MOVIES & CRIME: Silence of the Lambs

 

Silence of the Lambs 1991

Criminal Profiling:  Hannibal Lecter

Hannibal Lecter’s pulse rate never went over 85 in an act of a heinous crime.  In a British criminal study, Wadsworth found that boys from broken homes whose parents separated before the age of 4 have lower pulse rates.  Broken home is a home without both parents to raise the children.  While a boy may be disposed to delinquency/criminality before broken home comes into the picture, if he has delinquency/criminality already in him, the broken home only increases the severity of his crimes.  But if a boy is disposed to delinquency/criminality and comes from a broken home before the age of 4, not only is his pulse rate lower but research has uncovered a new finding:  a disposition to commit sexual and/or violent crimes.  Hence Silence of the Lambs script got Hannibal’s disarming pulse rate down slaughtering a live human being in front of him without an ounce of effect on his nervous system.  His acts were violent than the norm but his remained unusually calm.        

 

 

EEG brain scan

Psychopaths respond weakly to external skin stimuli such as electric shocks or hypodermic needle injections; evidence to date deciphers diminished autonomic functioning in skin conductivity.  Lie detection tests are just as ineffective on psychopaths and you may recall the movie Basic Instincts where Sharon Stone easily out-maneuvers the lie detector.  Skin conductive tests only measure the periphery of our autonomic nervous system but electroencephalogram (EEG) goes deeper into the nervous system measuring the electrical activity of the brain under our skulls.  Brain waves of half the psychopaths are abnormal compared to the rest of the population.  In fact, the result findings indicate a type closer to epilepsy or a convulsive disorder.  EEG tests reveal among offenders a slow brain wave rhythm and a low arousal for criminals who committed theft.  Psychopaths do not learn from previous experiences and are insensitive unable to respond emotionally than normal.

 

Why would a person commit a crime?  Two different theories explore reasons behind crime:  strain and control.  Strain theory explains that people violate societal rules when they are without the means at their disposal to attain their goals.  (i.e.  forgery, fraud, embezzlement)  Frustrated of their goals, they abandon white-collar goals and resort to antisocial values.  On the other hand, control theory does not assume that people commit crimes not rising out of circumstances but as a result of weak attachments to norms like school and work.  (i.e.  arson, larceny, robbery)  Low intelligence and predatory criminality is supported by control theory which explains that individuals unable to do well in their studies and work simply do not form attachments.  Criminals have a short time horizon and/or steep time discounting.  They do not think the consequences of what they do today in the distant future. 

 

Hannibal Lector

Take a look at Hannibal Lecter.  A unique case of a criminal:  highly intelligent but a monster nevertheless.  Most criminals have lower IQs and Hannibal is an unusual case.  Offenders have shown lower verbal IQs than your high school’s best citizens like your yearbook editor or student body president.  If an offender does show high IQ, he mostly likely has a verbal deficit.  In a study of 2000 young groups, offenders score higher on performance IQs than verbal IQs by at least 8 points.  Verbal IQs comprise of information test, comprehension, digit span, arithmetic, similarities, and vocabulary.  Performances IQs test your ability to score in block designs, picture arrangement and completion, object assembly or jigsaw, and digit symbol.  In my opinion, though Hannibal shows intelligence, he would have lower verbal IQ than performance IQ.  And his relationship with his friends, family, and society had been severed at an early age.     

 

Hannibal has a strong innate drive (e.g. hunger and sexual appetite) that make up our primary reinforcer.  Criminality is measured by higher innate drive versus social conventions; social conventions are internalized rules that let our inner voice from doing wrong, our conscience which stops us from doing harm or socialized values that let us have regard or feelings for others.  An example of a person who is well-socialized is your student body class president.  But criminals have less of the latter and greater measure of their innate drive; thus their rewards of heinous crimes are emotional and sexual gratification that good citizens often cannot relate.  Conversely because of their short-time horizons, the offenders see no rewards for non-crime endeavors.    

 

Hannibal Lector's latest victim

Buffalo Bill

Hannibal and Buffalo Bill are recidivists —repeat offenders that are usually impulsive than nonrecidivists but the two above do not fall into this category.  Chronic offenders have lower IQs and are more aggressive than those that commit minor offenses.  They usually come from low socioeconomic status (SES).  Questions you should ask yourself:  What was the parents’ occupation?  His parents’ occupation is foretelling of his future as an income earner.  Buffalo Bill fits a typical description of a repeat offender than Hannibal.  Indeed Hannibal is atypical.  Hannibal eats his victims which gives him an abnormal sense of gratification.  Hannibal gets pangs which criminals often do.  Hannibal is psychopathic and could not care less about the opinions of his friends.  Buffalo Bill skins his female victims.  Catherine, one of Buffalo Bill’s victims go missing and her parents reach out to him referring Catherine as their daughter, a person with a full life ahead.  But criminals have a different mentality —not able to see you as a deserving being.  “The sucker did not deserve a thing,” is their motto.  Like Hannibal and real life Adolf Hitler who was responsible for massive genocide, Buffalo Bill at an early age had not any good relationship with friends, family, and society.    

  

 

Jodie Foster in her 1992 Oscar-winning role as FBI agent Clarice Sterling

Because Sterling had attached a bond or security with her father before his death, she grew fiercely independent.  She recalled memories of her father throughout the movie —outside the prison parking lot calling for her “daddy” as a little girl and an image of her father’s face in his casket as a girl at a funeral later on now as a FBI trainee.  Otherwise a child who fails to form a secure bond or attachment to their parent may develop “affectionless psychopathy” which forms a clingy, dependent, attention-seeking, uninhibited and indiscriminately friendly personality that lacks guilt and unable to keep rules and form lasting relationships.  Marilyn Monroe is an example of an insecure attachment to her mother; hence Monroe’s borderline personality disorder under Cluster B of DSM IV traces back to her lack of attachment during childhood.  Poverty has a strong relation to mental illness; thus working-class backgrounds may form individuals that have conditions related to fear and dependency under Cluster C of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV).  (I have a sneaky suspicion that Katherine Hepburn had Cluter C traits by her avoidance of public award ceremonies.)  On the contrary, Clarice Sterling is a character with a strong ego and high esteem.  Because of her character, she solves the Buffalo Bill case on her own with a little help of Hannibal’s notes hinting clues to track his whereabouts and gets Catherine out of the house safely.  Clarice earns her FBI badge.  Now have the lambs silenced in your mind, Clarice?