You would then note that criminals are 44 times more likely to have 3 or more personality disorders than the general population of males.
In terms of other psychopathic and other serious disorders, they are around 14 times more likely to suffer than the general population of males.
Bear in mind that these are the ones whose behaviour got them locked up, and since not all persons with such disorder do behave in this manner, its reasonable to imagine that the dangerous ones for the most part are in prison, and the self harming and less dangerous ones are not in prison.
So, what we have is a concentration of them in prison, your average prison worker is thus much more likely to know more of them, and know the most dangerous ones.
The average person on the street is much less likely to know one, and if they happen to know such an individual, its more likely that they are not one of the dangerous ones.
I can understand how it would be dangerous to make an assumption that criminality is a class of individuals, the Victorians came to this view, lock up all those in the criminal class and crime would dissappear.
Marie, go back and read the OP. I said I heard a conversation between two prisoners. One expressed shock at a murder and one expressed a casual acceptance of murder. I think that should make it pretty clear that I am aware that not all prisoners think alike.
It should be clear (and if it’s not, this may be my fault) that the attitude of the second prisoner is not a common one - even among prisoners. Most prisoners, like most people on the street, have a fairly normal reaction to witnessing a violent crime. That’s what makes the exceptions stand out and comment-worthy.
And the reason I mention my experience is because we’re discussing things I have experienced. I didn’t say “I met a criminal once and based on that I know everything about the criminal mind and know what all criminals are like.” What I’m saying is “I’ve met a hundred thousand or more incarcerated prisoners, so, yes, I do probably know more about the subject of incarcerated prisoners than you do.”
You, on the other hand, keep claiming to “know” things without giving us any idea of how you acquired this knowledge or why we should believe your opinions.
I feel I can speak on this subject, since I’m a prosecutor and deal with such people every day:
Yes, many criminals are very different from you and I. Their thought process is very different. They don’t care about much of anything if it doesn’t directly affect them personally. Since killing a witness is clearly of more benefit to that criminal, in his mind, than not killing the witness, he’ll go ahead and kill her, without remorse. What he does is what’s best for him.
But that’s not all of them. Fortunately, I work in misdemeanors, which are offenses that don’t carry prison time (at most, a year in the county jail). Most of the criminals I deal with are really just regular people who did something stupid. Your sincere hope is that, having been caught once and learning the consequences, they won’t cross the line again. For many of them, it works; for others, our “frequent fliers”, they won’t learn until they have to spend a long stretch in jail, and then what they usually learn is that they should move to another county. Fine by me; just don’t be a criminal here, where I can reach you.
I did, yes. I wanted to see what was behind that little footnote – to wit, how many of the diagnoses occurred pre-incarceration for example – but really, I think it is non-controversial to say that people with mental illnesses of various kinds are overrepresented in prison populations. I couldn’t agree more.
I think it would be comforting to think that all the psychopaths are safely locked away in prison at any given moment; but I do not think it is true. I think that less organized psychopaths and those that have comorbid conditions (which is of course most of them) and those who have less control over their pathology certainly are more likely to be in prison at some point duiring their lives, no argument there. Whether they are there right now is the point I would take issue with; there is little doubt that there are at least some out on the street right now.
I further doubt very much the ability to diagnose psychopathology on the strength of one overheard conversation about a movie whose subject is organized crime. I have little doubt that the OP knows some psychopaths and is frightened by them. They are scary people.
I submit that a prison worker of any class or description who thinks that an overheard conversation about a movie about organized crime is some kind of smoking gun to wave around to an audience of fellow BB posters as evidence that “criminals are fundamentally different than you and I” and scraping up evidence from the existence of a few to spread onto the many is on his or her way down a mental path which ends that sentence in “and so it’s okay, just this once, if we do this or that to them”. This path has been tread before and results in most unpleasant things.
I further have no reason to doubt the OP when s/he says that s/he has a great deal of experience working in prisons. I assume therefore that the OP has had some at least rudimentary training in exactly this subject – most contemporary prisons provide such training these days.
So I am still left with the question: why was it so important to the OP to illustrate his unique insight into the criminal mind in this way, to this audience?
I did not initiate a thread by saying that the contents of it were evidence of how “criminals are different from you and I”. You did. Now it may be that you have some personal use of the word “criminals” in which “criminal” = “psychopath” but if you have these little personal definitions you need to share them with the rest of the class. Otherwise it seems to me reasonable to say that “criminals” = “prisoners”. I assume further that you do not work in a detention center but in an actual prison where the inmates have all been convicted of something or other. I assume it because that is what you said.
Your later post does clarify things to some extent, and indicates that you were surprised by the conversation and that you were talking about this one guy. Good. But then you say:
And you seem to be saying that you got this on the strength of two sentences on the subject of a movie about organized crime. And then you go on to say that people in prison have murdered. Well, not exactly. Some people in prison have. And of course, some have not. And you want to keep pointing out that you have worked with these people (the murderers that is, the criminals, the ones who don’t care about human life or suffering) for years.
You know, all I have is what you say. And your language in talking about your experience suggests a certain way of looking at a class of people who are “criminals”. And also suggests wanting to talk to, if you like, civillians – people not in the world of criminal justice – in a certain way. My point is pretty simple – that’s a dangerous habit to get into as I think you very well know.
