Assault th Intent to Kd/

New insights into the psychology of the killer

EDWIN I. M E G A R G E E

According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reports for the first attacking decent and helpless humanity with apparent im-
nine months of 1964, murder rose I0 percent over the same punity.
period in 1963, forcible rape rose 21 percent, aggravated It was at this point, however, that the scenario took a
assault 15 percent. Although the "murder" rate is actually different twist. It was not Sam who committed the greater
less now than during the 1930's (down 40 percent) the violence. Suddenly Harry had had more than he could
assault rate is up 50 percent and there is no doubt that bear; his accumulated frustrations and resentments burst
violent crime is on the increase.
To conventional opinion the explanation is obvious. All
violent criminals are moral degenerates who will not or "The ultimate control is execution. It is supposed to deter the
cannot control their worst impulses. "Coddling" has would-be killer or rapist by fear. But what if the criminal is al-
ready over-deterred ?"
turned them loose; we must crack down on them.
But conventional opinion may very well be completely
mistaken about one important type of violent criminal.
Let me illustrate with a story about two gentlemen I be-
came acquainted with professionally.
A man I shall call Sam Williams got into a fight which
cost his antagonist an eye. Such high spirits were not
unusual for Sam, who had a long record of aggressive and
erratic behavior; but the results of this particular incident
were serious enough to land him in the state penitentiary
for a period of enforced penance. Unfortunately, it didn't
take. Shortly after release he became irritated at a group of
people and expressed his displeasure by driving his car up
on the sidewalk and trying to run them down.
Once more the authorities could not see Sam's side of
it, and he was arrested and charged with assault with a
deadly weapon. Since it was not practical for him to work
out his resentment on the police or the courts, he waited
until he was out on bail and hunted up a very inoffensive
fellow I shall call Harry Smith, who had long served as
his whipping-boy. He ordered Harry to provide him with
a perjured alibi. Harry had endured this kind of bullying
for years without much complaint, preferring peace at any
price, but this time he refused. Sam became enraged,
blamed Harry for all his troubles with the law, and became
extremely abusive. He snatched a whiskey bottle from
Harry's hand, smashed it under his car, and said he hoped
that gave him a flat tire.
So far we have a common scenario of aggression. Here
is a brute and bully, a man with violent impulses and a low
boiling point, taking out his frustrations on the first con-
venient and relatively helpless target. Many people would
tend to see the Sam-Harry encounter as the archetype of a
morality play affecting all modern society: vicious criminals

SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER
 through his controls in an overwhelming flood that swept
all before it. He pulled out a pistol and shot Sam in the
abdomen. When Sam tried to flee, he shot him twice from
behind. When Sam fell, he stood over him and shot him in
the neck. One shot would have been enough to stop Sam,
but Harry fired four. The idea that he was probably mur-
dering Sam, that he was insuring his own imprisonment
and severe punishment--if these thoughts occurred to
Harry at all, they did not slow him down.
Somehow Sam survived, and is now back in tile peni-
tentiary doing postgraduate work in penology. Harry is
there also, as a freshman, on the same charge of assault
with a deadly weapon (the car for Sam, the gun for Harry).
Only the narrowest of margins kept that charge from being
homicide.
Is this story really so unusual.> The newspapers daily
carry stories that bear disturbing similarities. For instance:
9 A henpecked husband of many years' suffering, who
had never been known by neighbors to answer back to the
constant nagging of his wife, rises from the breakfast table
one morning and silences her forever in a particularly
brutal fashion.
9 A Missouri high school boy, known to be quiet, well-
behaved, and always obedient to a stern father, suddenly
murders both father and mother with a hunting gun, picks
up a girlfriend at school, and rides off in the family car.
When arrested by the police in another state, he is as calm
and meek as ever.
9 In Colorado a young man is accused of raping and mur-
dering two girls. His father is incredulous: "When he was
in school the others kids would run over him and he would
never fight back."
