The Criminal Man; 14; The Roots of Criminality

What kind of personality problems cause criminal behavior? How do these problems arise? Here are answers to these and similar questions. The criminal man, the series of television studies of how and why people commit crimes and of what to do about it. Your guide for these studies of the criminal man is Dr. Douglas M. Kelly, professor of criminology at the University of California. In this session of our series, Dr. Kelly will continue a study of personality problems and character defects in relation to crime. He calls the study the roots of criminality. This is the arrest record of a recidivist, repetitive criminal. Joseph R., age 26, male, white, American, the usual data. It doesn't include the fact of course that he's highly intelligent or does show he had two years of college.

It doesn't show that his dad is a very prominent industrialist. His mother is an eminent, widely known clubwoman. It does show that he's had 36 arrests though in the last 12 years. Arrests for offenses ranging from drunken disorderly, assault, armed robbery, burglary, aggressive assaults. It shows that he spent nine of the past 12 years in reformatories, prisons, jails. And he's on his way now to prison for the next five. Why is this? Why is Joseph R a repetitive criminal? There's nothing about alcohol, narcotics, no indications of mental illness and his family background seems reasonably normal. No problem there. What is he? Joseph R actually is what we call a character defect, a character defect of the sociopathic type.

In order to understand him, we have to consider his total personality. In the last two discussions, we've been concerned with personality pattern development. For example, in one hypothetical approach to the problem, a modified Freudian version, we postulate that people begin life with a certain amount of energy. Eros and Thanatos, love, hate, tender-mindedness, tough minds. The capacity for friendship, the capacity for any social action. And that these two streams of energy flowing through life are first controlled by paternal and maternal controls. And in the it or unconscious, the streams are pretty pure. But that as the child develops a super ego is formed, and this super ego has certain locks, bars, or floodgates,

which represent controls from within. And these controls in the normal child are reinforced by the teachers, and ego the perceptive self, then is presented to the outside world. And as the child goes along his ego structures, his controls to some degree are modified by his associates. And he has another set of controls, controls which protect his ideals from the outside. So that we find all through the individual, breaks or control mechanisms. Now the human being is psychological part, doesn't come with built-in breaks, they have to be developed. And as he develops these breaks are developed first by the parents, and the controls then by the teachers, to some degree by the associates.

And as they're developing, he goes through another type of developmental phase, the psychosexual one. He starts life, of course, as an infant, when we call this the infantile phase. And then as he gets to be four or five, he gets into the narcissistic period, a period during which time he's more concerned with himself, in his home and his toys and his things, than he is with the people around him. And then he begins to relate a little better to other people, he begins to break out of himself, and his iras or love is channelized into attachment for his parents. Freud called this the edible, that is the attachment of the boy for the mother, or the electra, the attachment of the girl for the father. And these attachments are perfectly normal, the first glimmerings of attachments to other people. And then he begins to attach to people of the same sex, and we call this the homosexual phase.

I should stress this doesn't mean any connection with sexuality as some people use the word. Freud used the term sexual to merely connot a liking for an emotion about a friendship with. So that little children going through the gang period, now begin to break away from home, their first loves, and gradually learn to love people of the same sex. And then finally as they reach maturity, we have heterosexual interests. Here the child begins to attach to people of the opposite sex in a normal fashion. The average person manages to get through these phases pretty well. He has as an adult a certain amount of residual of each one, all of us have a little infantility. When we're unhappy sometimes we like to overeat, to oral sort of thing.

And all of us have a fair amount of narcissism, a certain amount of self-centeredness. This is good. It permits us to, for some certain things, stand on our own two feet, to have confidence in ourselves. And all of us have some attachment to our parents, and a certain amount of attachment for friends of the same sex, and a large residual of heterosexual achievement. Now this normal developmental phase is what happens with most people. Unfortunately some individuals seem to stay childish. We say technically they are fixed in the narcissistic, or the editable, or somewhere in between. And these individuals grow up physically, and they grow up intellectually, but from an emotional interpersonal view they act like children. They have certain general characteristics of children, that is they're more self-centered.

