Psychopathology, delinquency and judicial imputability

What mental disorders are most commonly associated with criminal behavior?

Mental illness has been, over the years, an associated factor in the vast majority of crimes. However, this thinking is misleading in many ways. First of all, it should be borne in mind that not every criminal or delinquent suffers from a mental disorder, it is worth noting that not every mentally ill person commits criminal acts either.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 sufficient proof or reason to think that he is a madman or a degenerate patient".. The issue of criminal responsibility and imputability, with respect to those who commit a crime with a mental illness, has been a topic of constant debate and analysis for decades.

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

Psychopathology: definition

The health encyclopedia defines psychopathology as "The 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 social environment.".

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

Understanding psychopathology, understanding 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 criminology, whose main objectives are: to find the reason for the various antisocial behaviors, to understand their etiology and to prevent their continuation..

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

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

Inimputability

One of the main reasons why psychopathology is involved in the forensic field is to help clarify concepts such as criminal liability (to pay criminally for the crime committed) and unimputability* (indicating that the person cannot be held criminally responsible for what he/she is accused of).

Psychopathology can sometimes help us to clarify whether someone who has committed a crime performed the act in full use of his or her mental faculties, or whether, on the contrary, the act was the result of his or her state of mental derangement (the result of a mental syndrome or disorder, for example) and therefore cannot be sentenced.

It will be the 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 intent, capacity for discernment and freedom.

Some psychopathologies with a higher incidence in crimes

The following are just some of the mental disorders with the highest incidence of crime, although it should be noted that having such a condition does not always lead to criminal behavior.

• Paranoid schizophrenia (and other psychoses): mental illnesses characterized by a loss of sense of reality, objectivity and logic. clinical pictures where the sense of reality, objectivity and logic is lost, personality is disorganized and there are hallucinations and delusions.personality is disorganized and there are hallucinations and delusions. If it is also a case of paranoid schizophreniausually sufferers have persecutory manias and suspicion about any subject, known or unknown. Sometimes these manias in which the subject feels persecuted in combination with their 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 people with between 25% to 50% of inmates in correctional facilities suffer from this disorder.. They are characterized by a general failure to adapt to social norms and rules, dishonesty, mythomania, irritability, aggressiveness and lack of remorse, among other characteristics. This disorder is commonly referred to as psychopathy. We reserve the right to list all the possible crimes that the antisocial subject can carry out. On the question of its unimputability, the most diverse debates are still generated as to whether or not the psychopath in question is capable of discerning between right and wrong.

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

• Borderline Personality Disorder: also known as bordelinde disorder o disorder borderline personality disorder. 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 sufferers of this disorder are on the borderline between neurosis and psychosis, and many authors even describe the symptomatology of this disorder as "pseudopsychotic". Crime can sometimes arise when very brief psychotic episodes occur, however, such individuals are usually capable of understanding the illicit nature of their actions..

• Impulse control disordersA group of disorders characterized by poor or no impulse control leading to almost uncontrollable actions, increased emotional tension before committing an act, pleasure in committing the act, and a post-act feeling of regret or guilt. The ones mentioned here are the most commonly related to criminal behavior. A) Intermittent explosive disordercharacterized 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 those directed against property and physical integrity. B) Pyromania: disorder in which the person feels driven to see and produce fire, which can sometimes end in catastrophes that can include the lives of many people. C) KleptomaniaThe irresistible impulse for the theft of various objects, regardless of whether or not they are of value. The kleptomaniac does not seek to profit from the theft, he/she only feels pleasure in doing it.