Marie, I no longer feel I have any responsibility for your continued misunderstanding of what I’ve been saying. I explained myself repeatedly but you seemed determined to believe what you wish in the face of all evidence. I’ve taken my best shot at your ignorance but I guess it’s bigger than both of us. But that’s your problem not mine.
I will continue to discuss this topic with anyone else that wishs to do so but I’m no longer going to read or respond to your posts in this thread.
Could you reiterate your point because I must indeed have missed it.
At first, based on your thread title, “To those who don’t think criminals are different than you and I”, I thought your point was that criminals are fundamentally different than people on the outside of prison.
But then you say:
So what I thought was your original point couldn’t have been it.
So then is your point this?:
And now since you’re only talking about one guy and not the general population of criminals and since you’re the only one surprised in this thread, are you just sharing a personal anecdote about your feeling about one incident in your work day?
You know, I am tickled by this post. So tell me, counselor, how do you reconcile this:
with this:
Because it seems to me that what you are saying is that you don’t care what mayhem a particular “frequent flier” may wreak on the populace, as long as, um, erahem, it doesn’t directly affect you personally.
Could you go over that fundamental difference between the “many criminals” and “you and I” (by the way guys, for future reference, I think it’s you and me you are looking for) one more time? 'Cause at least from here, it looks sort of very much the same.
Okay. But I think we both know that’s not true. You may be able to refrain from responding but I know you can’t resist. I see you reading this…BOO!
A lot of people don’t like to take responsibility for their own words, it’s not at all unusual. Really. And you know, my ignorance is so deep and so broad, it is such an all-encompassing abyss of ignorance, that I find myself in the position of the Fool in a Tarot deck: I don’t have the tiniest notion of what it is I am supposed to be ignorant about.
Unless it is why you would start a thread entitled “for those who think criminals are the same as you and I” and then proceed to claim that it’s obvious that you are not talking about “criminals” but about one particular person. I think you are talking about one particular person, actually. But I don’t think it’s either of the inmates.
I have a friend who produces pieces for A&E (crime stuff) and she once had to interview some guys who killed a couple girls and tossed them off a bridge. She interviewed their parents, as well. She said that the parent interview was painful for her because the parents were just normal people; not the kind that you would say made big mistakes that might have attributed to their children becoming murderers. They had no clue how their children came to be these horrible, callous people. I know there are signs that put kids in a high risk group (torturing animals, for one), but these folks said they had no knowledge of that sort of behavior. My friend said you could see that their souls were crushed. They just couldn’t make any sense of it.
Nemo, your thread title betrays your real feelings. No matter how much you try to explain it away, your thread title explicitly says that criminals are different from other people. You saying that you obviously didn’t mean that, and pretending that anyone who looks at your thread title and comes to the conclusion that you meant exactly what you said must be wallowing in the deepest depths of ignorance is amusing, but completely transparent.
The statement in the thread title is troubling coming from a prison guard but, sadly, not entirely unexpected based on my experience with people in the field.
I guess I’m in good company here - there’s a lot of bigots in this thread.
They all know me. Or at least they know somebody like me. Or maybe they just think they know somebody like me. But that’s enough - we’re all the same.
And it doesn’t matter what I say. They can see right through what I’m saying and know what I’m thinking. And if they look long enough they’ll find something that they can call evidence. And if it doesn’t fit the picture, well then, it must mean something else. Because what’s important is to find exactly what it is they expected to find every time.
I know, you’re shocked. You don’t think of yourself as being a bigot - you’re not prejudiced, you just have opinions. Prejudice is what those other people have - you know, those people - everybody knows they’re all a bunch of bigots.
pro·jec·tion (pr-jkshn)
n.
Psychology
The attribution of one’s own attitudes, feelings, or desires to someone or something as a naive or unconscious defense against anxiety or guilt.
No one has yet accused you of being a bigot or of being bigoted (other than you). Not in this thread anyway.
Nope again. I have quite clearly said that I do not know you or anything about you. But I do know what you say.
It does matter what you say. I assume that what you say is indeed what you think, or why bother with typing at all? And while I appreciate your concern about my time, it really didn’t take very long to read what you actually said.
The only person talking about “those people” in this thread is, again, you.
What I was attempting to say there was a variation on the oft-repeated statement about the message sent by the Texas death penalty: “If you’re going to kill someone, don’t do it in Texas.” If someone’s going to commit a crime, they’d better do it in another county, because here I will prosecute them. Elsewhere, I can’t.
Hope that’s clearer for ya.
The moving is fine by me, not the committing of crimes. My county is the only area I can affect; outside the border, I have no influence. I don’t see what’s so selfish about desiring a reduction in crime in one’s own neighborhood.
I used “you and I” because that’s the title of the thread. But, I couldn’t bring myself to use “different than” rather than “different from”; that’s a linguistic pet peeve of mine. One thing can possess more hotness than another, but one object cannot possess more “differentness” than another. “Different than”…grr. Grates on me.
I was pretty sure that something like that was what you meant but it struck me as funny and I couldn’t just pass it up.
I agree with you about what some folks refer to as the “stupid tax” (which would be, fines for misdemeanor offenses of various kinds). I think “helpless, hopeless and hapless” applies far more often in the criminal justice system than does “psychopath”.
