The Criminological Mind

The medicalization of deviance has its pros and cons like many other social issues, however when it reaches children believe it is taken too far. Kids will be kids; they will act out and behave in their own unique ways. At times these behaviors and a child’s personality can be difficult to deal with and may considered deviant. But aren’t kids expected to be deviant at times?

Medicating children is a new phenomenon in society. Even when I was a kid, kids that acted out or did not conform were not sent to be tested for ADD/ADHD or Bipolar disorder, they were given detention. Medicating children is all about keeping them conformed within a social institution such as school. They are medicated to make them conform and easier to deal with.

The video here discusses this issue of over-medication within the population of foster children. The opening line explains why children are over-medicated in general, “possibly just because adults and doctors don’t know what else to do with them.” This just may be the sad truth of today’s society. Foster kids are medicated 13 times more than other kids. It is understandable that a foster child has gone through many ordeals, however the solution to a sad child is not to label a diagnosis and prescribe anti-psychotic drugs.

As the video in class showed, sometimes a child really does have one of these disorders, however it is not as common for a child to be bipolar or have ADD/ADHD (a fairly new and too common of a diagnosis) as the amount of children that are on medication shows. Many of these children are medicated to conform, not because they truly have a kind of disorder.

http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2008/06/not-all-psychopaths-are-criminal.html

In this article, it explains that it is fairly normal and usual for “psychopaths” to be near us and not criminals.  There was a study done with 100 university students in which they had to complete a self-report measure of psychopathy and the results were that some of them did have similar results to what an actual psychopathic criminal would score.  So what does this mean?  What do these results mean?  It was said that although these non-criminals have similar neuropsychological profiles as the criminals, it is probably because of their background such as family.  I believe that family is really important with the way one person grows up.  If one person who took this self-report measure had results to being psychopathic but the person was raised in a very loving family, the chances are that he/she would not go on a killing spree.  However, if the person were to grow up with a father who was convicted in killing the mother, then the chances are higher when it comes to commiting a crime and following the father’s footsteps.  I honestly feel like everyone is like ticking time bomb and everyone is just anticipating that one thing that would tick them off.  We talked in class that sometimes these psychopaths commit these horrible crimes, yet in the end, the sentencing is lessened and they are the ones treated as the victim than the actual victim.  Is it fair?  Is that justice?  From an outsider’s point of view, I guess the answer is “yes” because the psychopath wasn’t capable of controlling his/her actions, but if the victim was someone I love or even myself, I would say that this was outrageous.

In the  article “Docile Bodies” from Discipline and Punish,  Foucault explained how the state adapted the military technique to create certain characters and habits in other institutions. One of the institutions was the education system; Foucault described how teacher and masters inhibit physical actions in students. Till this day those physical actions are still acted upon in school. The school basically mode the students into what they thought was an adequate character to obtain. Delhi Charter School in Louisiana imposed a policy that stated no pregnant student can attend school and how students will be ask to take a pregnancy test. Students who are perceived to be pregnant are expected to take a pregnancy test without their own choice of doctor. Perceiving a student to be pregnant is discriminatory, in that case we may ask ourselves what type of girls are being perceive to be pregnant?  According to the “School’s require girls to take pregnancy test” article, 70 percent of girls who have children have left the school due to discrimination. The policy explains how the Delhi Charter School has certain expectations for their student and certain character traits. It appears that students who don’t meet the criteria are put aside and forced to leave the school. The students are forced to leave the school because they are not treated like the other students. The American Civil Liberties Union stated that pregnant students shouldn’t be treated as people with disease but with a medical condition and should be involved as much as they can. The social media has an influence of how pregnant teenagers are perceived in society and how they disrupt the high standards of the education system. Students who don’t follow the disciplinary criteria are excluded and therefore consider deviant. The deviant behavior consider from the education system is translated through media communications to the public. As punishment the students are not adequate effort to the society. This effect builds a relationship gap between the educated and uneducated. The educated are the discipline students that form part of the state social structure. According to the article the Delhi Charter School “maintain an environment in which all students will learn and exhibit acceptable character traits that govern language, gestures, physical actions, and written words”, hence the students serve as puppets to the education system and unfortunately it has become part of the norm.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/48554183/ns/today-back_to_school/

