As a psychiatrist writing a forensic profile, Strange is not formally a forensic psychiatrist whose main criminological responsibility would be to evaluate competency to stand trial or claims of mental illness in insanity defense cases, nor does he regularly work as an offender profiler. Offender or criminal profiling, known by many names, involves identifying an offender’s demographic and individual characteristics, including signs of specific mental illness, from crime scene evidence and behavior reported by witnesses. Profiling had a long history before it had a name, as early as George Bagster Phillips and Thomas Bond’s efforts to profile Jack the Ripper.8 Since the FBI built its profiling program in the 1970s, a wide range of techniques have emerged, with five main approaches that vary in the manner and degree of emphasis on statistical probability, scientific method, deductive versus inductive reasoning, perspective-taking, training, and guesswork:
Criminologists, psychologists, and psychiatrists like Strange (well, psychiatrists—nobody’s just like Hugo Strange) use personality profiling to construct a picture of the offender’s likely personality traits and personal history. With criminal investigative analysis, the FBI’s method, law enforcement officers trained in profiling review crime scene patterns and indicators and draw from interviews with past offenders to estimate the type of organized or disorganized offender likely to have committed the crime. Investigative psychology, conducted primarily by academic psychologists and criminologists with no investigative training, provides a fresh perspective by using typologies and past empirical studies to construct profiles. Behavioral evidence analysis emphasizes deduction and critical thinking, integrating more forensic psychology and scientific hypothesis testing into the process. Geographic profiling analyzes neighborhood characteristics and crime scene locations on the map to identify travel routes and determine where the offender is likely to recreate, live, and work.9
Criminal profiling depends on fundamental assumptions that (1) the crime scene reflects the perpetrator’s personality, (2) the modus operandi stays noticeably similar over time, (3) so does the signature, and (4) so does the personality. The instrumental modus operandi (meaning method or mode of operation, M.O.) is the criminal’s standard method of committing a crime, the actions the person uses in order to make that crime happen. As part of his M.O., the serial killer Ted Bundy often wore a cast or sling to look like he was harmless and in need of assistance before he would force a woman into his car. A noninstrumental signature, actions not necessary for committing the main crime, puts the offender’s “own personal stamp”10 on the crime.11 Leaving a playing card after committing a murder does not help the Joker commit or try to get away with that misdeed. It boldly declares his ownership of the crime. Repeat offenders, especially serial and spree offenders whose crimes serve emotional more than instrumental needs, produce patterns in their actions most suitable for profiling because their cases seem to reflect the offenders’ psychopathology.12
Criminal profiling has grown as a profession, and critics of criminal profiling have grown loud. Like some stockbrokers, sportswriters, and professional psychics, profilers may point to their hits, their accurate predictions, while failing to note the frequency of their misses. They may defuse criticism by saying, “I’m not always right,” without confirming how often they are right. Retrofitting can occur, retroactively interpreting new facts and selectively remembering or misremembering details of a prior prediction to say these new facts prove the prediction.13 Inter-rater reliability rates would be helpful: Will two different profilers looking at the same crime scene information without consulting with each other develop similar profiles? Individual criminals do not fall into neat typologies where those who show one set of behaviors consistently match each other on other behaviors.14 Actions do not necessarily reveal specific motivations. “The fact is that different offenders can exhibit the same behaviors for completely different reasons,” says Brent Turvey, a forensic scientist critical of the FBI’s approach.15 Many forensic psychologists and psychiatrists express skepticism, calling for more empirical validation,16 with the majority in one survey believing it’s simply not scientifically reliable or valid.17 The profilers themselves cannot see eye to eye with their field, riddled as it is with contradictions and disputes.18
Locking onto an innocent suspect who fits a profile (a false positive) upends that person’s life and delays identification of the true culprit. In contrast, investigators can overlook a guilty person erroneously when that offender does not match the profile (a false negative). Jumping to conclusions locks the expectations of investigators in a way that can be difficult to overcome. Because discovering that we have erred jostles our worldview, we do not easily give up our beliefs even in the fact of contradictory evidence (belief perseverance), a fact that saves Bruce Wayne for a time while Strange sticks to his assumption that a wife’s murder must be what drives Batman but, once Strange discovers that it had instead been Batman’s parents who died, means that Strange hangs onto his belief that Bruce is Batman for a long time. Giving up that belief comes so hard for him that doing so contributes to Strange’s mental breakdown.
