Crime articles

Barrio Bushido
 Short story, 2010
Author(s):Benjamin Bac Sierra
 American Writer ( 20th Century -)
Source:World Literature Today. 84.6 (November-December 2010): p17.
Document Type:Excerpt, Short story
Copyright:COPYRIGHT 2010 University of Oklahoma
http://www.worldliteraturetoday.com

Original Language:English
Text:
I read Barrio Bushido in short doses, braving the pain and suffering and violent life of its young
characters and their/our world. Suspense pulled me onward; I had to know how crimes, wars, hopes
come out, but more importantly, Will the author be able to pull off a novel with meaning, or will this
be another nihilistic thriller? On the level of world politics, is there homecoming for the Iraqi war vet?
Benjamin Bac Sierra has taken upon himself the labor of Dostoevsky writing  Crime and
Punishment. Is there redemption for those who've lost God's love? The reader feels the joy of
murderous combat, and the heartbreak of compassion .

El Lobo

Benjamin Bac Sierra

A nd, oh yeah, there she was, and I smiled, and she mattered, which is more than I can say for
myself because I was El Lobo: a fighter, a robber, and a mack to the fullest. I would let my false
tooth shine in the brilliance of broad day and be a mean, mugging monster in the majesty of the
moonlight. I didn't matter cause I didn't give a fuck if I mattered or not.

But she did. She mattered because I saw that she didn't give a fuck either.

On that sultry night, I was kickin it, choppin it up with the homeboys at our comer liquor store.
With just one look, I knew I had to have her. I examined her walking down my street with her
face painted up like a beautiful Bozo the Clown, her hair a tall brick wall of hairspray, and she
was shaking her sexy thick ass like the Playboy Playmate of the year. She was a diamond in the
mud. And even though she was baby doll tine, I didn't think of just going up in her at the time,
didn't think of only tearing off them panties. For her to address the world with such style, I
appreciated she had more than a body. What I really wanted was her soul. I wanted her to give
me more than just her cooch; I wanted that woman to devote to me her eternal faith.

It was my once in a lifetime chance--my dream girl was in my presence, and I had to impress
her, shock her, and love her right at that moment or never again. One shot, one kill. So I prowl
up, smile, and says, "What's up, gorgeous! You are a wildflower blooming in front of my eyes.
I've been waitin to pick you all my life, and now you're here, and it's not a dream. I'm in your
face as a man that ain't got too much on the materialistic side, only got a good time when you're
with me. I want to fall in love with you tonight and forever."

"Huh?" she snarled, as if I could give her some nasty disease. "Are you serious or just retarded?"
I sucked in the cotton candy scent off of the angel's mouth.

"Yeah, I'm serious as a heart attack." I took the stupid smirk off of my face and stared her down
as if I was the incarnation of El Diablo himself. "Check out, let's go get us a coupla fortys, sit
down at Bajo Park, and talk about life. Let's go kick back, listen to some live ass homeboy soul
oldies, and let's laugh about the act I'm gonna play for you and the Academy Award movie star
you're gonna be just for me." She unfolded her arms. "We'll do this much for each other, and
we'll give each other illusions of how we wish we were, we'll laugh at our insecurities, and
we'll love each other for less than a second yet pretend it's forever." I released a genuine smile
from somewhere mysterious in the depth of my soul, and I yanked her into my heart. She gave
me her unyielding faith by flashing me her precious sunbeam. I captured her around her little
waist and confidently led her into the world of my truth.

It was paradise. We'd wake at three in the morning and start out our day after having gotten
drunk off our asses the whole day before. We'd walk five miles, catch the bus, or steal a car and
cruise to the beach to watch rats and raccoons duke it out for scraps of trash. We'd stroll down
the shoreline listening to the splitting waves crash on the beach front, and I'd make love to her
right there on the freezing sand as fantastic fog rolled in over us. Afterward she would embrace
me with all of her strength and tell me, "Don't ever leave me, Lobo." I'd answer her by prying
her off me, jumping my naked ass into the forty degrees ocean, and shouting, "Never!"

It was three weeks later when she doubted me. She had her homegirl's Regal, and it was her,
her chubby cousin Tracy, and me. We had just bought some fortys and a bottle and were on our
way to have a good time somewhere by the beach or at the pier, but she gave me a fucked-up
attitude cause I busted open my forty in her homegirl's fucked-up car, like if I was gonna
contaminate the interior with a few spilled drops of malt liquor foam. And so she pulled the car
over, all high and mighty, and commanded--"Lobo put the cap back on until we get to a cool
spot." As if she was the leader of something. And so I said, nice and sincere, like only a
charming cholo can--

"Bitch, fuck you."

