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Introduction to Forensic Psychology - Summary
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A summary of 13 out of 20 articles for the course Introduction to Forensic Psychology.
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InhoudsopgaveBadness, madness and the brain – the late 19th -century controversy on immoral persons and
their malfunctioning brains................................................................................................................1
Risk-need-responsivity model for Offender Assessment and Rehabilitation......................................4
The good lives model and conceptual issues in offender rehabilitation.............................................6
Biosocial studies of antisocial and violent behaviour in children and adults: a review.......................9
The Evidence for a Neurobiological Model of Childhood Antisocial behaviour................................11
Adolescence-Limited and Life-course-persistent antisocial behaviour: a developmental taxonomy
..........................................................................................................................................................11
Male antisocial behaviour in adolescence and beyond....................................................................11
A fundamental attribution error? Rethinking cognitive distortions..................................................12
The Moral Judgment of Juvenile Delinquents...................................................................................16
Similarities and Differences in Impulsive/Premeditated and Reactive/Proactive bimodal
classifications of aggression..............................................................................................................17
Human aggression............................................................................................................................18
The Response Modulation Hypothesis of Psychopathy....................................................................21
Characterizing the value of actuarial violence risk assessment........................................................24
Badness, madness and the brain – the late 19th -century
controversy on immoral persons and their malfunctioning brains
Felix Schirmann
Abstract
In the second half of the 19th-century, a group of psychiatric experts discussed the relation between
brain malfunction and moral misconduct. In the ensuing debates, scientific discourses on immorality
merged with those on insanity and the brain. This yielded a specific definition of what it means to be
immoral: immoral and insane due to a disordered brain. In this context, diverse neurobiological
explanations for immoral mind and behaviour existed at the time. This article elucidates these
different brain-based explanations via five historical cases of immoral persons. In addition, the article
analyses the associated controversies in the context of the period’s psychiatric thinking. The
rendering of the immoral person as brain-disordered is scrutinized in terms of changes in moral
agency. Furthermore, a present immoral person is discussed to highlight commonalities and
differences in past and present reasoning.
William Bigg: killer of animals, torturer of his siblings and molester of girls. Diagnosed in the 1880s
with ‘moral insanity or congenital defect of the moral sense’. A psychiatric expert linked immorality
and neurobiology. The goal of the article is to trace the scientific discourses in the late 19 th century
that led to this association.
Pinel (1806) introduced mental diseases that afflicted the emotions. Insanity was not just intellectual
defect, but also affective disturbances. Concepts of mental disorders surfaced. Immorality was not
being possessed by the devil, or being against the law, or something social, it was a mental disorder.
Immoral persons became test subjects in psychiatric experiments and psychiatrists began to testify in
court. Multiple biological theories of mental disorder coexisted, heredity being the dominant one.
,Lombroso’s doctrine of the born criminal and the alleged visibility of immorality in how the body
looked was a legitimate explanation to some. Closely connected to the theory of heredity was
degeneration. This implied that criminals inherited their criminality, but they also worsened with
each generation.
Distinct brain-based explanations also emerged. Phrenologists Gall and Spurzheim put forth a theory
of human character based on bumps and shallow parts in the skull (indicating the brain). This theory
went out of fashion in the course of the century but this was the basis of directing certain brain parts
to certain functions.
Exemplary cases of immoral persons
William Bigg
Mutilated and killed animals from a young age. Tortured younger brother with a knife. Punishment
didn’t seem to work. He was sent to a penitentiary when he was 16 and then sent to an asylum. Once
discharged in his 20s, he cut the throat of a horse and on the same day raped a girl. He was
sentenced to death but this sentence was transformed into imprisonment for life in an asylum. He
got out twice and was reinstated each time again. He was diagnosed with moral insanity, which in
the beginning meant emotional insanity but throughout of the 19 th century the term’s meaning
changed and attained an ethical connotation. Tuke surmised his higher functions of the brain were
compromised and his lower, more barbaric functions were left uncontrolled.
