There once was a forensic psychologist
Who came across as quite the apologist:
"The arsonist, you see,
Simply yearns to be free --
Hence, burning all the walls - if you get my gist."
Forensic Psychologist’s Limerick
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Category Archives: Crime
Slovak Limerick
There was a young man from Slovakia who wheedled his way into the mafia, but he couldn't run smack or conduct a "whack." So, he trafficked fake caviar from Sofia.
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Limerick of the Kenyan Burglar
There was a chill burglar from Kenya who, as he worked, listened to Enya. It lulled him to sleep, a sleep far too deep. He woke up where burglars, they send ya.
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On Intrusive Thoughts & Shoving Someone in Front of a Train
The other day I read that a man had pushed a person onto the tracks in front of an oncoming train. The week before that, I'd read in a book by Robin Ince that a person who -- having had a baby thrust into his hands -- has intrusive thoughts of throwing said baby out of the nearest window is [believe it, or not] the best person to ask to hold one's baby. The argument goes like this, the person having these intrusive thoughts is being intensely reminded by his or her unconscious mind that under no circumstances -- no matter what unexpected or unusual events should transpire -- is he to throw the baby out the window (or otherwise do anything injurious.) I've heard that, at some point, virtually everyone has some type of awkward intrusive thought such as the thought of pushing a stranger in front of a train. Most never do it, nor truly want to do it. Then this one time... someone did.
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BOOK REVIEW: Cocaine Coast by Nacho Carretero
Cocaine Coast: A Luis Bustos Graphic Novel by Nacho CarreteroAmazon.in Page
Out: September 28, 2021
This is a graphic novelization of a journalistic account of smuggling in Galicia, a jagged coastal region of rocky inlets to the north of Portugal. This region’s entrance into smuggling began not with illicit drugs, but rather with cigarettes that were bootlegged to evade taxation. However, it wasn’t long before it was discovered that this supply chain could be exploited for illegal drugs, notably Columbian cocaine. The Columbian cartels would become a major player in the region and Galicia would become the single biggest entry point for cocaine into Europe.
This mix of graphic novel and journalism is a bit strange, but it does have its advantages. For example, maps and drawings of the coast offer a sense of how geography played into smuggling operations. The art combines a gritty style optimal to the narco- world, but with some beautiful layouts. And, the art does a good job of conveying the changing time periods, as this book covers decades of activity.
I found the book intriguing, with many insights into the hidden world of narcotics smuggling in a location that is famed for its natural beauty. There is a prose appendix that is also compelling. It discusses the response to the book (by criminals, police, and the general public, alike) and what impact that response had (and / or didn’t have) on smuggling in the region. If you’re curious about the business of narcotics trafficking, you’ll likely find this an interesting read.
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BOOK REVIEW: Murderous Minds by Dean A. Haycock
Murderous Minds: Exploring the Criminal Psychopathic Brain: Neurological Imaging and the Manifestation of Evil by Dean A. Haycock
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book examines what neuroscience can tell us about the psychopathic mind, and how that compares to what other disciplines – such as psychology and genetics – have been telling us. This is no simple task because there remains a great deal of disagreement about what psychopathy is and how it relates to other behavioral conditions, like sociopathy.
The book begins with front matter (a Preface and an Introduction) that sets the stage for a reader who may have only a vague and Hollywood-inspired notion of what psychopathy is and who may confuse it with any number of psychiatric conditions.
Chapter 1 builds intrigue and offers a narrative introduction to psychopathy by telling the story of the architects of the Columbine shooting, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris. The Columbine shooting gives the reader an ability to compare and contrast, because the two shooters had quite different psychological profiles. The chapter also uses the case of Jared Loughner, a Tucson shooter who killed or wounded almost twenty people – most famously Congressional Representative Gabrielle Giffords.
