Psychopathology, delinquency and judicial accountability

The mental diseases they have been, over the years, an associated factor in the vast majority of crimes. However, this thinking is misleading in many ways. From the outset, it is necessary to bear in mind that not every criminal or offender suffers from a mental disorder, but also, It is worth emphasizing that not all mentally ill people commit criminal actsWell, even if there is a clinical diagnosis, there must be a causal relationship with the act.

As Vicente Garrido Genovés, a prominent Spanish criminologist, rightly mentioned, "That someone defies the essential principles that regulate our social life, forged over centuries, is not proof or sufficient reason to think that he is a madman or a degenerate patient". The question of criminal responsibility and imputability, regarding who commits a crime with a mental illness, has been a subject of constant debate and analysis for decades.

Today, in this article, We review the concepts of psychopathology and insanity, we also mention some of the mental disorders with the highest crime incidence.

Psychopathology: definition

The health encyclopedia defines psychopathology What “Study of the causes, symptoms, evolution and treatment of mental disorders. In a broad sense, Psychopathology also integrates knowledge about personality, pathological behavior, family structure and the social environment ".

They are mainly the psychiatrists and psychologists who are interested in this area, since they collaborate constantly with regard to treatment and research on the origin of clinical pictures, as well as their manifestation and development. While psychiatry deals with identifying signs and symptoms that come to be configured as syndromes, diseases or disorders and their respective treatments, psychology applies knowledge of mental processes, learning and social context to the understanding of various mental pathologies, from which other disciplines are derived, for example the psychotherapy.

Understand psychopathology, understand the criminal

We know that the main sciences interested in this area of ​​study are psychiatry and psychology. However, there are different disciplines that are involved with psychopathology to try to explain the complexity of human behavior; among them the criminology, whose main objectives are: find the reason for the various antisocial behaviors, understand their etiology and prevent their continuity.

Although since ancient times it was understood that social deviation could sometimes only be explained by individual internal phenomena such as emotions, moods and on occasions subsequent to an illness, it was until just two centuries ago, at the hands of jurists such as Lombroso and Garofalo (fathers of criminology) that law was introduced penal. The idea that the offender had no free willAn axiom of the positivist school of law, it held that most crimes were caused by a series of organic anomalies, including mental illnesses.

Thus, over the years and with the advancement of science and technology, it has been discovered little by little that phenomena such as criminal behavior have their etiology in the most diverse manifestations of mental pathologies, sometimes as a consequence of some neurological damage, at other times, the product of genetic inheritance. In this way, some of the most heinous crimes perpetrated thanks to psychopathology have been understood.

Unimputability

One of the main reasons why psychopathology is involved in the forensic field is to help clarify concepts such as criminal responsibility (to pay criminally for the crime committed) and unimputability (indicate that the person cannot be attributed responsibility for what is criminally accused).

Psychopathology can help us to clarify, on occasions, if someone who has perpetrated a crime carried out the act in full use of her mental faculties, or if on the contrary the fact was the result of her state of mental derangement of her (the result of a syndrome or mental disorder, for example) and, therefore, can not impose a penalty.

It will be a joint work of psychiatry, forensic psychology and criminology to use the knowledge provided by psychopathology to clarify whether an offender with a mental pathology committed his antisocial behavior with intention, capacity for discernment and freedom.

Some psychopathologies with a higher incidence of crime

Here are just a few of the most prevalent mental disorders criminogenic, we clarify that having such affectation does not always lead to conduct criminal.

• Paranoid schizophrenia (and other psychoses): mental illnesses characterized by presenting clinical pictures where the sense of reality, objectivity and logic is lost, the personality is disorganized and one has hallucinations and delusions. If it is also about paranoid schizophreniaUsually those who suffer from it have persecutory manias and suspicion about any subject, whether they are known or not. Sometimes these manias in which the subject feels persecuted in combination with his loss of contact with reality leads to various antisocial behaviors. An example is the famous case of The Sacramento Vampire who committed a series of heinous murders after being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.

• Antisocial personality disorder: it is estimated that between 25% to 50% of inmates in prisons suffer from this disorder. They are people characterized by a general failure to adapt to social norms and rules, dishonesty, mythomania, irritability, aggressiveness, and lack of remorse, among others features. This disorder is commonly referred to as psychopathy. We reserve the right to list all possible crimes that the antisocial subject can carry out. On the question of his inimputability, the most diverse debates are still generated about whether the psychopath in question is capable or not of discerning between good and evil.

• Bipolar personality disorder: it is a mood disorder characterized by an increase and decrease in activity expressed in mental state prevalent and characterized by the presence of one or more abnormally high energy and mood episodes that fluctuate between euphoria and depressive episodes; so that the sufferer oscillates between the phases of mania (excitement, delusions of grandeur) and depressive phases. During the manic phase, the subject may experience sudden impulsivity and aggressiveness that can sometimes manifest itself in criminal behavior. In contrast to the depressive phase in which the decrease in neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine can cause the subject to want to attempt against his own life.

• Borderline personality disorder: also know as borderlinde disorder or disorder personality borderline. The DSM-IV defines it as "A personality disorder characterized primarily by emotional instability, extremely polarized and dichotomous thinking, and chaotic interpersonal relationships". It is often said that those who suffer from this disorder are on the border between neurosis and psychosis, and even many authors describe the symptoms of this disorder as "pseudopsychotic". The crime can sometimes arise when there are very brief psychotic episodes, however, generally said subjects are capable of understanding the illicit nature of their acts.

• Disorders of impulse control: group of disorders characterized by poor or null control over their impulses that leads them to perform almost uncontrollable actions, a increased emotional tension before committing an act, pleasure in committing the action, and a post-act feeling of regret or culpability. Those mentioned here are the ones most commonly related to criminal conduct. TO) Intermittent explosive disorder: characterized by extreme expressions of anger, often to the point of uncontrolled rage, that are disproportionate to the circumstances in which they occur, which can lead to crimes, particularly directed against property and integrity physical. B) Pyromania: disorder in which the person feels compelled to see and produce fire, which can sometimes end in catastrophes that can include the lives of many people. C) Kleptomania- Irresistible urge to steal various objects, regardless of whether they are of value or not. The kleptomaniac does not seek to profit from theft, he only takes pleasure in doing so.

Bibliographic references:

• Mendoza Beivide, A.P. (2012). Psychiatry for criminologists and criminology for psychiatrists. Mexico. Editorial Trillas.
• Núñez Gaitán, M.C.; López Miguel, J.L. (2009). Psychopathology and delinquency: Implications in the concept of guilt. Electronic Journal of Criminal Science and Criminology (online). 2009, no. 11-r2, p. r2: 1 -r2: 7. Available on the Internet: http://criminet.ugr.es/recpc/11/recpc11-r2.pdf