Notes
1. Secret Origins trade paperback (1989).
2. Batman: Year One (1987).
3. Batman Begins (2005 motion picture).
4. Choy, Fyer, & Lipsitz (2007).
5. Rosenberg (2008a).
6. For example, Gotham Central #1–2 (2003).
7. Menzies & Parker (2001); Stein & Matsunaga (2006).
8. DSM-IV-TR, 445.
9. Sternthal (1974).
10. Petty (1997).
11. Maddux & Rogers (1983); Rogers (1983).
12. Stukas, Snyder, & Clary (1999).
13. Baumrind, Larzelere, & Owens (2010).
14. Gershoff (2002); Marshall (2002).
15. Dillard & Anderson (2004).
16. Kassin (2008); Kassin, Meissner, & Norwick (2005).
17. Kassin, Appleby, & Perillo (2010); King & Snook (2009).
18. Inbau & Reid (1967); Inbau, Reid, Buckley, & Jayne (2001).
19. Beune, Giebels, & Taylor (2010); Bull & Milne (2004).
20. Kassin et al. (2010); Leo & Ofshe (1998).
21. Kassin et al. (2007).
22. Kassin et al. (2010).
23. U.S. National Academy of Sciences (2002); Weiner, Johnston, & Lewis (1995).
24. Vergano (2002).
25. Kleinmuntz & Szucko (1984).
26. National Research Council (2002); Saxe, Dougherty, & Cross (1985).
27. Ben-Shakhar (2008).
28. Maschke & Scalabrini (2005); Penn & Teller: Bullshit! television series (July 23, 2009), season 7, episode 5, “Lie Detectors.”
29. Arrigo & Wagner (2007).
30. Janoff-Bulman (2007).
31. Ross (2005).
32. Janoff-Bulman (2007), 430.
33. Dratel (2006); Suskind (2006).
34. Bowden (2007); Cialdini (2001); McCauley (2007).
35. Hogan & Emler (1981).
36. Janoff-Bulman (2007).
37. Batman #633 (2004).
38. U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation (n.d.).
39. Sternberg (2003).
40. Hallett (2004).
41. Kaczynski (1995).
42. Dawes (1991).
Case File 5–1: Scarecrow
1. World’s Finest Comics #3 (1941).
2. Batman #189 (1967).
3. Batman: Gotham Knights #23 (2002).
4. Detective Comics #571 (1987).
5. Batman #457 (1990).
6. World Health Organization (2004).
7. Romero & Butler (2007).
8. Bunting, Tolson, Kuhn, Suarez, & Williams (2000).
9. Stein, Seedat, & Gelernter (2006); Van Ameringen, Mancini, Oakman, & Farvolden (1999).
10. Monteleone, Santonastaso, Tortorella, Favaro, Farbrazzo, Castaldo, Caregaro, Fuschino, & Maj (2005).
11. Machado & Einsarson (2010).
12. Dell’Osso,
Buoli, Baldwin, & Altamura (2010).
13. Lee & Keltner (2006).
14. Czerner (2002).
15. Siegal (2005); Siegel, Bhatt, Bhatt, & Zalcman (2007).
16. Davis & Whalen (2001); Myers (1964); Roberts & Nagel (1996).
17. Itoi & Sugimoto (2010).
18. Schachter & Singer (1962).
19. Bryant & Miron (2003).
20. Myers (2008).
21. Batman #262 (1975).
22. Feinstein et al. (2010).
23. Blackest Night #4 (2009).
Case File 5–2: Hugo Strange
1. Detective Comics #46 (1940).
2. Detective Comics #471 (1977).
3. Detective Comics #472 (1977); Batman #356 (1983).
4. Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #11–15 (1990).
5. Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #137–141 (2001).
6. Batman: Gotham Knights #8–11 (2000–2001)
7. Grey (1992). See also Ed Wood, 1994 motion picture directed by Tim Burton.
8. Smithkey (1998).
9. Helfgott (2008).
10. Keppel & Birnes (1997).
11. Douglas (2006); Keppel & Birnes (1997).
12. Holmes & Holmes (2002).
13. For example, see Donald Foster’s (2000) evaluation of James Brussel’s Mad Bomber profile.
14. Alison (2011).
15. Gladwell (2007); see also Turvey (2008).
16. Goodwill, Alison, & Beech (2009); Schlesinger (2009).
17. Torres, Boccaccini, & Miller (2006).
18. Gregory (2005).
6
The “Superstitious, Cowardly Lot”
Criminal Nature
“Criminals are a superstitious, cowardly lot. So my disguise must be able to strike terror into their hearts! I must be a creature of the night, black, terrible.”