The recent nationally-publicized story of the model Cali-
fornia boy who took his father's car and rifle, climbed to
the top of a hill overlooking a major highway, and picked
off several passing motorists before turning the rifle on
himself, probably fits this pattern also.
In this post-Freud era the evidence that behavior often
encompasses opposites--that repression may very well bring
on in aggravated form precisely that which is repressed--
should no longer be shocking or novel. "The revenge of
a sheep is horrible," Balzac said, and he said it a long time
ago.
Nevertheless many people find it difficult to reconcile the
contrast--to believe that a person capable of striking so
viciously could also, sincerely, be so meek. The picture
doesn't seem to hang together.
For it offends a stereotype. (Also, it hints at revelations
about the repressed aggressions in all of us that might be
uncomfortable to face.) "Common sense" says that only
the Sams should be the killers and assaulters, not the
Harrys. Lack of restraint is what leads to violence--and
violence, unchecked, must lead to greater violence. High
ranking policemen agree, almost unanimously. In his pleas
in favor of the death penalty, J. Edgar Hoover frequently
uses expressions like "criminal beasts," "hardened crimi-
28
nals," and "bestial killers." Swifter and more severe punish-
ment, he contends, are all that will keep us safe in our
streets and our beds.
The question of who our assaultive criminals really are
has wide implications for social policy. Our penal philoso-
phy is based firmly on the proposition that criminals need
control, and the greater the crime the greater the control.
If conscience and the laws of God and man are not enough,
then physical fear of the nightstick and prison must be
applied; if that is still insufficient, then criminals must be,
literally, caged. Prisons and reformatories are specifically
.organized by society to reduce violence and depredation;
and they train their inmates by rewarding control and pun-
ishing aggression. When an inmate has demonstrated his
control by behaving peacefully long enough, he is pre-
sumed to be rehabilitated, and release may be considered.
HUMAN DETERRENCE
The ultimate control is execution. Its most common justi-
fication is deterrence. It is supposed to deter the would-be
killer or rapist by fear; if that doesn't work it deters him
forever by death.
But what if the criminal is already over-deterred? What
if it was precisely the fact that his controls were too rigid
that brought on the assault in the first place ?
In 1962 the writer and Gerald A. Mendelsohn, both then
of the University of California, administered personality
tests to a number of "extremely assaultive criminals" (con-
victed of murder, manslaughter, mayhem, assault with a
deadly weapon) to determine the extent of their aggressive-
ness and their ability to control themselves in social situa-
tions. We contrasted them with "moderately assaultive crim-
inals" (convicted of beatings), non-violent criminals
(thieves and homosexuals), and ordinary men. At that
time we both had the common "straightforward" and
"simple" concept of aggression (which now we regard as
more simple-minded than simple) that those men whose
crimes showed the greatest violence should also show the
greatest hostility and least control. It did not work out that
way. The assaultive criminals turned out to be less aggres-
sive and more controlled than the non-violent criminals--
or even than the non-criminals. In 1963, using another type
of personality test, we got parallel findings indicating the
same trend.
These results implied some tentative hypotheses and pre-
dictions:
9 Assaultive offenders may be divided into two categories,
depending on the way they handle their aggressive im-
pulses. One has a good deal of overt aggression, and rela-
tively little control. He may be called the undercontrolled
aggressive type. The other has high, uncompromising, brit-
tle controls. He may be called the chronically overcontrolled
type.
9 Few if any chronically overcontrolled people should be
found among a group of "mildly aggressive offenders." The
outbreaks of the chronically overcontrolled are all-or-none
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phenomena. When they occur, they are extreme. "Mildly"
or '*moderately" aggressive offenders should therefore be
almost exclusively of the undercontrolled type.
9 "Extremely assaultive offenders," on the other hand,
should contain both overcontrolled and undercontrolled
types: the undercontrolled lash out when the opportunity
and the provocation are strong enough; the overcontrolled
strike when the pressures can no longer be borne, even if
the immediate provocation is no more serious than others
that preceded it.