Whenever they're frustrated they explode impulsively with aggression against their surroundings. They live in a fantasy world just like a little children. And they live in a sort of all or none-thinking pattern. I'm right and you're wrong. And this childish kind of behavior appearing predominantly as the behavior pattern of an adult permits us to classify them as a character or a developmental defect. An individual who simply has grown up bodily, intellectually, but not in the psychosexual, emotional sphere. And so we find that an individual behaving in this way may get into trouble. And the next question of course, what fix is he? Why is he in this particular area? What's happened to keep him here? And we find that while there are many causes, in psychological thinking,

no one thing hardly ever causes any specific, total personality pattern. While there are then many causes, they can be separated into two generally big groups roughly speaking, the problem of under protection or over protection. Now by under protection we mean simply that the child just grows up. He has a certain amount of eros and thantatas, but the paternal and the maternal controls simply aren't there. Perhaps it's a broken hole, one parent's away. Or perhaps it's a home in which the parents are too busy to pay any attention to the child. With a result nobody trains him to develop these super ego and other controls. He sort of has gaps in his control gate. And through these holes, flow, pure aggression or affection, uncontrolled to confound the person in his interpersonal relationships.

Conversely, he may be overprotected. Obviously, if there isn't anybody to form an edipler or an electric attachment with, no parent through whom to attach, he won't form any. But if the parent is there, and the parent overprotects him and insists he remains childlike, then again, he is unable to mature. And we find a fairly large number of persons who are smothered rather than mothered. And these individuals remain constant children. Strecher and his interesting books on their mother's sons and their father's daughters liken this to a permanent silver umbilical core. A mother or a father who can't see the child grow up because of a neurotic love must maintain them in immaturity lest they escape from his home.

Obviously, a normal person grows up and does get away from home, forming new external heterosexual attachments. And so if we have under protection, that is no opportunity for the child to learn controls. Nobody around to teach it. Nobody with whom he can set up a normal relationship from a parental child view. We have a tendency to remain permanently childish. And on the other hand, if we have a situation where the mother or father won't let them grow up, will not permit them to get past the narcissistic or childlike phase. Again, we find this pattern of permanent childishness, even though the person grows up intellectually and physically. Now, of course, in concerning this problem of overprotection and under protection, the next question is, what does it do?

What kind of a person is yielded? And we find that a person who is overprotected or underprotected, so he remains childish, are not always criminals. As a matter of fact, most of them aren't. For example, a child who gets to the, say, early edible phase and then is not permitted to develop, but who started life with a very small amount of hostility and a large amount of passive tenderness, may wind up as a sort of passive person. This individual won't be a criminal, but he may address society in a passive way. If he wants something, he hurts. And then, of course, they get it for it. Or he just sits around and gets in the way and causes trouble. These people generally attach to a spouse or some relative in sort of a barnical fashion. They're certainly not criminals, but they do make up a large percentage of our welfare population,

and a fairly high percentage of people who are completely dependent, passive, and highly immature. Then again, if an individual is fixed in the childish level, the controls may have been too rigid, and the basic drives can't get through. And in these individuals forced into super-rigidity by over-strict and frequently hostility aggressive parents, we find a neurotic kind of development. These people, again, are childish. They may be fixed in either the narcissistic or the edible levels, and their childishness is manifested again by varying symptoms. They may be obsessive, have to do things over and over again, or think of obsessive thoughts. And we find some criminality in this area, the kleptomania, for example, and obsessive thief, fits this particular group. But these people, although you do find neurosis as a cause for some repetitive burglars,

neurosis as a cause for some repetitive thefts, again, are not very important criminologically. The real problem is the person, again, fixed in this area, who has a large, sanatotic, or hatred component. The individual now pours out his aggression, and in his childish personality becomes a hostile sociopath. We call him a sociopath because it means sick in relation to society. He really is a character defect. He's not mentally ill, and he's not intellectually defective, but he has certain childish behavior patterns, and that these childish patterns are shown in his interpersonal relationships. For example, his self-centeredness, making one to do things for his own pleasure, without concern for others.