Chapter 2 dives into the controversial questions of what a psychopath is, how effectively can psychopathy be measured, and how it compares to conditions that have the same or similar symptoms. The obvious point of comparison is Sociopathy, about which a controversy remains as to whether it’s a distinct condition. However, the more interesting comparison is to “Kunlangeta,” which is a term from an Inuit tribe. The Kunlangeta – psychopathy comparison gets to the fact that aberrant behavior isn’t new. It’s just how these actions are viewed and responded to that has changed.
Chapter 3 describes the strengths and limitations of brain imaging as a tool for understanding the psychopath. We find that neuro-imaging has revealed tendencies – notably a reduction of gray matter in parts of the frontal and temporal cortex. However, we also discover that there remains much to be learned.
Chapter 4 is entitled “A Problem Behind the Forehead” and it continues the discussion of the neurological connection to psychopathy – particularly by considering the case of Jim Fallon (the neuroscientist who stumbled onto the fact that he had the brain of a psychopath — not to be confused with the late night talk show host.) The consideration of Fallon’s case foreshadows a discussion that is detailed in Chapter 8 about psychopaths who function just fine in society and who don’t kill people with axes.
Chapter 5 examines competing explanations for psychopathy that are more likely to be complementary to neuroscience than competitors – notably genetics and childhood abuse. This chapter highlights the fact that criminal psychopathy has complex causes and there is as of yet no single silver bullet that links to psychopathic behavior.
The idea in chapter 5 leads nicely into the next chapter (ch. 6) which considers to what degree we have enough (or will ever have enough) information to be able to predict who is likely to engage in bad behavior. Is a real world “Minority Report” scenario likely in which someday we’ll be able to know who’s going to commit violent felonies before they do (at least for some cases.)
Chapter 7 explores the most notable symptoms of psychopathic behavior, including the inability to empathize and a lack of fear.
Chapter 8, as mentioned, explores the fact that not everyone who has psychopathic traits runs afoul of the law. In fact, many lead productive lives running companies or performing surgeries.
The next two chapters reflect upon questions that may be of great interest to readers. Chapter 9 asks whether one can become a psychopath late in life. In other words, once one has lived out an abuse-free childhood, grown a fully developed brain, and reached an age where the relevant genes have or haven’t flipped on is one safe? Or, is there some way – an injury or ailment, perhaps – that one might become the victim of adult-onset psychopathy? The penultimate chapter asks whether one’s child might be a psychopath in the making.
The last chapter discusses how criminal justice works if it turns out that at least some individuals commit crimes because they got a bad brain. While there may be controversies over the death penalty, most people feel at ease with harsh sentencing and with locking convicted criminals away for life. However, if some individuals had no choice but to do what they did by virtue of a brain defect, it’s much harder to be confident one has taken a fair and reasonable course of action.
There’s a brief epilogue which presents a common fixture in science books: the scholarly rant about how the field is underfunded.
The book has a number of color and black-and-white graphics including photos, diagrams, brain scans, and brain cross-section pictures. There’s a recommended reading section in addition to the bibliographic notes. I read the Kindle version of the book, and it had excellent hyperlinks for the notes as well as in the index.
I’d recommend this book for anyone who is interested in the question of the degree to which brains determine who engages in criminally aberrant behavior. The author uses stories of famous cases of psychopathy to present a book that is very readable and doesn’t get lost in scientific minutiae. It’s a quick and fascinating read.
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BOOK REVIEW: Narconomics by Tom Wainwright
Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel by Tom Wainwright
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
“Narconomics” is about how drug cartels are taking pages from the playbooks of big businesses like Walmart and Coca-cola. In cases like diversifying into new markets or deciding to collude with a competitor, this might not seem surprising. However, it may come as a shock to find out about the franchising and CSR (corporate social responsibility) practices of drug cartels. Other than being outside access to the justice system, and thus resorting to violence to achieve what contracts, mediators, and courts would do for other businesses, the drug business it turns out is very much a business.