If true, these hypotheses show what seems a paradox:
those guilty of the lesser aggressive crimes have the more
aggressive personalities; and those guilty of the most vio:
lent crimes include a far higher percentage of less aggres-
sive people.
If the hypotheses are wrong, however, the relationship
should be direct; the most aggressive and hostile persons
should also commit the most aggressive and hostile acts,
and the overcontrolled people should hardly even appear
among the violent criminals.
Further tests and studies, as explained in the article, con-
firmed our hypotheses.
Let me illustrate two types of aggressive behavior.
Suppose we regard a man's inhibitions against aggression
as a dam, and his impulses to aggression as the water which
seeks to flow past. Whenever the water rises above the top
of the dam, it spills over into the valley below, causing
disturbance--but not nearly as much as if the dam sud-
denly collapsed in a rain storm and let go all at once.
The undercontrolled aggressive person, like our friend
Sam, has inhibitions which are like a low or incomplete
" 'The revenge of a sheep is horrible,' Balzac said. In this post-Freud era the evidence that behavior often encompasses opposites--that
repression may very well bring on in aggravated form that which is repressed--should no longer be shocking or novel."
dam. Very little water is blocked, and very little backs
u p - - S a m is not one to restrain himself. Almost any prov-
ocation results in aggression, and the amount of aggres-
sion will be determined by the amount of provocation. If
it cannot be expressed directly--Sam, for instance, might not
attack his mother or a judge even if they did frustrate
h i m - - i t will be displaced upon a convenient scapegoat,
such as Harry. The people downstream from him may,
therefore, be in constant discomfort and apprehension,
and clamor for more protection.
The chronically overcontrolled type, however, is very
different. His dam is both too high and too rigid. There
is no "water over the dam" which can be discharged and
forgotten; no emergency by-passes or spillways. Not a drop
gets through, and the people downstream are dry, and
careless, and perhaps even contemptuous. The thought of
disaster never occurs to them. But the pressure builds up
and up, and must finally have a vent. Since the structure
was not built to handle major strains, one drop too many
may cause a complete rupture and release the pent-up fury
all at once. And so explodes the unexpected crime of
violence.
LABORATORY VIOLENCE
What light does prior research shed ? Generally, the psy-
chological experiments on aggression are disappointing;
the "violence" they measure seems to have little in common
with the crimes in the daily papers. Psychologists are under-
standably reluctant to design studies which might call forth
extreme aggression, including possible murder. Article 16
of the American Psychological Association's Code of Ethics
forbids it--and so do a few other laws. Of course, the
psychologists could volunteer to be the victims themselves--
but this might leave only the subjects to process the data,
which is most unprofessional.
Accordingly, laboratory studies on aggression have large-
ly been confined to unruly student behavior, hostile reac-
tions to frustrating psychologists, and the willingness of
students to give each other electric shocks. In these ex-
periments, the most aggressive seem also to have the most
hostility and least control. This lends the hypotheses a
little support--but not very much.
A far more fruitful, if less rigorous, source of data about
extremely assaultive criminals comes from case studies.
Prison wardens have long contended that their killer in-
mates generally give them the least trouble, and many have
backed up this observation by making them trustees. (For-
mer Governor Michael DiSalle of Ohio used eight con-
victed murderers in the executive mansion, around mem-
bers of his own family.) Long term case studies support
this idea. A large proportion of those convicted of homi-
cide have no prior record of assaults; they include more
first termers than the general run of prisoners; they be-
have better inside; their parole and release records are
better, and they return less often for new crimes once
released. Adolescent murderers reported in the psycho-
logical literature come, for the most part, from good or
superior homes and had excellent reputations before the
crimes. Over and over those adults convicted of the most
violent crimes are described as submissive and rigid: " . . . a
submissive, passive individual who would avoid conflict
at all costs"; " . . . needs to conform because of inability
to act out hostility . . . . "
It might be noted also that, according to the FBI Uni-
form Crime Reports for 1963, the majority of "willful
killings" (over 80 percent) is inflicted on intimates or
acquaintances. Over 30 percent are within the family.
