebro (Criminal Minds: The Violence in Your Brain) written by Ostrosky (2007).

We considered that it was time to put together the available information about criminal behavior into a single book. We have included the best specific examples of the different types of criminal behavior to which we have access.

We are lucky to have collaborated with an expert in the area, Fernando Díaz Colorado. He has written a chapter about the crimes of paramilitarism in Colombia (Chapter 9). He is a teacher in the Law and Psychology departments at several Colombian universities. He is also a teacher of criminology at the Humani Institute in Leon, Guanajuato, Mexico. He has spoken nationally and internationally on subjects related to victimology, criminology, and legal psychology and is a founding member of the Asociación Latinoamericana de Psicología Jurídica y Forense (Latin American Legal and Forensic Psychology Association) and of the organization Opción Vida, Justicia y Paz (Option Life, Justice and Peace). He is also the author of half a dozen books related to the topics of psychology and criminality.

We sincerely hope that this book can contribute to advancing the understanding of criminal behavior from a psychological, neurological, and neuropsychological perspective.

Feggy Ostrosky
Alfredo Ardila

References

Ardila, A., & Ostrosky-Solís, F. (2009). Neuropsicología de los asesinos en serie [Neuropsychology of serial killers]. Revista de Neurologia, 48(3), 162–163.

Ostrosky, F. (2007). Mentes Asesinas: La Violencia en Tu Cerebro [Criminal Minds: The Violence in Your Brain]. Mexico City: Quinto Sol.

Ostrosky-Solís, F., & Ardila, A. (2010). Neurobiologia de la psicopatia [Neurobiology of psychopaths]. In: Munoz-Delgado, J., Moreno, C., & Diaz, J.L. (eds), Agresión y Violencia: Cerebro, Comportamiento y Bioética [Aggression and Violence: Brain, Behavior and Bioethics]. Mexico City: Herder. pp. 271–287.

Ostrosky-Solís, F., Vélez-García, A., Santana-Vargas, D., Pérez, M., & Ardila, A. (2008). A middle-aged female serial killer. Journal of Forensic Sciences, 53(5), 1223–1230.

1

UNDERSTANDING VIOLENCE

Introduction

In spite of technological and social advances, violent behaviors continue to be common in our contemporary world. Due to the magnitude of these behaviors, they are also considered a public health problem (World Health Organization, 2002). Violent behaviors are seen at a variety of levels, from domestic abuse to mass homicide and wars. Table 1.1 shows the percentage of deaths that are the result of violence in a variety of countries around the world. Annually, there are almost one and a half million violent deaths worldwide and the vast majority of them are in low-and middle-income countries. Homicides represent almost half a million deaths annually.

Table 1.1 Global estimated violence-related deaths (homicides, suicides, and deaths related to wars) at the end of the twentieth century

Source: Dahlberg & Krug, 2006

However, violent deaths are unequally distributed among different countries, among different age ranges, and by gender. Homicide rates vary in different regions of the world. Statistics show that there are particularly violent regions, such as Southern Africa and different Latin American regions (Central and South America and the Caribbean). Western European countries have the lowest levels of violent deaths (UNODC, 2013).

Figure 1.1 Distribution of homicides by gender and age range (modified and adapted from World Health Organization, 2011)

Similarly, the age and gender distribution of violent deaths is not even (Figure 1.1). Victims of violent deaths are significantly more often male than female, particularly in the medium age ranges. In addition, violent deaths are perceptibly more common in young adults than in any other stages of life.

In some countries, homicides represent one of the leading causes of death. As mentioned, Latin American countries experience particularly high levels of violence and there are civil conflicts in many of them, which lead to perceptible increases in the number of violent deaths, such as in Colombia and Mexico.

Despite the fact that the League of Nations was initially created, followed by the United Nations, to avoid wars among nations, those efforts have been partially unsuccessful; aggression not only among people but also among nations continues to be significant. In fact, the twentieth century saw some of the worst wars that humankind has known. Table 1.2 shows the 25 wars throughout history that have resulted in more than one million deaths. Of these, 12 (almost 50%) happened in the twentieth century, showing that this century was particularly violent.

In the same way, if we consider homicides over recent decades, it is evident that (1) a significant decrease is not observed, but there is fluctuation over the years (Figure 1.2) and (2) there are important regional differences: the homicide rate in some regions of the world is very high and in other regions is very low. Honduras is the country with the highest homicide rate, at 90.4 per 100,000 inhabitants per year. Japan has the lowest homicide rate, at 0.3 per 100,000 inhabitants per year—that is, 300 times lower than the highest rate (UNODC, 2013).

Table 1.2 The most deadly wars (which resulted in more than one million deaths) in the history of humankind. Twelve of them (in bold) took place in the twentieth century (Roser, 2016)

The possibility of being at any moment another victim of violence can make us live in constant fear; it can have a serious impact on our quality of life and it can become a factor that determines all of our activities: the places we go, the length of time that we stay there, the kind of security that we try to get, how we dress, what time we leave the house, and where and when we work. Undoubtedly, violence, aggression, and homicide have imposed, throughout history, high costs on the quality of human life.

Figure 1.2 Homicides in different regions of the world between 1955 and 2011 (modified and adapted from UNODC, 2013)

In an effort to combat this impact, there have been an increasing number of investigations looking at understanding the causes of violence (e.g. Geen & Donnerstein, 1998; Gilligan, 1996; Jewkes, 2002; Zimring & Hawkins, 1997) and developing, as a result, effective treatments (e.g. Brieden, Ujeyl, & Naber, 2002; Connor, 2002; Connor et al., 2006; Gerevich, Bácskai, & Czobor, 2007). Surely, in the future, the number of investigations and publications that try to better understand individual and social violence will continue to grow.

Violence and Aggression

The natural starting point in looking into this area is to understand what we mean by aggression and violence, and to determine if these are different or partially coincident phenomena (S...