  In the article “Suffering Souls” written by John Seabrook, Seabrook defines psychopathy  as the condition of moral emptiness that seems to affect on average between fifteen to twenty-five percent of the North American prison population. Psychopathy is also believed to exist in one percent of the overall male population, leaving the idea of being a female  psychopath a rare occurrence. Psychopaths are characterized as having ‘serve emotional detachment’ this means that they lack any feelings that are associated with empathy  and remorse. PsycPsychopathy is the condition of moral emptiness that seems to affect on average between fifteen to twenty-five percent of the North American prison population. It has been suggested that psychopathy could actually be a genetic component. It is lilely the case that a psychpath would come from a dsyfunctional family rather than a nuturing one.Psychopathy is also most often referred to as an ” antisocial personality disorder.” 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4epc4A7kS2Q&feature=youtube_gdata_player

This piece in the New York Times titled, Can You Call a 9-Year-Old a Psychopath?, was written by Jennifer Khan. This article reminded me a lot of the documentary on diagnosing child with psychological disorders.  This is the story of a family with a son who exhibits many different traits that can be associated with numerous disorders within the DSM, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder, but they believe he is a child psychopath. The mother tells stories of the child’s ability to go from extreme temper tantrum to silent cold calculating behavior. But the other significant point made was the difficulty in finding a therapist whose opinion matched the opinion of the previous therapist.  This story is a continuation of the issues raised in the documentary from class.  The real lack of understanding child personality disorders and the appropriate ways to treat them.  Kahn writes that “Currently, there is no standard test for psychopathy in children, but a growing number of psychologists believe that psychopathy, like autism, is a distinct neurological condition — one that can be identified in children as young as 5.” Then she continues on to write about how doctors are attempting to isolate true psychopaths from child that exhibit severe behavior problems. The key to diagnosing the child as a psychopath is behavior problems and “also test above normal on callous-unemotional traits.” This is a interesting topic for us to discuss because there is a belief that there are psychopaths who work on Wall Street or other high demanding jobs. Where would a successful diagnosis of childhood psychopathy lead? Would we be looking to cure it? What happens if there is no cure? Mandatory monitoring? What does everyone else think?

Andrew Conyers

This week in class we read about psychopaths, I have been reading articles about a horrible tragedy that happened last summer with Leiby Kletzky. A year after this horrible tragedy, Levi Aron pleads guilty this week for murdering Leiby Kletzky. Last summer, Leiby lost his way when going back home, so he asked a stranger, who ended up being Levi Aron, for directions. Levi told the boy he will take him to where he needs to go to, but instead he took him to some wedding and then back to his place. The parents later on started to get worried. They did not know where their child was, so they have formed a search team with the neighborhood and police as well. When Levi saw the posters about the missing child he started to panic and began to smother the boy with a towel and then cut his body for easier disposal. There was evidence by the medical examiner that the boy was drugged before as well. With the lead that the police got, it lead them straight to Levi Aron’s apartment, over there they found some of Leiby’s remains in the freezer, suitcase and in trash bins about two and a half miles away from his place. In my previous law class, I remember reviewing this case and our professor showed the confession that he wrote, writing out step by step what he exactly did at the time of the crime. In this confession it showed that he was clearly a psychopath and he needed a lot of help. The way he wrote and spoke showed all the basic signs of a psychopath. Also, in this article it mentioned that the court ordered a psychological exam and they found that he does have a psychological disorder but he was competent to stand trial.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/10/nyregion/leiby-kletzkys-killer-levi-aron-pleads-guilty-to-murdering-8-year-old.html?_r=1

