Forensic Case Histories

Understanding Serious Offending Behaviour in Men

Jackie Craissati

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000317718
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychologie
• Subtopic: Psychologie légale

Forensic Case Histories: Understanding Serious Offending Behaviour in Men examines men's violent and sexual offending behaviours, outlined through a series of real offender narratives, from a psychological perspective and in an accessible manner that will engage any audience, from the criminology-intrigued layperson to the specialist in the field.

This unique and conversational text thinks psychologically about serious crime, offering a compilation of men's narratives that explore their life experiences and the ways in which these experiences influence their behaviour in adulthood. Each chapter addresses a particular theme, covering frequently asked questions in the field such as, 'How can an apparently motiveless offence have meaning?' and 'Is psychopathy a personality disorder, and why do we struggle to treat individuals with such traits?' The narratives of individuals who offend are central to the discussion, but the chapters each draw on the relevant facts from the research literature and highlight key learning points. Many chapters also feature 'Further Reading' sections to expand readers' knowledge.

Both educational and accessible, Forensic Case Histories will appeal not only to specialists but to any layperson curious to understand more about criminal acts. It is especially valuable to students and instructors of criminal justice, mental health, and related fields.

1
Introduction

Setting the scene

Taking a curious approach

This is a book about stories, stories told through the lens of professional engagement with men who have committed serious acts of violence – physical and sexual – against others. It takes a narrative approach, by which I mean that the stories provide a detailed account of a series of linked events and personal experiences that culminate in an act of violence. The book assumes a curious approach in the reader; that is, it is written for those who feel the urge to know more, those who tend to be inquisitive and want to try and figure things out, particularly the peculiarities of human behaviour. The book may well satisfy those individuals who find themselves reading about serious crimes and – after the initial recoil of horror, the compassionate identification with the victim, and secret sigh of relief that it happened to someone else – can't resist wondering ‘why did he do it?’ A curious stance can be uncomfortable, but it is often a creative one, it opens up possibilities, new lines of inquiry, it avoids the trap of overgeneralising leading to false assumptions. Nevertheless, seriously violent acts challenge our moral compass – rightly so – and provoke us to rush to condemn the perpetrator. Many of us know someone – family, friend, or neighbour – who has suffered violence at the hands of another, and the affront can feel very personal indeed. It is for this reason that our initial response to a violent crime is often one of instant judgement; our approach is then to seek information that confirms our original hypothesis, and in so doing, provide comforting reassurance. This is sometimes called confirmation bias – the tendency to seek information and/or to interpret evidence in ways that fit with what we already believe. One common example of confirmation bias is exemplified by press coverage: in the summer of 2019 as I write this introductory chapter, a released life-sentenced prisoner, who absconded from his probation hostel and was at large for three months, has been caught and returned to prison. The reasons for his absconding and the fact that he apparently committed no new crime are irrelevant in terms of media coverage and public outrage; furthermore, the surprisingly low reoffending rate for those who reside in such hostels attracts no attention for this is not compatible with our deepest fears about individuals who have been violent. When teaching forensic psychology trainees, I often say that if you hear yourself saying ‘don't you think that…’, this should sound a personal alert! The nature of the phrase suggests you have a predetermined view, and have probably ceased to hold an open and curious mind about the mind of others.

This tension between our strong moral response and our curiosity is a challenge shared by all those who work professionally with individuals who have committed serious crimes. Over the course of training and the early years in work, we have to learn what to do with our emotional responses to the crime, whether to allow our moral outrage to remain in the room, or to risk personal compromise by leaving moral judgement outside the interview room door. The following snippet of dialogue between a psychologist and an individual serving a long-term sentence highlights the dilemma; the first extract is what I would call a morally driven interaction in response to a difficult but commonly encountered conversation about victims; the second is a curiosity-driven interaction; note the different outcomes.

PSYCHOLOGIST So tell me a bit about how you feel about the offence now, looking back.

INTERVIEWEE I know you want me to feel bad about it, but I don't, if the victim hadn't lied in court, I wouldn't have got this long sentence; she has a lot to answer for.

PSYCHOLOGIST What did the victim lie about?

INTERVIEWEE The rape, there was no rape; we had sex, yes, but she was the one who came on to me, she was willing.

PSYCHOLOGIST The court found you guilty of rape, and the victim statement clearly describes the way in which you forced her to have sex without her consent.

INTERVIEWEE Are you saying victims never lie? I can prove that the victim lied about a number of things. The court got it wrong, and that’s all I have to say about it. I can see you don't believe me.

The psychologist has identified what we call ‘cognitive distortions' (distorted thinking patterns) in the man who has been found guilty of rape. S/he is unambiguously and correctly identifying some of the inaccuracies in his account, and in doing so, shuts him down in terms of the interview. However, in this second snippet of dialogue, the psychologist ignores the distortions in favour of adopting a more curious and inquiring stance; without condoning the man’s inaccurate blaming of the victim, s/he pursues an account of the offence from his perspective. That is, s/he suspended understandable moral responses, pushing them to the side (or out the door) whilst focusing on the individual in front of her.

