CRIMINAL MINDS (DUE SPRING, 2011)

CRIMINAL MINDS

21ST Century Forensic Investigative Science

How New Tools and Improved Products
Capture Criminal Minds

By: Don Jacobs

What Forensic Investigative Science Knows About
VIOLENT CRIMINAL MINDS


Forensic Investigative Science’s
New & Improved Products
Championing Interdisciplinary Pedigree

By: Don Jacobs
Author of forensic science labs of the FORS rubric

_______________________
Dedication & Acknowledgments
To Colleagues in Forensic Investigative Science:
“With your remarkable contributions as interdisciplinary-trained forensic investigative scientists, forensic science has become without question the most important of all applied sciences of the 21st century.”

Professor Don Jacobs
Weatherford College
Spring, 2011


“To all my students: I can never repay you guys for sharing with me
the significance of your life in peer tribes, and through the years, to
appreciate the workings of your brilliant sapient brains. You have taught
me the real challenge for all parents to accomplish: LISTEN more, LEARN
more, & TRUST more. That’s quite an assignment. Love. Respect.
Forever.” DJ



“Discovery consists of seeing what everyone has
seen and thinking what nobody else has thought.”
—Albert Szent-Gyorgi, Nobel Prize Winning Chemist
(In Good, I.J. (Eds.) The Scientist Speculates, page 15).




TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgement & Dedication

PART I
21st Century Forensic Investigative Science

Introduction: Scientists Who Seek to Capture Criminal Minds

Chapter One: Becoming a Forensic Investigative Scientist
Chapter Two: New Tools from Neuroscience
Chapter Three: Criminal Minds Capture
Autobiography: Rachel’s Life—“Determination: Life in Desperation”


PART II

Brainmarks: A Paradigm for Adaptive Neuropsychopathy

Introduction: Headquarters for Calculating Minds & Deceptive Practices
Chapter Four: Deceptive Practices

Chapter Five: Calculating Minds
Chapter Six: Res Ipsa Loquitur
Chapter Seven: Trapdoor Spiders
Autobiography: Sabrina’s Life—“Invincible”


PART III
Order Becoming Disorder

Introduction: Being Whatever He Needs to Be

Chapter Eight: Predatory “Toxic” Parenting
Chapter Nine: “DANE” Brainmarks
Chapter Ten: Order Becoming Disorder
Autobiography: Lauren’s Life—“Tortured by Tears”

PART IV
Truly, Honestly, Deceptively

Chapter Eleven: Graduate Seminar
Chapter Twelve: On Cloud 9

Autobiography: Cassidy’s Life: “Life is Bigger than One Person”

Bibliography

Introduction: Scientists Who Seek to Capture Criminal Minds

From crime labs to crime scenes and to solving the pretzel of criminal minds, a new descriptive title has emerged recently to describe interdisciplinary training required for today’s forensic science careers. Forensic scientists are forensic investigative scientists. Each word has relevance in the evolution of 21st Century version of forensic science. Forensic—because evidence must be processed and analyzed to a certainty in forensic labs and presented in a systematic way to sway juries in criminal cases; Investigative—because of the careful examination of evidence required and in the age of diminished capacity additional psychological insights into the perpetrator’s state of mind during the commission of the crime, are required and Scientist—because a high standard of training, knowledge, expertise, and the ability to communication across disciplines is necessary for reliable criminal minds capture and to prove criminal cases beyond reasonable doubts.

Today, training in the classroom and in the field have become pedagogical priorities. In this regard, references appended at the end of chapters as Resources and in Bibliography have guided my perspectives over years of pedagogical development—how best to present the wondrous workings of sapient brains to college students pursuing degrees in the behavioral sciences and now, forensic investigative sciences. (I will persist in using “sapient brains” throughout the book to define the ability of our species— Homo sapiens— to act eventually with purposive, self-reflective judgments and as a benchmark of the “reasonable man standard” in legal jurisprudence.)