Her mouth dropped. Who in the hell did I think I was? I can't talk to her like that, oh no, she's a
lady, a princess, a goddess. But Goddess didn't have a chance to say none of that nonsense
cause I just took my forty, adjusted my pistol under my shirt, stepped out of the car as if the
past twenty-one days of falling madly in love with her didn't mean anything to me, and left her
listening to James Brown with her mouth open and no words coming out. I walked away without
looking back.

I always look forward.

So I'm a wolf on the prowl and dead straight in front of me there's a flock of business guys in
suits strolling down the street that beautiful Friday morning in the downtown, busy ass traffic
city of Inten, and I pulled out my .38 from my pants belt, ripped out some stomach hairs in the
process, and said ...

"Your fuckin money." Sober and serene as a priest at mass. They all jumped like little bunny
bitches and strangely started throwing their chump change on the sidewalk as if they expected I
was actually gonna bend the fuck down and pick up their leftovers like some stereotypical
garbage man. I smashed a heavy redneck in the head with my forty. My forty, for some reason,
didn't break, but he buckled to the floor anyway.

"You," I pointed my gun directly at the guy's glossy forehead that was standing in back of
buckler, "grab the fuckin money and give it here." He bent over and scooped up the money that
was shining and sparkling on silver and gold money clips. I stayed looking at his four eyes as I
put my forty down on the hard ground and accepted the money from the scared man that I could
tell had never meta true garbage wolf up close and personal. He had never known that garbage
wolves have honor too. He'd never known how it is to live in the garbage can, without hopes and
dreams--except for distorted fantasies of going to La Pinta  , selling drugs, or getting killed. I
stuffed his dirty honest money in my pocket and dropped the weight of my gun and the full force
of my arm on top of his bald eagle head. I grabbed my Old E and walked back to Sheila in her
piece of shit, fat homegirl's Buick.

She hadn't left. Nope, not my Goddess, the car door was still open, just like her honey filled
mouth, inviting me inside. She had thought I was actually gonna leave her. Silly rabbit.

"Drive," I said as I scooted in and shut the door. I didn't look at her as she drove away, and she
didn't look at me either. She simply drove, and her love was telepathically proved. She had the
passionate love of a true believer, a partner who would never leave my side.

Mi amor . My love.

Vida loca . Crazy life. The homeboy philosophy. My philosophy--cause it didn't make any sense to
do the shit I did, but it did. It made me normal in a world where I had to fuck a motherfucker up
to feel good inside, to be accepted by the locos, to keep my respect as a man. I had to get over
on someone and make them feel like shit so that I could say I was a true street soldier. I
couldn't justify or explain it. It went beyond justification. It went beyond the simplicity of an
explanation. There was no explanation or theory that could satisfy the lust of La Vida Loca . All I
knew is that I was there, and I had to do what I had to do to keep the little piece of planet that
was the varrio mine. Reality is what counted, and it is what was strong. The crazy life was
reality--as real and genuine as the crazy death.

San Francisco

Editorial note : From Barrio Bushido , copyright (c) 2010 by Benjamin Bac Sierra. Published by
arrangement with the author and El Leon Literary Agency.

Maxine Hong Kingston is Senior Lecturer for Creative Writing at the University of California,
Berkeley. For her memoirs and fiction, The Fifth Book of Peace , The Woman Warrior , China
Men , Tripmaster Monkey , and Hawai'i One Summer , she has earned numerous awards, among
them the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, the PEN
West Award for Fiction, an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, and a
National Humanities Medal from the National Endowment for the Humanities, as well as the title
of "Living Treasure of Hawai'i."

Editorial note : This is the final installment in our Emerging Author series, a year-long series in
which we asked six world-renowned writers to introduce an author whose work they thought
deserved attention--and would gain prominence--in 2010 and beyond.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The son of Guatemalan immigrants, Benjamin Bac Sierra was born and raised in San Francisco's
Mission district, at one time the heart of Latino culture in northern California. Living the brutal
"homeboy" lifestyle, at seventeen he joined the U.S. Marine Corps and participated in frontline
combat during the Persian Gulf War. After his honorable discharge, he completed his bachelor's
at UC-Berkeley, a master's in creative writing from San Francisco State University, and a law
degree from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. Currently, he is a professor
at City College of San Francisco and blogs at todobododown.wordpress.com.

Malpractice claims: sexual misconduct

Author(s):Dixie Wall
Source:Massage Today. 9.5 (May 2009): p1.
Document Type:Article
Copyright:COPYRIGHT 2009 MPA Media
http://www.massagetoday.com/mpacms/mt/home.php

Full Text: 
Sexual misconduct is not a new problem among health care practitioners. Hippocrates even
added to his oath, "In every house where I come I will enter only for the good of my patients,
keeping myself far from all intentional ill-doing and all seduction, and especially from the
pleasures of love with women or men, be they free or slaves." In order to prevent this damaging
conduct from happening to our clients and in our practices, we must maintain appropriate
boundaries and develop open communication. It is our responsibility as the therapist to establish
these boundaries, and shift them to the needs of the client.

