Antisocial personality disorder

While criminal behavior is a hallmark of individuals with this condition, it is insufficent to be using such a diagnosis, especially a diagnosis with so many negative connations.

People correctly diagnosed as anitsocial do not just violate the law, they dismiss all laws as irrelevant. They view the world in a qualitatively different way than most of us.

Antisocial folks look at people who are polite, respect the law and generally act in an adult way as 'stupid sheep'. They know they are smarter than everyone else, and are sure that the general public does not understand them (or maybe just envies them.)

Antisocial people feel no remorse, have no real conscience. They do not like being punished, but feel no pain or regret.

People like Ted Bundy and other "otherwise normal looking" criminals fit this mold. They are not "crazy" in the sense of: "hearing voices or thinking they are God"

In the movie The Last Seduction, a female antisocial character is talking to her lawyer on the phone, in a flat, atonal way. (Not angry, just bored, as she puts one former lover into jail and another into bankruptcy at the same time.)

Lawyer: One question, OK?
woman: Sure.
Lawyer: Anyone checked you for a pulse lately?
woman: Whatever.

Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD) is characterized by irresponsibility, dishonesty, impulsiveness, bad temper, lack of emotional depth and conscience, and lifelong antisocial behaviour. Researchers of the University of Southern California have studied 21 men who were all diagnosed with the disorder, all of them having committed serious violent crimes. Using brain-imaging techniques, researchers discovered that the antisocial men had an 11%-14% reduction in the volume of nerve cells in the prefrontal cortex compared to normal males. This region seems to house the mental gear that enables most of us to gather moral awareness and to exercise discipline.

Previous research has shown that violent criminals have poor functioning in that region, located just behind the eyes. The new findings demonstrate that a physical abnormality resulting in Antisocial Personality Disorder may underlie the poor functioning in these violent antisocial men and that society may have to rethink how it regards violent crime, punishment, and the scope of free will.