Is there a quantifiable process to explain how violent criminal minds emerge from sapient brains—the same brains with the potential to nurture offspring and to be law-abiding citizens? For compelling answers that square with cognitive neuroscience and evolutionary psychology, we must turn to the study of spectrum psychopathy. Today, as students prepare for forensic science careers optimal preparation suggests interdisciplinary training in the classroom. What has transpired in this perspective represents the new tools and improved products described in three chapters of Part I: Forensic Investigative Science.

In Part II: Brainmarks: A Paradigm for Adaptive Neuropsychopathy, four chapters—Chapter 3-Chapter 7—defines and describes my paradigmatic shift into a lifelong adaptive version—a beneficial and restorative version of psychopathy—referred to as neuropsychopathy. Peer-reviewers have been kind; they are not surprised at my conclusions based upon what we ALL see every day from sapient brains.
From synergistic research alone, it is easy to document the contributions of brilliant colleagues such as Robert Hare and Martin Kantor—they and numerous others are responsible for the evolution of spectrum psychopathy. Likewise, from student autobiographical essays that finally hit me “like a ton of bricks” in early 2010, the essays themselves suggested elements of this paradigmatic shift as well. Four lightly edited bios are placed at the end of the final chapters in each of the four parts of the book. You will soon meet and discover facts about the lives of Rachel, Sabrina, Lauren, and Cassidy—all survivors of highly disruptive childhoods and adolescences who are now pursing college degrees.
Honesty, the time has come for Brainmarks. For now, if it’s perceived to be no more than a good idea that follows logically from what we already know about psychopathy that’s fine too. To quote Hungarian Nobel Prize winning chemist, Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, “Discovery consists of seeing what everyone has seen and thinking what nobody else has thought” (Good, page 15). I believe my conclusions have already been reflected upon countless times; they simply have not been systematically presented and defended.

However, the existence and essence of an adaptive version of ultra-mild psychopathy (or my term, neuropsychopathy) as a natural brain condition will not be shocking, especially to scientists. To deny the ability of our sapient brains to survive and thrive would be to ignore the awesome adaptability inherent in the neuroanatomy and neurochemistry of our 2.5 lbs of cortical tissue. Sapient brains powered by awesome neurochemistry provide the launch pad to human behavior and social interactions as members of societies all over the world. The same chemistry is responsible for sapient brains’ ability to fend-off crushing despair by nature’s protective brain condition, and in contrast, across the continuum, by identifying the irreversible and violent psychopathic personality disorder.

In Part II: Brainmarks: A Paradigm for Adaptive Neuropsychopathy four chapters (Chapter 4-Chapter 7) defines and describes my cutting-edge paradigm of spectrum psychopathy sure to kindle lively debate. To me, Brainmarks is simply the next step in the understanding of this brain condition. Certainly, Robert Hare or Martin Kantor will not be, in the least, surprised by my conclusions.

In Part III: Order Becoming Disorder, three chapters (Chapter 8-Chapter 10) address the once widely embraced perspective of how criminality could be “parented-in” to offspring from “toxic” parenting and other damaging influences from peer and social milieus. This position is challenged by the Brainmarks paradigm. Also, existing conditions of what now should be “parented-out” by informed parents will be presented. The neurochemical basis of psychopathy is explored for both the adaptive version and the violent version, well-documented as psychopathic personality disorder. The final chapter in Part III’s trilogy begins by addressing a message famous poem, Richard Cory and soon thereafter, reveals aspects of the shocking murder and suicide of a mayor and her soon-to-be college-bound daughter in Coppell, Texas. At the end of the chapter we meet Lauren, who is “tortured by tears.”

In Part IV: Truly, Honestly, Deceptively, Chapter 11: Graduate Seminar presents two compelling essays, Gender Differences Among Psychopathic Serial Murderers and The Sexually Motivated Male Serial Killer: An Interdisciplinary Monster, from my former top student, Ms. Ashleigh Portales, now a crime scene investigator in Wise County, Decatur, Texas. Chapter 12: On Cloud 9 concludes with a prescient look into 23rd Century forensic neuropsychology and the concept of “internal cortical prisons” created by brain chip technology. Is there a happy ending at the end of the rainbow in the cessation of criminal minds, or will a new set of nightmares require new tools and improved products?