His impulsiveness makes him carry out whatever comes into his mind whenever it comes into his head. And this kind of an individual will then address society whenever the whims strikes him. His all or none attitude, I'm right, all the world is wrong, permits him to go on his weary way without learning from prior experience. And here we have a description of the person we talked about earlier Joseph R. He was an individual who didn't have any family. He had a family, but his family were too busy. His father making a lot of money, and his mother in a club and other work, to spend time with him. He had a large, sanatotic component. He never got past the narcissistic phase. And so in this individual, we find a typical character defect of the sociopathic type. Our next problem, of course, is what sort of situations, what causes these fixations.

Again, there are many. No one situation ever causes anybody to remain childish. But there are a number of things which, if repeated, over and over as part of the child's life, may eventually cause a permanent childlike attitude when he becomes an adult. This sort of thing is very important to know about. And one of the simplest, of course, is to watch a little child sucking its thumb. If we look at a child sucking its thumb, we find that that's about all it does, just sits. This situation could, of course, have been caused by all sorts of things. But one of the commonest is just a lack of parents to whom it can attach. It might be a broken home, or it might well be a home in which the parents are just too busy to pay any attention to the child.

So the only thing it has to love is itself. And it takes its little hand and it puts it in its mouth, and it sort of goes round in the circle. The love is never directed outward. The child never learns to love other people. Another situation of this type can occur in which the child is still all alone, although the parents are present. If, for example, you have an alcoholic father, the child may well be unable to get any attachment to dad with the result. But like the other child, he's turned back upon himself. The ego ideal, a normal father should provide for a young boy, is lacking. And this child simply will withdraw, turn inward on himself, and remain again a little more childish.

Another very common cause of difficulty is the problem we term sibling rivalry. Rivalry between children and a family. We feel this is pretty normal because all children, of course, to some degree, have to compete for the limited total affection available from their parents. But if the problem is poorly handled, the parent does not share his defection. But rather selects as an object of affection, one specific child. Then we find the other children, again, unable to set up a identification patterns with the parent, unable to attach to the parent, and hence, again, unable to learn to love. It's this lack of learning to love we see then that is one of our real troubles, the child is just left loving himself.

But competition rivalry does just exist in children's affection for parents. Many times we see the same kind of rivalry in parents for children, where two parents, neuratically inclined, are completely unable to let the child go. You would think perhaps that he was surfated with love. But as a matter of fact, the constant demand of both parents splits his attention. And again, he turns inward, unable to get his love out in a developing adult-like fashion. And so we see that under protection yields a lack of learning to love. And if a child does not learn to love, he will probably learn to hate. And then we have a hostile type of adult. Another common type of under protection, which simulates over protection, is shown by the parent who is constantly demanding achievement of his child.

The parent will rationalize that really what he wants is to teach the child how to do his best, but really what the parent wants is his own self-centered feeling of achievement in the child's success. This kind of approach again leads the child feeling helpless, under-protected, and he has no under-love. And thus we see in under-protection the real problem is the lack of teaching the child how to love other people, how to get his eras out so that his love flows forth rather than be directed inward so that his self-centered. Over-protection, too, does this same sort of thing. Over-protection, as a matter of fact, is maybe just as bad or worse than under-protection. For example, occasionally a mother, having a neurotic attachment to a child, will be so afraid of losing his love that will she will permit all sorts of hostile, aggressive acts.

She's unable to punish the boy in other way, in any way, and she just takes it, thereby again depriving him of any opportunity to learn control. Again, we see the same sort of thing in parents who take their children's parts in various kinds of antisocial activity. Sometimes a one child will assault another. And then the parent will not only attempt not to teach him not to do this, but rather will support him, perhaps even aggressively assaulting the father of the smaller child who has already been addressed. Again, in these instances, we find that over-protection prevents the child from learning any kind of control system. Instead, the thing the child does that is antisocial is reinforced by the parent's behavior, and instead of learning rights of others, he simply learns to laugh at them.