PSYCHOLOGIST So tell me a bit about how you feel about the offence now, looking back.

INTERVIEWEE I know you want me to feel bad about it, but I don't, if the victim hadn't lied in court, I wouldn't have got this long sentence; she has a lot to answer for.

PSYCHOLOGIST Lie is a strong word, tell me a bit more about what you mean by it.

INTERVIEWEE We had sex, yes, but she was the one who came on to me, she was willing. There was no rape, she just changed her tune when her boyfriend found out what she'd been up to.

PSYCHOLOGIST Ok, so let’s start at an earlier point when things were going well that evening; it sounds like you're pretty sure she was coming on to you at the start.… [T]ell me a bit more about how you met, and what you thought about her at that point.

INTERVIEWEE We met in the club, I'd seen her around before; she was pretty wild, drunk, but friendly, flirty. We got on ok, and I thought ‘I'm in with a chance’.

In other words, professionals learn to adopt a curious approach that starts from the offender’s perspective, in order to begin to understand why the offence happened. The fact that his perspective bears no resemblance to the victim’s reality has to be held in mind but left unsaid for the time being. It is as if the perpetrator is on one side of a large wall, and we are on the other side, the side where the victim is located; we can try ordering the perpetrator to come over to our side of the wall, but this is unlikely to work if the perpetrator cannot or will not find a way across. We will have to find the right spot to cross – perhaps a weak point where the brickwork is crumbling, or where there are possible footholds to climb over; we have to show the perpetrator where to cross, and we may even have to cross over to his side in order to bring him back with us. These ideas about perpetrator and victim perspectives are returned to throughout this book, and we return to the victim issues later in this chapter.

Psychologically informed

The stories in this book are psychologically informed; that is, they are narrated in a way that is driven by psychological theories and knowledge. Psychology is the scientific study of the human mind and the ways in which it influences our behaviour; it can encompass diverse areas such as development, personality, motivation, thought processes, and emotions. When thinking about the world of offending, psychological theories tend to focus particularly on thinking and emotion in relation to behaviours (violent acts) that are thought to be ‘abnormal’ or ‘problematic’, outside the range of normal or usual human experience. Immediately this begins to pose problems, for it suggests a clarity of definition that bears little resemblance to reality. Right and wrong, rational and irrational may seem absolute concepts, but of course, our thinking shifts over time and place – social, cultural, and political contexts greatly influence our conceptions of ‘abnormal’. As just one particularly stark example, homosexuality was illegal only 50 or so years ago; associated with this, there has also been a long tradition of individuals with a homosexual orientation being labelled as ‘sexually deviant’ and sent for psychological therapy with the aim of changing their sexual preferences. Shocking as this may seem to us now, it has been social change rather than psychological theory that has driven our approach to labelling sexual orientation as either ‘normal’ or ‘abnormal’. Psychologists are also rightly criticised for being overly focused on the individual and his/her interpersonal relationships, pathologising (or medicalising) undesirable human behaviours; they have been accused of failing to focus sufficiently on the social drivers of criminal acts, such as poverty, gender, social class, stigma, and difference. Criminology – an offshoot of sociology – offers a view of offending that is rooted more in social theories, a perspective that is – I would argue – complementary to, rather than in competition with, a psychological approach. In a rather simplistic way, the relationship between a psychological and a sociological approach could be thought of as follows: social theories provide an invaluable cultural and political context in which to understand criminal behaviour, while psychological theories facilitate a more individualised understanding of why a particular individual committed a particular act at the time that he did. For example, we recognise domestic violence as a social issue, and some might argue convincingly that its current prevalence is related to patriarchal societies that invest power and control with men, and implicitly or explicitly endorse derogatory attitudes towards women. Nevertheless, psychological theories facilitate a more detailed understanding of why only a particular subgroup of men perpetrate violence on their partners, and specifically, how we might try to make sense of the extremes of ‘abnormal’ behaviours by intimate partners against women – stalking and homicide, for example – that challenge our ability to make sense of such behaviour.¹

Psychology is a social science, and as such it adopts a rigorous academic approach to the development of theoretical ideas; hypotheses have to be tested – whether this entails clinical observations, the gathering of factual data, or both – before we can make assertions with some confidence. As with the natural sciences, our understanding mutates and evolves as we come to understand more about the human mind and behaviour, and theories have to be adjusted. The common assertion that psychology is mere ‘common sense’ has some truth to it, but can also be misleading. The fact is that we all have the capacity to recognise psychologically meaningful ‘truths', as we go about our everyday lives: if you have ever noticed any of the following, you are operating as a psychologically informed observer, even if you do not fully understand the psychological theory underpinning your understanding:

