I was doing

an interview on a call-in radio program a few months ago when a woman

called to criticize me. She said that she was tired of psychologists excusing

dysfunctional behavior in the name of mental illness. I'm not sure what

I said that gave her that impression, but it doesn't surprise me that

people have that impression of psychologists, counselors and social workers.

Dishonest perpetrators

and their lawyers have overused the mental illness excuse. However, the

fact is many times there are mitigating factors that contribute to the

behavior both of adults and of children that should be considered before

we pass judgment on them.

For example,

I have written extensively in my books about Nathaniel Brazil in Florida,

who shot and killed a high school teacher. In his particular case, it

appears that he was a reasonably behaved child who made good grades and

had no trouble in his past. After several honest attempts to deal with

his problems that day, Nathaniel made a terrible mistake that cost a teacher

his life and forever altered the course of his own life.

Likewise, Andrea

Yates in Texas killed her five children. The fact that she drowned her

own children is so appalling that revenge is the first response from the

public. Yet it appears very likely to me that Yates, a woman who suffered

from significant mental illness and who had a host of other issues that

probably contributed to her behavior, was not legally responsible for

her actions at the time she killed those innocent children.

I assume that

many of you are already angry with me for appearing to excuse the behavior

of these two people. I'm not excusing their behavior and I certainly think

that some response from the court is necessary in both cases. However,

I have spent nearly a decade studying violent crime, murderers, and individuals

who comment acts of aggression and I know there is a huge difference between

someone like Mark Barton who killed his children, wife, and several others

at day trading firms in Atlanta, and a boy like Nathaniel Brazil or a

woman like Andrea Yates.

A responsible

psychologist never excuses behavior, but rather he seeks to understand

it. All of our behaviors are the result of a complicated interaction of

social, emotional, physical, and psychological variables. Therefore, we

cannot suppose that the same behavior performed by two different people

in two differing contexts has the same motive or cause.

Nor can we

assume that those two individuals have the same level of culpability.

There are too many differences between any two people.

To some degree,

we are all responsible for our behaviors, and yet in another way we are

all responders to our past. Many things we do are beyond ourawareness

and, therefore, to a degree beyond our control.

We do not hold

a three-year-old to the same level of accountability as a 15-year-old.

We recognize the obvious developmental differences that alter the level

of responsibility between the two ages. Likewise, circumstances (psychological,

emotional, sociological, or physical) can mitigate the response from the

court as it weighs culpability. It is for this reason that we have judges

and juries. Part of their responsibility is to make these assessments

based on the facts available.

Many times

I think justice has been poorly served. Nathaniel Brazil was sentenced

to prison until he becomes a legal adult, at which time his sentence will

be reviewed. Andrea Yates may get the death penalty. Insanity defenses

are rarely successful. I think that both of these perpetrators (alleged

in the case of Yates) deserve different sentences. Other perpetrators

have gotten off too easy.

My goal as

I assess cases like these is not only to understand them, but also to

determine how to prevent them from happening again. Our outrage and frustration

makes it just as easy to ignore mitigating factors as it is for the dishonest

perpetrator to use the insanity defense as an excuse. When we get stopped

why we shouldn't get a ticket. Likewise, in the case of violent crime,

it is easy to cry revenge and to argue that there can be no good excuse

when we are not the accused.

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