Unfortunately such case histories and statistics, while
extremely suggestive, cannot be considered conclusive. Psy-
chologists and psychiatrists are naturally much more likely
to write up the paradoxical cases than the everyday ones.
To meet these objections, the writer conducted an in-
tensive study of four groups of juvenile delinquents (sev-
enty-six boys), detained in the Alameda County, Cali-
fornia, Juvenile Hall. The "extremely assaultive" group
included two cases of homicide, an attempted murder, five
assaults with a deadly weapon, and one particularly brutal
beating. The boys in the second group, considered "mod-
erately assaultive," were charged primarily with beatings
or gang fights.
Two other groups of boys were set up as "contrasts."
One was called the "incorrigible" group. They had been
detained for defiance, unmanageability, or unruliness at
home; it was felt they would be strong on verbal aggressive-
ness. The last contrast group was made up of "property
offenders"--thieves and burglars. None of the "contrast"
boys had any record of assaults; they were, however, care-
30
fully matched with the "aggressives" on race, background,
and number of sentences.
During detention each of the seventy-six boys were ob-
served closely by counselors. They were also interviewed
and given a battery of tests by Probation Department psy-
chologists.
What did we find ?
9 Under direct observation, the extremely assaultive (EA)
group was rated by every criterion as being the least ag-
gressive and most cooperative and controlled.
9 We hypothesized that if the EA was really more pas-
sive and overcontrolled, he was also more likely to be a
first offender, to have committed the crime without help or
confederates, and to have been, prior to the crime, a social
conformist--which could be measured from school conduct
and attendance records. We found this to be true. Over 70
percent of the EA's were first offenders, compared with
less than 30 percent of the moderate assaultives (MA's).
Two-thirds of the EA's were alone with their victims when
the crimes were committed, compared with less than one-
fifth of the MA's. The EA's had considerably better school
attendance and somewhat better school conduct records. In
fact, the only two boys in the entire sample who were re-
ported to have "outstanding" attendance records were the
two killers.
9 Results of the interviews and psychological tests were
less clear-cut, but nevertheless they were all in the predicted
direction.
As a whole, therefore, our hypotheses were confirmed.
We can state with some confidence that there are two kinds
of assaultive offenders, the overcontrolled and the under-
controlled. While the undercontrolled will commit both
extreme and moderate assaults, the overcontrolled will al-
most invariably commit extreme assaults.
CRIME AND TREATMENT
What are some of the implications of these findings ?
First, the most obvious and general: crimes of assault,
like other examples of human behavior, are caused by many
factors and take many forms. Criminals are not all the
same; they do not commit the same crimes; they do not
commit similar crimes for the same reasons; they do not
come from the same backgrounds or have the same dy-
namics. To give them single, simple descriptions ("bestial
killers," "moral degenerates," "hardened criminals") is an
oversimplification; so is the frequent attempt to blame their
crimes on a single, simple cause (comic books, bad com-
panions). And to give them all the same kinds of treat-
ment merely compounds the error.
Obviously the undercontrolled aggressive (UA) must
be taught to increase his inhibitions. But are internal in-
hibitions best taught by external control? Ideally the job
should have been done in childhood, through identification
with a parent whom the child so liked and admired that he
wanted to win his approval by being like him. But most
such UA's had no such ideal. Whole slum neighborhoods
TRANS-ACTION
may not have had a single man who matched that descrip-
tion. The father, if present at all, was probably himself
deviant, brutally rejecting, weak, or otherwise so unadmir-
able that the boy did not want him for an example. By the
time the boy reached the courts he had already traveled a
long way; the wounds of childhood had festered too long
to be easily healed by surface antisepsis. Sometimes a pro-
bation officer, teacher, foster parent, or clergyman can give
the youth someone with whom to identify until he builds
up his own self-image; but usually it comes too little and
too late.
So a less effective method must be substituted. "Good"
or "appropriate" behavior is rewarded, "bad" or "exces-
sively aggressive" behavior is punished. To get the UA to
hold still while these lessons are administered in proper
force and dosage, as well as to protect society, the UA
must be incarcerated during the learning period.
