Criminal Minds
Predatory Mind

An enlightening view into the heart of darkness: the treachery of Criminal Minds, what tricks might be up a predator’s sleeve, and how to beat him at his own game.

Webster's New World Dictionary dispatches the word evil in 11 lines. But psychiatrists have devoted thousands of words to the topic. They've explored what evil is, what kind of people do evil things, and what can be done to prevent evil. ... At a meeting of the American Psychiatric Association they're developing a "depravity scale" based on a survey about criminals' intent, actions and attitudes. Participants decide whether an act is especially, somewhat, or not depraved. They've identified factors that push ordinary, "good" people to do bad things: obedience to authority, anonymity, diffusion of responsibility, indoctrination, and dehumanization of the enemy. Eventually, the Depravity Scale will be pruned to a smaller number of items about which there is widespread agreement. Some examples:
• Intent to emotionally traumatize the victim, through humiliation, maximizing terror, or creating an indelible emotional memory (such as causing a child to witness a violent crime).
• Prolonging the duration of a victim's suffering.
• Targeting a victim because he or she was helpless.

Some psychiatrists argued for a lower threshold for defining evil, as behavior that deprives people of their humanity.
Excerpted from The Philadelphia Inquirer – 23 May 2002

PSYCHOTICS are delusional (hear and/or see hallucinations), usually exhibit unpredictable, often frenzied behavior, and don’t know right from wrong (legally insane in most states). Psychosis is defined as fundamental mental derangement (such as schizophrenia) characterized by defective or lost contact with reality. According to Indianapolis police Captain Robert L. Snow, author of "Protecting Your Life, Home, and Property," one extreme psychotic killed a cop then was shot nine times while still maniacally trying to kill a second cop until a tenth bullet shattered his pelvis and kept him on the ground.

One way for an unarmed victim to survive such an attack is to “outcrazy” the attacker. Fight fire with fire by unleashing the "animal within” (see Optimal Mindset). Fight with the utmost ferocity and the most brutal of Fighting Options, such as blinding and crippling him then escaping.

That may sound preposterous, but what other tools do you have? Time and again, victims with no tools almost prevailed but their efforts fell just a bit short. Just in case, learn the simple but powerful tools. Even if you lose after all, it’s better to go out with a roar rather than a whimper. Besides, you may well win if you give yourself a fighting chance, See Acting.

Duke Medical Sociologist Dr. Jeffrey Swanson says, "People with mental disorders are three times more likely to commit violent acts than others. It's also true that the large majority of people with mental illness are not violent.”
Excerpted from WRAL.com NC – 17 April 2008

Although most rampaging mass-murder shooters are psychotic, very few psychotics are dangerous. In fact, psychotics comprise far less than one percent of all violent offenders. Most psychotics simply aren’t capable of the coherent cunning of a criminal mind’s stealthy hunting.

PSYCHOPATHS

Psychologists estimate that one in every 100 people is unfeeling enough to qualify as a psychopath, with an especially heavy concentration among criminals. The ranks include serial killers as well as a great many others who never commit a crime punishable by law, but go through life abusing and manipulating others without remorse. ... In essence, said professor Robert D. Hare of the University of British Columbia [widely considered the world's foremost authority on psychopaths], it appears that ''emotion for the psychopath is like a second language,'' one he or she must struggle to speak and never master deep down. Emotions for psychopaths are abstractions, much as they are for Data or Mr. Spock on ''Star Trek,'' he said. ... As for treatment, past research has shown that most conventional treatment, like group therapy, only makes psychopaths worse; it seems to train them in manipulating people and faking emotions.
Excerpted from The Boston Globe – 15 July 2003

Experts on criminal minds say that psychopaths, while having an extreme mental disorder, are legally sane. With a core, aggressive narcissism and psychically isolated from other people, they believe they’re entitled. They lack a conscience, thus never feel guilt or loyalty. Without compassion for others – the essence of humanity – they easily deceive and harm those within the larger population of trusting folk.

