Hannibal Lecter – Merit or Misinformation? Discussion of Psychopathy and Homicide in the Criminal Justice System

Abstract

Center of Social Science Research Student Paper Award Winner (2022), (long paper winner). Psychopathy has been a widely discussed topic throughout movies and pop culture, especially in recent years, which portray psychopathy through the lens of a vindictive, cruel, and charismatic protagonist. Examples that come to mind may be well-known television media such as Dexter, Hannibal, or American Psycho (Berryessa & Goodspeed, 2019). Audiences' interests are piqued when watching a character so strangely and perplexingly emotionally detached, often committing a heinous crime that goes overlooked due to their sharp ability to hide their crime by tricking others into believing a superficial but charming front. Psychopathic individuals are often unrealistically idolized and idealized as endearing super-villains consumers feel themselves rooting for (Keesler & DeMatteo, 2017). Within the criminal justice system, individuals that score high on psychopathy are not always superhuman criminals with distinguished intelligence, able to evade all detection by the law. It is imperative to study the realistic components of crimes perpetrated by psychopathic offenders to discern between fiction and reality. Psychopathy has been related to violence and criminal tendencies, specifically homicide. Within the corrections system, psychopathy also operates differently during and after incarceration than fellow offenders scoring low on psychopathic tendencies. In order to define the association between psychopathic traits and the perpetration of homicide, it is important to discuss models and theories of psychopathy as a concept alongside the motivations and characteristics of psychopath-perpetrated homicide.