Malpractice and/or liability claims are generally categorized into malpractice, criminal or civil.
Malpractice includes acts of commission and acts of omission. (1,2) Acts of commission are
unintentional or intentional acts, performed by a therapist, that result in some type of harm to
the client. Acts of omission is more common among primary health care physicians such as
doctors, chiropractors or acupuncturists and involves a failure to refer clients out when indicated,
or some type of missed problem in initial treatment of patient. Criminal suits are usually claims
that involve some type of illegal implication and ramification for unprofessional illegal conduct.
This month, we will further discuss these criminal acts but more specifically unprofessional
sexual misconduct.

According to the Medical Council of New Zealand, sexual misconduct can be divided into three
categories. The lowest level of misconduct is defined as "sexual impropriety." "This is
nonphysical contact of a patient, that is inappropriate jokes, crude gestures ... or demeaning
comments about a patient's undergarments." The next level is "sexual transgression," which is
defined as, "inappropriate touching of a patient stopping just short of an overt sexual act." This
can include unnecessary contact with the breasts and inappropriate draping or lack thereof. The
last and most severe is "sexual violation." This is defined as, "a sexual act between patient and
doctor, there is no distinction between which party initiated the contact and whether the act was
consensual." When any type of sexual misconduct takes place, the issue is no longer in the
malpractice realm but becomes a criminal issue. These illegal acts are usually excluded in
malpractice insurance policies.

Health care professionals are held to higher standards due to the hands-on nature of our field.
The one-on-one time spent with clients creates a special personal connection between the client
and therapist where the client may share personal information that would not be shared to other
types of professionals. With the exception of the health care professionals, people would
generally never allow another service provider to touch them. This immediately places us in a
unique position of trust as separate and distinctive professionals. Unfortunately, according to the
American Massage Council's claims history, sexual misconduct is the number one type of claim
against massage therapists.

Sexual misconduct is not limited to sexual interaction with a client. It can be an inappropriate
comment, flirtatious behavior, look or gift. This type of misconduct can harm the client in many
ways and has major repercussions for us as practitioners. These repercussions may include
damaged reputations, lawsuits, and ultimately losing our permits, licenses and practices. How
can these issues be prevented? Most experts in practice management recommend setting
adequate and appropriate boundaries.

Setting Boundaries

Boundaries separate your personal space from the space of the client. Most boundaries are
created by the client and maintained by the practitioner. The maintenance of these boundaries
can help us maintain a thriving and professional practice. There are several types of boundaries
set by in practice that can help us to prevent any misunderstandings or mistakes that could lead
to sexual misconduct.

The first and most important when it comes to sexual impropriety claims are physical
boundaries. What kind of touch will we accept from a client when greeting them? What type of
draping techniques should we use? According to an administrator at a leading massage school in
California, "draping is the number one complaint from clients receiving massage in their clinic."
Massage therapists must make sure that the client is properly, consistently and conservatively
draped. Always give the client sufficient time in private to change before and after the massage.

The next way to protect yourself is by maintaining verbal boundaries, keeping open all lines of
communication with your client. Listen to your clients attentively and comfort them through a
routine professional protocol in treatment procedures. When explaining your treatment plans for
the client, make clear what you are going to do, explaining again what you are doing while doing
it, and then telling the client what you just did. Set the language in conversation on the
telephone in a professional level. Always avoid improper slang, language and gossip, and keep
client's confidentiality a priority.

Lastly, a first impression is always made with visual boundaries. Our society is based on visual
recognition and appearance. Create your own professionalism by consistently practicing routine
procedures and retaining a standard dress code. Uniforms can create a comfortable atmosphere
by setting a familiar tone. Keep your office clean and neat.

Through establishing, encouraging and enforcing these boundaries, you will promote your
profession, as well as the safekeeping of yourself and your clients. Next time, we will discuss
three additional boundaries that can help us succeed in practice.

References

The "better relationships" alphabet (i.e. some helpful hints for you,
for me, and for everybody)
Author(s):Thomas S. Parish and Christopher Spier
Source:Education. 127.4 (Summer 2007): p547.
Document Type:Brief article
Copyright:COPYRIGHT 2007 Project Innovation (Alabama)
http://www.projectinnovation.biz/education_2006.html

Abstract: 
One of the most serious problems confronting people today, is their inability to interact
effectively with one another. What seems to be needed are some helpful hints, timely tips,
and/or good ideas that people might subsequently employ in order to enhance their interpersonal
skills. To this end, the "Better Relationships Alphabet" is directed.
Full Text: 
A Acknowledge the needs of others, even those of your mother's.

B Be true to you, for anything else simply won't do.