Along the way a secondary story emerges that is just as interesting and even more important. It’s the story of how the drug war makes no sense from the standpoint of economic logic. Destroying fields in South America only makes for poorer farmers because their monopsonistic (i.e. single buyer) market pushes the cost of lost crops back onto them. And because raw product is such a tiny portion of retail price, their destruction has almost no effect on prices at the user end. Furthermore, as more US and European states legalize marijuana, it seems that this will have more of an effect at putting cartels out of business and ending their reign of violence than all the arms shipments and foreign aid for drug enforcement ever had.
The book consists of ten chapters, each of which addresses an area of business practices that have been taken up by the drug cartels. Chapter one is about supply chains, and in the case of cocaine there is a rather long one. The raw product is grown in South America and must be infiltrated into the US—usually through Mexico. (For a while there was a prominent Caribbean route, but it was shut down—at least for a while.) This is where we learn about how the cartels adapt to eradicated crops, as well as how the product is marked up at various stages of the operation.
Chapter 2 is about the decision to compete versus collude. We mostly read about the competition, because in a lawless market competition equals violence. However, over time cartels have been increasingly willing to agree on distribution of territory. Although, there are also clever means to compete unique to criminal enterprises, such as engaging in violence in someone else’s territory to cause the police to crack down there—thus making it harder for said opposition.
Chapter 3 is about human resources, and the different approaches used to handle problems in this domain. In the movies, a drug cartel employee who fouled up always gets a bullet to the brain, but it seems that this isn’t always the case—though it certainly happens. Different countries and regions have differing labor mobility. In some cases, there is no labor mobility. (i.e. if one has a gang’s symbols tattooed all over one’s body, one can’t interview with a rival gang and Aetna sure as hell isn’t going to hire you.)
Chapter 4 is about public relations and giving to the public. One doesn’t think about drug lords engaging in CSR, but in some cases they may be more consistent with it than mainstream businesses. The cartels face an ongoing risk of people informing on them, and at least some of those people can do so without their identities becoming known. Violence is often used to solve problems in this domain, but it can’t do it all. That’s why drug lords build churches and schools, and often become beloved in the process.
Chapter 5 explores “offshoring” in the drug world. This may seem strange, but drug cartels, too, chase low-cost labor. But it’s not just about lowering costs, it’s also about finding a suitable regulatory environment—which in the cartel’s case means a slack one. An interesting point is made that all the statistics on doing business are still relevant to the drug business, but often in reverse. That is, if Toyota is putting in a plant, it wants a place with low corruption, but if the Sinaloa want to put in a facility–the easier the bribery the better.
Chapter 6 describes how franchising has come to be applied to drug cartels—famously the Zetas. The franchiser provides such goods as better weaponry in exchange for a cut of profits. Of course, there’s always a difference in incentives between franchisers and franchisees when it comes to delimiting territory, and this doesn’t always work out as well for drug dealers as it does for McDonald’s franchisees.
While the bulk of the book focuses on cocaine and marijuana, Chapter 7 is different in that most of it deals with the wave of synthetic drugs that has popped up. The topic is innovating around regulation, and so it’s certainly apropos to look at these drugs. If you’re not familiar, there are many synthetic drugs that are usually sold as potpourri or the like. Once they’re outlawed, the formula is tweaked a little. In a way, these “legal highs” may be the most dangerous because no one knows what effect they’ll have when they put the out on the street.
In chapter 8 we learn that the drug world hasn’t missed the online retail phenomena. Using special web browsers, individuals are able to make transactions that are not so difficult to trace. In an intriguing twist, the online market may foster more trust and higher quality product than the conventional street corner seller ever did.
Chapter 9 examines how drug traffickers diversify—most notably into human trafficking. Exploiting their knowledge of how to get things across the border, they become “coyotes.”
