Juvenile Psychopaths

When most people hear the word psychopath their mind forms a picture of a wild-eyed, rambling, lunatic who is often restrained in a straitjacket. The media has helped this belief along the way with slasher horror films and grisly CSI episodes depict these strange humans. However, the average psychopath is much harder to spot than most people believe. In fact, most of them are extremely difficult to distinguish from ordinary humans. They outwardly appear normal and many do not find it difficult to blend into common society. They can interact with others, hold successful jobs, and effectively keep themselves out of trouble. Most are not the sadistic killers many people think they are. Psychopaths are people born with problems (Bartol 105) or

Psychopathy is a personality disorder; a psychopath is a person with this personality disorder. The one aspect of psychopathy that continues to amaze me is that people think of these individuals almost like unicorns. They think they will be able to spot them because of their physical appearance. And of course this is not so. Psychopathic individuals look just like me and they look like you. Terms like “monster” or “evil” have no behavioral meaning, and their implication is that the psychopath is not a human being. Psychopaths are human beings, but they are human beings with a callous lack of guilt for their actions and a stunning lack of empathy for their

Definition of psychopath is someone who with a sociopathic personality; a person with an antisocial personality disorder.

The four categories used to assess the individuals in question are interpersonal traits, affective traits, lifestyle behaviors, and antisocial behaviors. Based on their results, they have evaluated which traits and behaviors can be attributed to psychopaths. The interpersonal traits of psychopaths, or traits that are apparent when the psychopath interacts with other people, include glibness, inflated ego, pathological lying, manipulative behaviors, and superficial charm. In addition, psychopaths respond emotionally to their wrongdoings with a lack of true remorse or guilt and a flat or shallow affect, along with a failure to accept responsibility and the absence of empathy. These are known as affective traits, and can be associated with the fact that psychopathic serial killers do not value human life, and are often cruel and heartless when dealing with their victims.

The direct definition of a psychopathes is someone who is mentally unstable. Psychopaths are known for their originalities in murderers. Even in the media psychopaths are portrayed a crazy people who are locked up in the most secure prison in the world. But the things is they know what their doing and know the outcome

Sociopaths are begrudging and restful having been emotionally denied when young. They also do not feel empathy or sympathy toward strangers but do toward those they care for and are loathe to hurt those in their inner circle (Mountjoy). They are quick to display anger, nervousness and act out in an inappropriate manner without regard to consequence. Sociopaths are deemed by some the result of societal and environmental factors. Psychopaths are thought to be born with compromised genetics and have negative temperament, poor judgment, lack social responsibility, guilt, anxiety and shame and unlike sociopaths, have no empathy, sympathy or remorse often with family members or those in their sphere of so-called love (Mountjoy).

Hirstein researched many different sources and condensed the information down into a core list of traits which are listed as follows: Uncaring, Shallow Emotions, Irresponsibility, Insincere Speech, Overconfidence, Narrowing of Attention, Selfishness, Inability to plan for the Future and Violence. Psychopaths seem to have a tendency to be selfish and overconfident in themselves since they usually make themselves the center of everything while not caring about anything that others do as long as it doesn’t affect them. Since they don’t care about anyone else, this usually leads to Irresponsibility,Shallow emotions and Insincere speech towards others. They also tend to be unable to plan for the future since they usually only focus their attention on the here and now since it’s hard for them to look past everything that goes on around them. Psychopaths are also well-known for being quite violent since they have a low tolerance for frustration and are irritable in most

Throughout this paper, there will be a number of studies done on criminals, offenders, and children in order to determine ways of identifying psychopaths through causes of psychopathy. In the article “Investigations of Criminal and Conditional Release Profiles of Canadian Federal Offenders as a Function of Psychopathy and Age,” Birt and her associates conducted a study on over 300 Canadian federal offenders, with around 90 being identified as psychopaths. They identified the psychopaths through a test called The Psychopathy Checklist-Revised or PCL-R. After identification, they defined whether the crimes were violent and if so, which type of violence (647). To complete their study, they made sure to follow the offenders’ behavior once they

In the past years, there have been hundreds of cases reported of children committing horrible, unthinkable crimes. It is hard to believe that anyone, especially children, could ever commit such horrendous acts. Whether or not a child who commits such a malicious crime is an actual psychopath or not is a common asked question. As soon as the public finds out that a malicious crime has been committed by a young child, they could easily assume that the child who committed the crime is psychopathic and will be for the rest of their lives. But is it possible that someone who commits a horrible crime as a child could grow up and realize what they did was wrong, and feel remorse for what they have done in the past? We have to consider what behaviors the child had shown before and after they had committed the crime, and what motivated the child to commit the crime, before we permanently label them a psychopath. All of the information in this paper was based off a review of literature. The review of literature was retrieved from various experts such as Carl Jung, Jacqueline Stenson, Christian Keysers, Ryan Schill, Paul Mattaiuzzi, and Katherine Ramsland. This review of literature indicates that not all children who commit such crimes can automatically be labeled a psychopath and that they are able to grow up into adults that exhibit normal behavior.

Trying juveniles as adults will deter other juveniles from committing violent crimes. They must be fully mindful of their behavior and should understand their actions. If they are held accountable for their actions, other juveniles will see this as a deterrent. Criminal choices made by juveniles are treated to a lesser degree than that of an adult offender for reasons like their unformed character (Steinberg & Scott, 2003). The juvenile's behavior is out of character, and decision-making capacities are impaired by emotional disturbances, mental illness, retardation,

A psychopath is traditionally defined as someone with a personality disorder characterized by persistent antisocial behavior, impaired empathy and remorse, and bold, disinhibited, egotistical traits. In society, psychopaths display specific characteristics such as lack of empathy, which may identify and explain how they respond in certain situations.

Most of the time, Psychopaths are very hard to distinguish from the general population. Many of them are exceptionally good at maintaining a functional social life. Socially integrated psychopaths are like reptiles. To be unnoticed, they have ways of blending into their surroundings. Sometimes, they are very educated, and often, their come from middle or upper-class families. They are verbally skillful being able to carry almost any type of conversation.

Psychopaths are prevalent in almost every aspect of life. They are at school, in the office, and at the grocery store. People view psychopaths as socially removed and isolated, but many with psychopathic traits lead normal lives with their own quirks. Functional psychopathy has become more and more normalized, as it has been featured in different aspects of pop culture. Many people hope to break the stereotype associated with psychopathy in order for society to become more inclusive of mental disorders, and also to educate more people about psychopathic behavior through popular shows and movies.

This paper explores research conducted within the Psychology classroom and is a review of literature. The material covered will discuss terminology used as well as review concepts learned regarding psychopathic tendencies found in children. A statement has been made that not all children who commit malicious crimes are psychopaths, and three main points were addressed to decide whether the statement was true or not. The first point discusses the early signs of psychopathy and what behaviors children with psychopathic tendencies obtain. The second point of the paper discusses what events can take place in early childhood that could possibly influence young children to commit such violent crimes. Finally, the last key point of

Accounting for a small portion of the population, psychopaths have distinguished characteristics. They can be charming and likeable, yet at the same time be egotistical, short-tempered and impulsive. The most significant trait that exists in psychopaths is their lack of guilt, empathy, or emotion in general. For instance, after committing crimes, they will remain indifferent and lack remorse (Hare; Bower). The cause