Most of these extreme egoists don't have violent criminal minds, such as swindlers, tyrannical bosses, promiscuously unfaithful lovers, and (knowingly) disease-infected sex partners – and often become successful in business, politics, or the military. To a lesser degree, everyone is necessarily self-interested but the psychopath's criminal mind is the ultimate selfish brat.

If you work in an office, watch out - your boss or the person sitting next to you could be a psychopath. They may not be violent, the New Scientist magazine warns, but their character traits are identifiable as psychopathic and they're helping them climb the corporate ladder. ... According to Professor Robert Hare, an expert in psychopathy at the University of British Columbia, Canada, "corporate psychopaths" are ruthless, manipulative, superficially charming and impulsive - the very traits that are landing them high-powered managerial roles. ... And while they may thrive in high pressure environments, they can also harm the companies they work for and make life a misery for their co-workers, throwing fits of rage, blaming others when things go wrong, and taking credit for other people's work.
Excerpted from CNN – 26 August 2004

Predatory killers often do far more than commit murder. Some have lured their victims into homemade chambers for prolonged torture. Others have exotic tastes - for vivisection, sexual humiliation, burning. Many perform their grisly rituals as much for pleasure as for any other reason. ... A few forensic scientists have taken to thinking of these people as not merely disturbed but evil. Evil in that their deliberate, habitual savagery defies any psychological explanation. ... A trained examiner rates the offender on a 20-item personality test. The items include glibness and superficial charm, grandiose self-worth, pathological lying, proneness to boredom and emotional vacuity. ... The psychologist who devised the checklist, Dr. Robert D. Hare, a professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, said that average total scores varied from below five in the general population to the low 20's in prison populations, to a range of 30 to 40 - highly psychopathic - in predatory killers. ... "There is a group we call lethal predators, who are psychopathic, sadistic, and sane," Dr. Hare said. "What I would say is that there are some people for whom evil acts are no big deal."
Excerpted from The New York Times – 08 February 2005 [Presumably then, the criminal mind of any predator – from a petty thief to a cannibal – will rate somewhere from 6 to 40 on the psychopath scale.]

BEWARE THE PSYCHOPATH
Psychopaths are master manipulators, investing notable energy and skill in creating and then preserving their masks. Their masks are successful because they tailor them to their targets, lying to get what they want. ... How can we be fooled? The positive first impressions psychopaths make are prone to last far too long because it is human nature to trust our initial judgments of people. We also want to give people the benefit of the doubt. We filter in information that supports our initial impressions, and filter out facts that don’t fit. Should any doubt arise in our minds, the psychopath has a convincing explanation that soothes any concerns we may have.
Excerpted from The Meeting Professional by Paul Babiak, Ph.D. at www.HRBackOffice.com – co-author of “Snakes In Suits: When Psychopaths Go To Work” with Dr. Robert D. Hare.

People who deal with the criminal minds of psychopaths have observed another shared quality, one not on Dr. Hare's psychopath checklist or easily measured. There is something different about their eyes. The gaze of the extreme psychopath is disquieting, even frightening, and has been described as cold or penetrating, empty, reptilian, not quite human.
Excerpted from The Hartford Courant – 18 December 2005

"Do I feel bad when I hurt someone?" a rapist and kidnapper told a psychiatrist. "Yeah, sometimes. But mostly it's just like. . . uh. . . (he laughs). I mean, how did you feel the last time you squashed a fly?" ... Such people are not ill. Their criminal minds simply lack the moral faculties which the vast majority of us take for granted. Their salient characteristic is that they are phenomenally selfish. They can be charming when it suits their interests, and they are brilliantly effective at manipulating others. They are not fragile individuals. They have a hard, tough, solid personality structure that is extremely resistant to outside influence. Indeed, they have proved themselves masters at manipulating those required to assess and "change" them. ... To take one recent example of a criminal mind: Paul Beart was convicted in 1998 of a brutal sexual assault. He was sentenced to five years for it. He quickly persuaded prison officials who wanted to treat him that he was suitable for a rehabilitation course. He seemed to complete the course successfully and so was released two years early. Within months of that release last year, Beart sexually assaulted and murdered Deborah O'Sullivan, a woman whom he picked out at random.
Excerpted from The Daily Telegraph (UK) editorial by Alasdair Palmer – 25 August 2002