Certain difficulties follow. First, the emphasis in prison
is on conforming to escape punishment. The inmate
quickly learns that the thing to avoid is not the offense,
but getting caught at it.
Second, few experiences are as totally frustrating as a
prison, and it was frustration that instigated the aggres-
sion in the first place. The undercontrolled aggressive has
far fewer opportunities to discharge that aggression harm-
lessly inside prison than out. So pressures toward aggres-
sion usually build up during his "anti-aggression learning
period."
Q[IARANTINING THE AGGRESSOR
Dim as this picture is, however, there is perhaps no pres-
ent alternative to prison for the undercontrolled aggressive.
By the time he becomes the responsibility of the corrections
officer, the damage to him has been done, and he may have
to be put away for the good of society, if not of himself.
The chronically overcontrolled goes to the opposite ex-
treme. He already has a too potent system of values and
controls. He needs a safety valve. He needs to be encour-
aged to accept and cope with his own aggressive impulses
in socially acceptable ways--a man cannot deny his feelings
forever. He needs a harmless method of draining off sur-
plus, one which will help him establish identity and self-
respect. If, at the outset, Harry Smith had stood up to
Sam Williams, he might never have built up so much re-
sentment; and Sam, faced by resistance then, might have
let him alone, and tried someone easier. Harry need never
have shot Sam--even if someone else eventually would.
The overcontrolled, therefore, need very different treat-
merit from the undercontrolled. It would not be practical
to give them such treatment in the same institutions: differ-
ent privileges would quickly be interpreted to mean favori-
tism and discrimination, and would cause trouble. It might
be necessary to diagnose and classify all incoming offenders
at a central reception center, but then separate them.
Such a program for the overcontrolled would, of course,
encounter difficulties. Few citizen groups and fewer legis-
SE PTE MBER / OCTOBER
latures would approve a correctional philosophy that en-
couraged assertiveness and independence--especially for
those whose crimes were so violent and lurid. The cry,
"No country clubs for murderers," would be loud in the
nation. Correction is a grossly underpaid field, and the
more insecure staff members and guards, linding their
authority apparently challenged by increasingly independent
prisoners, might very well sabotage the program by crack-
ing down. In all probability the overcontrolled should best
not be locked up at all, but given a combination of proba-
tion and psychotherapy; in the present climate, however,
in view of their crimes, this is very unlikely.
StilI the possibility is there. The California Adult and
Youth Authorities already have programs which include
early classification and assignment to different rehabilitation
programs. Other states may follow.
Better classification tools are essential. We must have
them. Recently, Gerald Mendelsohn and I returned to the
psychological tests to see if we could work out a measure
that could pick out the extremely assaultive criminals from
the others. We have, I believe, succeeded in large part.
The chronically overcontrolled score high on our test
of potential aggressiveness. Among other criminals (and
non-criminals) psychotics also score high. In all cases,
therefore, a high score warrants immediate investigation.
We may be on our way to a method of identifying the
overcontrolled perhaps not only in prison, but even be-
fore the crimes have been committed.
We must learn to discriminate between criminals not
only on the narrow legal bases of what they have done, but
on the much more profound and human basis of what they
are. Even in this study, concentrating on the relatively
simple category of aggressive behavior, we found vast
differences in personality patterns. If we broaden our
horizon to encompass all the panorama of behavior called
crime, from dope-peddling to income tax evasion, from
safe cracking to homosexuality--including those acts which
are crimes at certain times and certain places but not at
others--the hopes for single causes and single solutions
become more and more elusive, and more and more absurd.
Edwin I. Megargee is assistant
professor in tile Department
of Psychology at the
University of Texas. He is
consultanl to tile Job Corps
Training Center at Camp Gary
and the Veterans
Administrati(m Center at
Temple, both in Texas.
Megargee is also an assistant
field assessment officer for
the Peace: Corps' Morocco and
India Training Projects at
the university.
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