The Psychopathic Offender and Risk to the Community
| Author | Martin Gosling |
| Published date | 01 January 1999 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X9907200105 |
| Date | 01 January 1999 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
MARTIN GOSLING
Senior Probation Officer, Norwich Prison
THE PSYCHOPATHIC OFFENDER
AND RISK TO THE COMMUNITY
What
is a
Psychopath?
To most police officers this term probably indicates a callous, often
persistent offender without conscience who is capable of the most
serious of crimes. The Mental Health Act 1983 (s.1(2)) defines a
psychopathic disorder as a "...persistent disorder or disability of the
mind (whether or not including significant impairment of intelligence)
which results in abnormally aggressive or severely irresponsible
conduct." However, a great deal
of
work has been carried out with the
aim of gaining a better understanding of this condition (principally
Checkley, 1976 and Hare 1993); what has emerged gives a much clearer
picture of psychopathy and its implications both for policing and for the
supervising of dangerous offenders in the community, than does the
simple legal definition given above. In a paper presented to a conference
on "Crime, Public Safety and the Psychopath", (Sheffield, July 14-15,
1997) David Sutton
of
the Cognitive Centre Foundation summarized the
condition in the following description:
"Psychopaths are self-centred, callous and remorseless people,
profoundly lacking in empathy (the prerequisite for love) and who
have an inability to form emotional relationships with others or
understand the pain and suffering which they can inflict.
They seem unable to 'get into the skin' or to 'walk in the shoes'
of others except in a purely intellectual sense. The feelings of other
people are of no concern to psychopaths. It is often said that in
respect of feelings and emotions
'that
they know the words but not
the music'." (Sutton, 1997)
The process of growth and development in most people includes
learning the skills of socialization and the development of a capacity for
empathy which in tum leads to the formation of a conscience.
Psychopaths however while remaining aware of what they do and able
to rationalize situations they create, nevertheless lack the guidance of an
inner voice which in others delineates the acceptable boundaries of
behaviour. [For those familiar with the concepts of Transactional
Analysis, the Parent Ego State in the psychopath appears either de-
commissioned or severely contaminated.]
The
Impact
on
the
Community
There are degrees
of
severity of psychopathy and of course not all
psychopaths are offenders. Nevertheless in 1992 a report to the FBI in
January 1999 The Police Journal 43
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