—Bruce Wayne, Detective Comics #33 (November, 1939)
Are criminals really a “superstitious, cowardly lot”? When the main person who can say what’s going on inside a criminal’s head is that same criminal, who may mislead out of sheer habit, who might not even understand his or her own thoughts and motivations well enough to share them, and who will say whatever it takes to shirk responsibility, we should be wary of trusting even our best source, much less our own guesses. From observations of their behavior and the skills they demonstrate in specific situations, including the errors that lead to their arrests, we know that many criminals demonstrate poor problem-solving skills and difficulty applying logic. For example, delinquent youth favor ineffective solutions when evaluating problems in social situations.1 The kinds of cognitive weaknesses Batman hopes to exploit when he decides to prey on their superstitions have already impaired their ability to generate nonaggressive solutions, conceive of legal ways to get the things they want and need, and then keep themselves from getting caught.
But cowardly? Which requires greater fearlessness, doing the right thing or breaking the law? Nervous, fearful individuals on average commit fewer crimes. Low fear of punishment reduces the effectiveness of some deterrents against crime—not only potential incarceration but the risks involved along the way—and may therefore predispose fearless individuals like extraverts and psychopaths to take risks and seek thrills the fearful might not pursue.2 Batman Begins’ Scarecrow might succumb to his own fear toxin, but The Dark Knight’s Joker and The Dark Knight Rises’ Bane each demonstrate abnormal deficiencies in ability to feel fear.
Cowardice and superstition aside, is Batman’s assumption that criminals share common traits right? What is a criminal personality?
Out of the different personality factors most thoroughly examined over thousands of studies, extraversion (the personality dimension that includes outgoing, assertive behavior and social fearlessness) correlates most strongly with lawbreaking actions. “Because extraverts have higher needs for excitement and stimulation to break the daily boredom, they are also most likely to run counter to the law.”3 Extraverts (people high in extraversion) are less afraid in general than are the more reserved, less outgoing, and less sociable introverts. Fearlessness should give extraverts greater capacity for both criminal and heroic behavior. Lack of inhibition characterizes both extraversion and psychopathy,4 which we’ll look at shortly, but extraversion and psychopathy are different personality dimensions.5 Introverts as easily as extraverts can have shortcomings or strengths in the areas of empathy and moral concerns,6 even if extraverts more easily act out the riskiest impulses or those most likely to impact others. Attending more to the external environment than their own inner experience, extraverts predominantly seek gratification from outside themselves. Introverts occupy themselves and stay out of other people’s way. Introverted fiends exist, of course. Serial killers Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy may have been charming, outgoing fellows, but think how often a serial or mass murderer’s neighbors say, “He was a quiet sort, kept to himself.”
Extraversion and sociability are separate dimensions. Extraverts include likable social butterflies as well as sadistic social predators. For the Joker and Penguin, committing a crime with no audience would be pointless. They don’t always understand people as well as they think they do, especially not the better part of human nature, nor do they generally care about anybody else’s welfare aside from the Penguin’s devotion to his mother,7 and yet they love social gatherings and public demonstrations, habitually seeking gratification from others, as is typical of extraverts. The Riddler, who also loves attention and can be quite the showman onstage, lives to beat others, but takes less interest in other people’s activities and lives. Fearlessness and consciousness of others can help the shapeshifter Clayface impersonate others where nervousness and lack of extrapersonal awareness would interfere with even the most conscientious introvert’s performances.
Introverted loners like the more reclusive Mr. Freeze, Mad Hatter, and Poison Ivy dislike crowds and avoid social interactions for long periods of time. Until a beautiful woman named Nora tries with limited success to bring him out of his shell, Victor Fries contents himself with his studies during the years before he becomes Mr. Freeze. The Mad Hatter shows less interest in people than in their hats. Likewise, Poison Ivy grows up compensating for her social paralysis by occupying herself with non-human, nonjudgmental plants that can’t reject her. Unable to relate to others and uninterested in developing better social skills, both the Hatter and Ivy resort to manipulating others via mind control to get what they want.
The extraversion-introversion factor, instead of presenting a strict dichotomy where a person is clearly one or the other in every single situation, presents a broad range of qualities with most people showing a mixture of extraverted and introverted traits, even if one main pattern dominates. Extraverted Harvey Dent is an outgoing district attorney until tragedy makes him resent his own basic nature and he tries to withdraw from everything he previously valued. One might argue that many of Batman’s other foes are introverts who overcompensate for their social shortcomings by attacking the society they never fit into. Regardless of individual designations as extraverts and introverts, the villainy of all the major Bat-foes grows out of their respective social interests and resentments. Why else would they commit their crimes wearing outrageous outfits?
The Roots of All Evil: Some Theories on Crime
Batman and Psychology: A Dark and Stormy Knight (Wiley Psychology & Pop Culture) Page 12