This sort of thing is particularly clearly seen in parents who protect their children when they commit overt antisocial acts. Maybe not very much, he steals only, perhaps, a box of cookies. But instead of attempting to teach him to respect property, the parent merely laughs it off and then pays the shopkeeper. He of course is reasonably happy to get his money, but here again the child is deprived of a chance to learn to respect others' rights. If he doesn't learn this as a child, he probably never will. We also see, of course, over-protection again in the broken home. Here you might think of under-protection, but frequently when a spouse is separated, she will feel better against her husband and convert all the love she should have had for the husband into the child. In effect, the child really becomes a sort of combination child and husband.

And this mother then, of course, will be unable to control him because again she will be fearful of losing her last love object, and again he will tend to remain permanently childish. We've seen then that over-protection and under-protection demonstrated in a myriad of ways are some of the major causes for fixation in childish areas. Let me stress that single instances of these types, or even multiple instances, ordinarily don't produce adult childishness. The problem is inherent only when the pattern of behavior is continuous in the developing period of the child's life. In a nutshell, then, we find that children have to learn two things. First, they have to learn to love. Their basic capacity for love, Eros, has to be let out and let out first through the parents,

eventually in the children of the same and then opposite sexes. And if the Eros is not turned out, then the Eros will remain turned in. And you have a child who loves himself, who is interested only in himself, not in others. And this, of course, represents a permanent childishness. The second factor is the necessity to control the hostility or the aggression. And this must be done by teaching controls. If the child never has a chance to learn control, why should he ever act as if he had any? If a child is permitted to assault other children, to not respect persons, or if a child is permitted to address property, to steal, vandalize, and destroy things belonging to others, then again, when this child grows up chronologically, there's no reason to expect that he should act any differently.

And so we find that growing up is a learning process, a learning to love, and a learning to control our hatred. And if we fail to learn to love, we've seen in our discussion that the child will remain narcissistic, loving himself. And if we fail to learn to control our aggression, we've seen he may wind up socially hostile, associate battle. Overdriving at any of these points, of course, over rigidity and training may occasionally yield a neurotic. But I firmly believe that in a culture as tightly knit as ours, it's reasonable to take a chance. And if you have to err to perhaps err a little bit in attempting to teach your child to get along, rather than give him a completely free hand permitting him to do as he pleases. Of course, in order to do this, there has to be some parents around.

Remember we've seen some of the major causes for underprotective fixation is simply a lack of persons who a child can develop a normal parental attachment. This means that a parent must not only love their child, but more important, a parent must be around long enough to have time to show the love for the child. This I realize takes time, but I think we should recognize that children are our responsibility, our responsibility to rear into adults. They're not given to us as playthings, they're not given to us for our musements, and we don't have our children simply to keep them childish. We have our children to rear, to be around, to teach, to train, to love in a mature fashion that they may learn to love materily, and to train in a mature fashion that they may learn to act materily. Joseph R. is parents' failure, and persons whose parents have failed to do this sort of thing are fairly numerous. They make up the bulk of our repetitive criminals.

These are the people we call character defects of the sociopathic type. We've considered how they developed, we've considered why they developed, and in our next discussions we'll consider the various kinds of clinical patterns, the syndromes and pictures they can portray as we continue along in our search for the causes of the criminal man. The criminal man, the series of television studies of the nature and patterns of criminal behavior. Your guide for these studies of the criminal man is Dr. Douglas M. Kelly, professor of criminology at the University of California, physician, psychiatrist, and police consultant. Appearing in the cast for this program, we're Henry Leff, Bobby Lyon, Mark Leff, Deborah Waldeer, and Michael Waldeer.

The assistant producer for the criminal man is Ernest Zunino. This is National Educational Television. The assistant producer for the criminal man is Dr. Douglas M. Kelly, professor of criminology at the University of California.