The last chapter investigates the effect of legalization, and it focuses heavily upon the effects that Denver’s legalizing marijuana has had in Denver, in the rest of the country, and on the cartels. Wainwright paints a balanced picture that shows that not everything is perfect with legalization. E.g. he presents a couple of cases of people who ingested pot-laced food products intended for several servings, and did crazy stuff. However, the bottom line is that legalization (and the regulation and taxation that comes with it) seems to be the way to go if you want to really hurt the cartels and stem the tide of violence, as well as to reduce the number of people showing up at the ER having ingested some substance of unknown chemical composition.
There is an extensive conclusion, about the length of one of the chapters that delves into the many ways our approach to eliminating drug use is ill-advised and dangerous. This connects together a number of the key points made throughout the chapter.
I found this book fascinating. Wainwright does some excellent investigative reporting—at no minor risk to life and limb. If you’re interested in issues of business and economics, you’ll love this book. If you’re not into business and economics, you’ll find this book to be an intriguing and palatable way to take on those subjects.
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9 Self-Defence Tips for Women
Today is a day of protest in Bangalore to decry sexual assaults on women and children. It seems like an apropos time to offer some advice on self-defense.
1.) NEVER GET INTO A VEHICLE or allow yourself to be taken to another location:
This is line in the sand #1. He’s telling you to get in the vehicle because he wants to do something that he’s scared to do at the present location. That means your chances if you scream, run, fight, or some combination of the above are better than if you get in the car. A thief wants your money/possessions and then wants to put as much distance between you and he as possible. Don’t believe anything a thug tells you about why he wants to take you somewhere–no matter what kind of soothing tone he may use. He means to do you harm at the end of that ride.
2.) Never allow your freedom of movement to be restrained:
Line in the sand #2. The same logic applies. He wants to bind or handcuff you because he’s scared to do what he wants to do with an unrestrained victim. Your chances are better if you scream, run, fight, or all of the above than if you allow yourself to be hogtied.
3.) If you remember nothing else from this post, remember points 1 and 2.
Source: clutterclearcoach.com
4.) 2 ways a cluttered purse can be perilous:
First, if you decide to carry some form of weapon (e.g. pepper-spay or a stun-gun) or the ineloquently named “rape-whistle”, it will do you less than no good if you can’t put your hand on it instantaneously. (Why less than no good? Because your eyes will be on your bag, instead of on the threat.)
Second, see point 5, below.
5.) How to be robbed, a primer:
You’ve probably heard the mantra, “Never fight over money or possessions, they can be replaced, you can’t!” That’s sound advice. However, you must keep in mind that violent criminals use “gimme your money” as a ploy. They wait until your eyes go down and then they pounce with much more ominous intent. This is the second way a cluttered purse can be perilous. If you start looking through your purse, you’re at risk. Pitch the whole purse, let them find it. If they don’t go for it, then it’s time to flee or fight.
What’s the “proper way” to be robbed? You throw the money in the robber’s direction (preferably between his feet and behind him) and then you run the other direction. If he’s a robber, he’ll grab the money and hightail it in the opposite direction from you. If he chases you, then it’s time to be ready to fight for your life.
6.) Choose classes wisely:
There are a lot of offerings of self-defense and martial arts classes. The first thing to know is the difference between self-defense and martial arts classes. Self-defense classes will teach you a few basic, easily remembered techniques to get out of the grasp of an unsophisticated attacker so that you can run. If you know that you don’t have a lot of time and energy to devote to learning to protect yourself, this is the type of class you should pursue. You probably won’t learn what you need to get safely away from an athletic psychopath, but–fortunately–such individuals are rather rare. I’d recommend this type of training periodically even for women with no interest in martial arts.
There are many different primary objectives one may see in various martial arts, including: sport, entertainment, sustaining a historical lineage, or preserving historical / cultural events and ways. While self-defense is one of several objectives of almost all martial arts, it’s the primary objective that will shape the martial art and its relevance to you. Sporting martial arts will get you in fighting shape and teach you to take a hit and keep moving, but may leave you with systematic vulnerabilities around the rules of the game.