Earlier this week we spoke about the development of the pyschopathic theory and the affect it has on deviant acts and the justice system as a whole. Naturally, our nation has taken the plea of insanity in the courtroom as a possibility in certain situations associated with mass murders. In the earlier reading that we reviewed in class, one topic that was brought up was how to treat individual that were deemed insane. The conclusion that was made from the article was that we would treat the “rare” symptoms that the person consisted of, instead of simply punishing him for his or her actions. In some instances we would kill the person if he/she tested to be completely uncontrollable. A recent tragedy that occurred at the hands of a “confused” James Holmes is currently being debated in court. His defense is willing to plead insanity and if the case is won in their favor, he’ll be put in psych ward euipped with a straight jacket most likely and under constant supervision. But the question is if a psych ward is the proper punishment for a man who committed such a brutal crime. There is no question that he is guilty of these crimes regardless if he’s deemed psychotic or not, but will the families of the affected truly avenge the deaths and pain of the injured. My sentiment is absolutely not! James Holmes should be prosecuted as a “normal” criminal, the man was studying for his doctorate degree as a neuroscience major, he obviously knew of his actions and the difference between righ and wrong. I can understand that the defense has to do their job, but then again I can’t understand how someone can even attempt to represent someone in court who has committed such a tragedy. I don’t believe in capital punishment, but I believe that the final vote in this case should be up to the families that were affected. Of course I know that that isn’t how our justice system works, but for this case special consideration should be given.

For further information regarding this story:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-07-30/colorado-shootings-james-holmes/56584772/1

As I mentioned in class there have been reports of students with disabilities being suspended from school for no reason. I honestly did not know this was going on, but I was not oblivious to the fact that this probably was happening in public schools. I have gone to public schools my whole life and I always realized that students that I went to school with and they were in special education classes because they were diagnosed with a certain disease or a disorder, were always the first to be suspended. These students were always the first students to be suspended. How can you expect students to learn effectively in school if they are never there?

The New York Times article says “According to a new analysis of Department of Education data, 13 percent of disabled students in kindergarten through 12th grade were suspended during the 2009-10 school year, compared with 7 percent of students without disabilities. Among black children with disabilities, which included those with learning difficulties, the rate was much higher: one out of every four was suspended at least once that school year.” So 13% of students were disabled and black were suspended, there is no mention of help being given to these students.

Of course it’s more so a question of resources available to the school. Children with learning disabilities and conduct disorders in poorly resourced neighborhoods will not receive the help they need. Most schools in troubled areas aren’t equipped with school psychologists or social workers. The only thing left for administrators is suspensions, which are clearly counterproductive. But when will this issue be settled and handled with the level of importance that it deserves by the govern

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/08/education/analysis-examines-disabled-students-suspensions.html?smid=pl-share

The Brains of Criminals is an article that was published in The New York Times almost a hundred and fifty years ago. In this short text, we are shown the testimony of a professional witness in a murder trial. The author of this article suggested that following the recent spike in court cases claiming the insanity plea in an attempt to escape punishment; a total collapse of social role of law and social morality would soon result. It was feared that by acknowledging a brain injury as a possible cause to a criminal or deviant act, human responsibility would disappear altogether.

Although technology and the understanding of the brain were limited to say the least, one could argue that this was the dawn of medicalization. I found it amusing, knowing this article was published before Alphonse Bertillon and Sir Francis Galton published their works. Even though the practice of measuring criminal’s heads is now seen as absurd and even racist, yet one may argue that the scars on the heads of some criminals could have contributed to their deviant behavior.  A head baring scars or trauma to the head does not guarantee that the one would act in what many would consider erratic behavior, yet those that appose medicalization must not forget the importance of the brain in decision-making. 

http://suite101.com/article/stereotypes-of-minorities-in-the-media-a134017

After reading this article, it talks about how the media portrays minorities and how that affects the view of what minorities in low income areas are really like.  It talks about how the media primarily and purposely focuses on minorities and creates the images to viewers about what a criminal looks like and where criminals are more likely to be found.  As stated in the article, minorities are shown in news restrained and escorted by authorities while white people are next to the lawyer.  Also media always target areas of lower income and focuses on the crimes of the minorities that occur there, depicting to the general public that these  people are dangerous, meaning blacks in urban environments.  This reflects onto Emile Durkheim “What is a Social Fact”.  What do the general public know as facts and what is actually stereotypes being pushed in to them.  What we know as one form of learning and discovering, the news, can be such a biased and manipulated form of media, what can one take in from it to be actual facts.  When presented with new media, do people not automatically make assumptions or stereotypes right away because constantly being fed with these images of what is suppose to be a criminal and where they are to happen, one can not see pass it and creates the same stereotype.  The medias influence on what is viewed as news and facts creates these stereotypes or further perpetuates them and society wont be able to move pass these stereotypes.