Charles J. Guiteau
The shooter of president James A. Garfield after a life of villainy. His trial was as much Guiteau’s as it
was a trial of the definition and causes of insanity and immorality. Spitzka examined Guiteau’s brain
and found abnormalities (‘The shape of his head and his face, and certain indications of imperfect
brain development … of the facial muscles, asymmetry of the face and pronounced deviation of the
tongue to the left’). The jury considered Guiteau sane and guilty.
Jane Toppan
Poisoned several employees. After the homicides, she took loving care of some of her victims
children and expressed intimate condolences to the bereaved. She apparently was unable to feel
guilt. She had led a credible life, was never found guilty for some incidents she had been found
involved in and did not have early-onset bad behaviour. She lied and was very manipulative. In trial
she was sentenced to an asylum. Here she developed delusions. No skull abnormities were detected,
but Stedman pointed to Toppan’s corrupted family, so hereditary appeared to be the issue. Folsom
suggested the presence of a defining biological feature.
Patient E.
Offspring of well-respected and healthy family. Despite this, E was recalcitrant and incorrigible from
early age. Withdrawn and uncommunicative, but as gifted at inventing stories that soon could only
be classified as lies. Punishments didn’t help. He was institutionalized from his late teens. He was
subsequently diagnosed with moral deficiency due to defective brain organization, minor bodily signs
of degeneration. E did not have conscience or compassion. Bleuler allowed for environmental
influence, he did believe it was brain disorder. Especially in the cortex.
Christiana Edmunds
, The chocolate cream poisoner. One murder and one attempted murder. Her intellect was fine, but
she felt no hesitation or remorse. She had a degenerate family. She got a completely brain-based
explanation for her immorality. Cerebral aberration.
What we can easily see in these cases is that the context of the analysis (evidence, justification and
theories) varied. That’s why the interpretation of an immoral person’s condition was controversial.
Brain-based explanations for immorality
Tuke clearly stated a neurobiological mechanism. Maudsley viewed Edmunds as at the mercy of her
malfunctioning brain, but he did not state an explanatory mechanism. Bleuler identified the cortex to
have the function of morality, but did not explain how morality was compromised in E.
Attempt to localize morality were scarce and contested. Experts also differed in the degree of
cerebral determination that they recorded.
Evidence for immoral brains
The methods to assess the brain were limited. Skull measurement was dubious (used for Toppan),
and technology of that time did not grant access to the living brain. Autopsy resulted in ambiguous
results. There was always a lack of evidence. Brain disorder was assumed rather than observed, but
despite these controversies, cerebral dysfunction remained a compelling explanation for immorality.
Immorality as mental disorder
Not just the causes, but immorality as a medical condition was hazy. Moral disorder was attributed to
varying cases with carrying characteristics. Terms about this disorder were commonly used but
experts differed in their understanding of the conditions. There was a debate about whether morality
could be impaired in isolation or whether the intellect too was always affected. The degree and
severity of a person’s immorality led to another problem. Experts questioned if immorality was an
additional symptom or a main symptom of brain-based insanity. Conditions and their potential
cerebral causes were ill-defined.
Immorality versus criminality
If immorality and eventually criminality were neurological diseases and if the diseased had to be
pardoned, all criminals could claim this and avoid punishment. It was very difficult to distinguish
between a disordered person and a criminal.
Rethinking immoral persons in terms of bad brains
Thinking of immoral persons in terms of disordered brains altered what it means to be immoral. The
anthropological status of an immoral person was augmented, resulting in a hybrid whose ethical skill
is partly determined by neurobiological factors. Responsibility, culpability, punishment and custody
came into a new light.
A new controversy: A contemporary case
Brain Dugan: kidnapper, rapist and murderer. Neuroscientist Kent Kiehl examined Dugan’s brain with
fMRI and testified that its pattern of activation resembled those of psychopaths. In the century
between Dugan and Bigg, neurobiological views on the immoral person did not play a major role in
science. However, in recent years these views became fashionable again.
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