• You notice you are repeatedly attracted to intimate partners who share similar traits and – unnervingly –these traits are not dissimilar to those of your father.
• Your friend is annoyingly clingy and possessive, but you recognise that this is probably because she feels insecure as a result of struggling to make friendships when you were at school together.
• You are trying to give up alcohol, but you tend to relapse into heavy drinking when you feel low in mood and lonely. You've noticed a regular pattern: after lapsing into one drink, you binge drink, telling yourself that you might as well as you've failed miserably, and you can start again the next day. Unfortunately, the next day you feel really low, and so the cycle continues.
• You know you have a bad temper, which you try hard to keep under control; very occasionally you have the unpleasant sensation of a ‘red mist’ coming over you, and later a vague memory of screaming at someone uncontrollably. It feels unreal at the time, almost as though you were watching yourself acting in a film.

However, not all psychological knowledge is drawn from a common sense interpretation of the world around us, and throughout this book, the case histories contain accounts that are counter-intuitive and that challenge our thinking. As already intimated, we may recognise impulses in ourselves that might be shared with individuals who have committed serious violent offences; for instance, all the examples above might also be observed as relevant to some offending behaviour. However, for most of us who have not offended, our behaviour has not spilled over into destructive acts of harm; this is sometimes described as not having breached the body barrier, a term used to highlight the significant step from thinking and feeling in relation to violence to acting on such thoughts and feelings. Research and inquiry is therefore key if we are to take our psychological understanding of offending to the next level; our experience alone is insufficient as evidence. There are many methodologies for psychological research, including in-depth interviews that seek emerging themes; questionnaire and survey approaches that elicit self-reported views; and large databases of individuals with their ‘factual’ characteristics recorded, which seek to determine significant links between this data and outcomes that could not be found by chance alone. This book is intended to be evidence-based and educational, anchored in an academic understanding that nevertheless intends to be accessible to a non-specialist reader. This means that the theoretical and clinical ideas put forward in the chapters would be considered to be sound and fairly mainstream by professional peers. It should be noted that there is probably a published research paper to endorse every possible variation of outcome or finding; the research relied on in this book is solely focused on robust findings. By robust, I mean research that is based on large samples of data, or that has been replicated more than once, with similar findings; that is, findings that are sound. For the interested reader and the student or trainee, references to useful facts and key research findings are signposted throughout the chapters and further reading is suggested at the end of each chapter.

Who are the men in the case histories?

This book focuses on men quite simply because men account for the vast majority of serious sexual and violent crimes. The case histories are, to some extent, representative of the wider group of individuals who are incarcerated for similar crimes, albeit that everyone has their own unique story to tell. This is not a book for those seeking the excitement of tales of serial killers or of those who have a certain notoriety having been in the public eye. Salacious curiosity – inquisitiveness that is driven by a desire for excitement rather than understanding – thrives on the unique and monstrous, the sense of ‘other’ in the perpetrator. The stories articulated in this book are those belonging to fairly ordinary people, individuals who have usually experienced rather difficult – sometimes traumatic – times; with hindsight their lives have taken a rather indirect route towards offending, with missed opportunities, bad luck, and poor decision-making littering the path; they are marked by the nature of their terrible destructive acts, but behind these acts, the men are recognisably like us – mundane to some extent, lonely, angry, hurt, or vengeful. There is never much glamour attached to such difficult lives.

The stories are drawn from my work with prisoners who are seeking to be heard by a Parole Board panel in relation to progression through prison into the community, or from those individuals I have seen as outpatients in my clinic, after their release into the community from prison or secure hospital. Some I have met on only one or two occasions over the past 30 years; others I have known for more than a decade; all have shared their stories with me, have seen what I have written about them, and have reflected on their learning and my observations regarding the meaning of their offending and the risk that they might pose to others. I have not drawn on any stories from men who have objected strongly to my assessment findings or to seeing me as an outpatient. Nevertheless, it has been extremely...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• About the author
• 1 Introduction: Setting the scene
• 2 Adam’s story: Revealing the layers of meaning in an offence
• 3 Bill and Chris’ story: Understanding why denying the offence might be a protective factor and unrelated to future risk
• 4 David and Eddie’s story: Understanding the impact of a childhood in care in relation to later violent offending
• 5 Frank’s story: Understanding how sexual victimisation in childhood might be linked to the abuse of others in adulthood
• 6 Kevin, Len, and Mark’s story: Getting to grips with risk assessment
• 7 Owen’s story: Personality disorder and psychopathy: mad or bad?
• 8 Peter, Quinn, Rob, and Stuart’s story: Severe mental illness and violence: understanding risk and responsibility for those who are violent
• 9 Tom, Vic, and William’s story: Fantasy, planning, and ‘seemingly irrelevant decisions’
• 10 The practitioner’s story: Reflecting on our emotional responses to the work
• Index