Psychopaths comprise up to 25 per cent of the U.S. prison population, and up to 4 per cent of the general population. Since a psychopath’s main defect is “concealed” – with an absence of easily readable signs – its diagnosis is controversial. Thus, psychopathy isn’t included as a disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders of the American Psychiatric Association. Instead, the more general Antisocial Personality Disorder (A.P.D.) applies to criminals who commit a broad range of aggressive crimes.

SOCIOPATHS (often confused with psychopaths) have a criminal attitude, behavior, and moral code shared by their social group – usually a street gang, ethnic faction, religious sect, cult, or element – that rejects the laws and morals of the larger society in which they reside. Actually, a person could be both a sociopath and a psychopath.

Whether egregiously violent criminals are psychopaths, sociopaths, or A.P.D.'s, it's easier to simply consider them to be evil. See "WHAT IS EVIL?" at the top of this page. Also see Rapist Types and Victim’s Options.

Many compassionate Pollyannas make the mistake of Mirror Imaging - projecting their own values and beliefs onto twisted criminal minds, believing that violent predators are merely helpless victims of tough lives who simply need a helping hand.

Yet most people who’ve had tough lives have not chosen to be violent predators. Being dealt a lousy hand in life may help explain why someone has the criminal mind of a callous predator, but excuses nothing. A tough life simply isn’t a valid excuse for committing a crime, otherwise millions more people with hard-luck stories would have license to wreak havoc. Most poor people and most people who’ve had a troubled childhood do not commit violent crimes.

Though all criminal minds prey on others, only a minority of them choose to become violent predators. They are not to be pitied – their victims are. They blithely choose to inflict harm on others, either for personal gain or for the twisted thrill of a godlike power of life and death.

According to a New York City undercover cop who spent twenty years on the street: "What people don't understand is that there are street criminals out there now who have the criminal minds of irretrievable predators that just get off – it's like a sexual experience – on people's pain and on people's crying and begging and pleading. They get off on it. They love it. They don't have any sense of morality."
Excerpted from "Cops" by Mark Baker.

A visiting world expert on the link between animal cruelty, child abuse and criminal minds says if the early warning signs had been picked up, the sadistic murders of three women might never have happened. ... According to Professor Frank Ascione of Utah State University, convicted serial killer Paul Denyer's childhood progression from slashing a kitten's throat to animal mutilation and his eventual murders was "a classic case" of unnoticed abuse of animals escalating to serious crime. ... Vets in New Zealand and Britain are allowed to report non-accidental animal injuries without fear of prosecution but their Australian and US colleagues cannot. ... Professor Ascione's studies in Utah have shown that more than half of violent and sexual offenders interviewed had a history of childhood animal abuse. As young as 10, Denyer's behaviour was troubling. He would stab and slash his five-year-old sister's teddy bears, leaving white stuffing spilling out of their bodies. "The ability to destroy the stuffed animal is symbolic of destroying something that someone else loves," Professor Ascione said. ... But when Denyer's attention switched to animals, the alarm bells really should have started ringing. "There might have been elements of rehearsal in what his criminal mind was doing and likely a process of desensitisation to the process of the victim."
Excerpted from The Age (Melbourne, Australia) – 24 July 2004