For example, if punches to the head aren’t allowed, you won’t learn to defend yourself from the head punches that a real world attacker won’t hesitate to employ. If fighting on the ground isn’t allowed, then you’ll miss out on some beneficial training. Also, in a sport you may spend a lot of time punching with a closed fist. This is great if: a.) you’ve built up bone density with bag work and exercises, b.) your hand is wrapped tightly, and c.) you have a padded glove on. If not, there’s a good chance you’ll break one of the tiny bones in your hand on the attacker’s thick, bony skull–and it may distract you enough to lose advantage. This isn’t to imply such a martial won’t prepare you better than the next woman (and better than an attacker, for that matter), but you should only do it if you’re interested in the sport as well as in defending yourself.
Martial arts for entertainment may have you spending a lot of time practicing complex, spinning, aerial maneuvers that you cannot count on being useful against an attacker on the street. Again, if you enjoy this kind of martial art for its own sake, I’m not suggesting you should abandon it or that it isn’t benefiting you at all from a defensive standpoint.
Historical martial arts often offer the advantages of being combat-oriented and not rule constrained, but you may spend a lot of time working with archaic weapons and may not practice sparring or free-form fighting–which, I would argue, is essential to being ready to defend yourself. Again, these arts are awesome, but you need to be aware of what you are studying and what it’s value is to you.
Questions to ask:
a.) Can I watch a class? I’ve heard clever explanations for why this isn’t necessary for such-and-such martial art, but if they won’t let you watch a class, I’d move on to the next place. The observation class allows you to see whether that art is right for you and whether the teacher is skilled and professional. Now, don’t expect a school to keep allowing you to show up and watch, but one class should give you enough idea. You may want to ask ahead to make sure it’s a fairly typical class. Some martial art schools occasionally have atypical classes to communicate some ancillary information to students which isn’t at all that useful in a day-to-day sense. (Alternatively, some schools have classes that are rigidly identical from one session to the next.)
b and c.) Will you teach me how to stay on my feet? and Will you teach me how to fight on the ground? The ideal answers to both is “yes.” If they answer the first question by saying, “All fights go to the ground, we teach you how to get down and control the situation.” You have some sort of submission sport school that would likely make you tough as nails. However, there’s a reason there are weight classes in those sports. You don’t want to default to the ground voluntarily with someone who outweighs you by 60 pounds and who can bench press your body weight two or three times over.
That being said, if the answer to the second question is, “No. Going to the ground is ridiculous,” you might want to move on to the next school. To summarize, you want a school that will teach you how to stay on your feet so you can get away, but, also, you want a school that’ll prepare you for the worst case scenarios.
d.) Do you do sparring, randori, rolling (as in ground-fighting free-form training), or other free-form training? Note: In most martial arts, you’ll need to spend some time learning basics before you get into sparring (and that’s a good thing, in my view.) However, if the school doesn’t do any of that type of training at any level, it probably won’t prepare you for what you are likely to face. There are some old school martial arts that only do form and technique training, but with no “unstructured” training.
My final word on looking for a school: Don’t be scared off by the students looking haggard, sweaty, and mildly gimpy by the end of class. Such a school will prepare you much better than one in which the students look pristine going home.
7.) Drill with any weapon you carry:
Believe it or not, I once saw a professional law enforcement officer who accidentally sprayed himself full in the face with pepper-spray. (Among my varied and sundry past occupations was a stint in law enforcement.) No weapon is a magic talisman that you can put in your bag and expect to have it ward off evil.
8.) Don’t expect the Hollywood plop:
Squirting an attacker with pepper-spray, shocking them with a stun gun, or even shooting them with a handgun will not necessarily immediately and definitively incapacitate them. They may keep coming, hopefully impaired, but possibly just angered. There is an old samurai saying that goes, “Even in victory, cinch tight your helmet cords.” This means, even when it looks like your attacker is down for the count, maintain caution.
9.) Remember items 1 and 2, NEVER GET IN THE CAR and NEVER LET YOURSELF BE TIED UP.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 