“Cruelty to animals and the link toward other violence has been well-documented for centuries,” said Diane Balkin, a Denver prosecutor who lectures on the nexus between animal torture and the criminal minds of serial killers. “The best predictor of future violence is past violence. Anyone capable of being cruel to something that is vulnerable, that cannot speak, and that provides unconditional love — has something really wrong.” ... “We find among violent offenders — serial killers, serial rapists — at least 50 to 60 percent had evidence of a childhood history of cruelty to animals.” said Randall Lockwood, of the Humane Society of the United States. ... Lockwood interviewed serial killer Keith Hunter Jesperson. “He said there was not much difference between killing a cat and killing a person, except it was easier to kill a person - by luring them into a trap. ... For him there is a sense of empowerment,” Lockwood said. “He said when you have your hands around the throat of a puppy, cat or human, you get to be God. There was no greater rush for him than that.”
Excerpted from Snitch, Louisville KY – 07 May 2004

"I took the most valuable thing, human life," Russian serial killer Alexander Pichushkin said. "I didn't take anything else of value from them. Money, jewelry, I didn't need it. I felt like God."
Excerpted from Reuters – 25 October 2007

These devils-in-disguise are the fiends and monsters of legend. Chameleon-like, their criminal minds manipulate their prey to gain life-and-death control over them and delight in their victim’s begging for mercy and cowering in fear.

"It cannot be called ingenuity to kill one’s fellow citizens. ... By these means one can acquire power but no glory."
Excerpted from The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli – 1513

A predator commits appalling crimes, but always chooses easy targets and uses sly lures to his traps, then launches sneaky attacks. His criminal mind ensures his total domination by leaving little, if anything, to chance.

Sure, he may seethe with anger and even welcome token resistance to further his sadistic pleasure, but nevertheless he carefully avoids any real challenge to his total control over a defenseless victim. “They never go after weightlifters,” said former FBI agent and expert on the criminal minds of serial killers Robert Ressler. A truly brave man is too proud of his self-image and respected reputation to behave so cowardly by choosing easy targets.

Ultimately, a predator is much like the pugnacious yet fainthearted schoolyard bully but older, bolder, and with a more treacherously evil criminal mind. And therein is the key to surviving a life-and-death confrontation with him.

You must prevent anyone from getting near you – or isolating you – in a secluded location (as described in Outdoor Safety - Overview). You must act to escape his trap by explosively attacking him before he attacks you (as described in When to Fight).

Far from a superman, he can be badly injured or even killed by your self-righteous fury and the fighting methods in Fighting Options - Overview. You must “go animal!” on him. Adopt a rabid pit bull attitude - imitating the most vicious dog you've ever seen - and become his worst nightmare by attacking him with a maniacal ferocity. When it’s time to “do-or-die,” you’d better do – your will to survive must surpass his will to kill you.

Anyway, what other choice do you have? When someone’s trying to kill you, your best bet – your only chance, your only hope – is to not whimper, but to fight with the utmost ferocity. See Optimal Mindset.

Enhancing Your Options
Pepper Spray & a Noisemaker visibly ready will greatly enhance your first option – Posturing as a tough target – and probably deter a predator immediately. Your fifth option – Fighting – is enhanced as well.

For convenience, learn self-defense ONLINE:

KRAV MAGA, a practical self-defense system used by many police forces worldwide, teaches you to defend yourself, enhances your survival instinct, and can be applied under extreme stress. It's not flashy, just very effective. I highly recommend it. The Krav Maga TV - Online Training videos are especially convenient to learn at home when your schedule allows or if you don't live near a training center.

Blow away your naiveté with:
• Criminal Minds - Overview of the treacherous mindset of the predator you’re facing and what tricks might be up his sleeve.
• Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: friendly predators you'd never suspect.
• Quick Tricks: insights into sleight of hand and physical bluffs that criminal minds use to bamboozle you.
• Mind Games: how master manipulators control you like a puppet on a string.
• Intuition: trusting your early-warning survival system.
• Predator Profiles: robber's, rapist's, and killer's criminal minds.
• Predatory Mind (YOU’RE NOW ON THIS PAGE): an extraordinarily enlightening view into the heart of darkness - and how to beat him at his own game.
• Recap of Criminal Minds.
• Security Products - Overview

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