C Concern and love don't just come from up above.

D Domination can be cruel, and even hurt me and you.

E Enjoying others can be fun, otherwise it'll get humdrum.

F Feeling good is also great, so kindly don't become irate.

G Giving of your time should never be viewed as a real crime.

H Happiness is the key, for now, and throughout all eternity.

I Intimacy is important, too, at least as a general rule.

J Jealousy is a real downer, 'cause it makes everyone flounder.

K Kindness should be a common theme to achieve your dream.

L Love yourself and others, too, rather than act like a silly fool.

M Money shouldn't be the key, just strive to always be happy.

N Never lie, it hurts too much. Besides, you'll likely get "in Dutch."

O Open and honest it must be, that that is so, is a certainty.

P Passion is great initially, but fun is also a real key.

Q Quietly show your love, and fondle him/her like a little dove.

R Regrets are not needed, if your love is never impeded.

S Special moments make it great, so have them now, it's not too late.

T Temptations can easily destroy you, so always do what you need to do.

U Understanding is always great. Just direct it towards those you appreciate.

V Valiant efforts can be nice, for it helps create for both a real paradise.

W Words can be hurtful or not, but the latter are always appreciated a lot.

X Xenophobic actions always destroy others' positive interactions.

Y You are always the key to enhancing relationships positively.

Z eZ it isn't when problems abound, but try not to let each other down.

Whether these are helpful hints, friendly suggestions, and/or great ideas, they'll only make you
gladder, and not sadder, if you use them when it really matters.

THOMAS S. PARISH AND CHRISTOPHER SPIER

Upper Iowa University

Parish, Thomas S.^Spier, Christopher

Psychiatrist and the science of criminology: Sociological,
psychological and psychiatric analysis of the dark side
Author(s):T. Sathyanarayana Rao
Source:Indian Journal of Psychiatry. 49.1 (January-March 2007):
Document Type:Editorial
Copyright:COPYRIGHT 2007 Medknow Publications and Media Pvt. Ltd.
http://www.medknow.com

Full Text: 
Byline: T. Sathyanarayana Rao

Humans have dark side that loves crime and violence. We all may deny it but the contrary is
true. And it applies regardless of our age, caste, social status, region, religion or education. The
television, movies, sports and many happenings reported in news papers and magazines are
indicative of our obsession with the fact and fiction of crime and violence. Modern culture is
infact can be referred to as the most violent culture in history in the number of crimes and in the
nature brutality.[sup] [1]

Recently, Nithari hogged the lime light and the press was full of wild speculations and
assumptions.[sup] [2] It was so much everywhere because crime somehow intrigues people. It
can attract or repel but it does happen. It can amuse so also frighten us. It can generate anger
when it affects near or dear ones in our community. The crime arouses so much of interest or
passion, yet its understanding as to why it occurs and what we can do about it has often
remained a problem. Public officials, politicians, experts and consultants and anyone who
matters often offer simple and incomplete discourses on the events and method of solution for
eradicating crime. Solutions offered may be more policing, setting up of closed circuit TVs,
increasing street lighting, putting up sturdy locks, karate classes for the people on the one hand
and stiff penalties, speedy imprisonment or capital punishment on the other hand for the
criminals. 'Experts' dole out abstract interpretations that have any practical value. In short, as in
most areas of human behavior, there is no shortage of experts but there are few effective
solutions.[sup] [3]

Bartol argues effectively that 'our inability to prevent crime is partly due to our problems in
understanding criminal behavior, a complex phenomenon. Since crime is complex, it goes
without saying that explanations of crime require complicated, involved answers. Research
indicates that most people have a very limited tolerance for complexity and ambiguity. They
apparently want simple, straight forward answers for even a very complex issue. As behavioral
scientists we need to understand that criminal behavior is a vastly complex, yet poorly
understood phenomenon. There is no all encompassing psychological explanation for crime, than
there is sociological, anthropological, psychiatric, economic or historic one.[sup][3] Without the
help of many disciplines, for sociology or psychology to reach the basic 'truth' is almost
impossible. In most, understanding criminal behavior calls for an inter disciplinary approach
integrating data, theory and the practical view point of each discipline.

Human nature and crime

Bartol[sup] [3] again reviews underlying assumptions about human nature and identifies 3 major
domains:
*'Conformity' perspective: Classical example is the strain theory of Merton R. K. which argues
that 'humans are fundamentally good people and conforming beings who are strongly influenced
by values and attitudes of the society in which they live. It assumes that humans, as creatures of
conformity who want to do the 'right' thing'. 'Right' thing therefore is what the society says is the
'right' thing. For example, the American society advocates 'accumulation of wealth or status is all
important and many continue to accept these well advertised goals'. Education, social network,
contacts and family influence can help access these to many but not to all. When there is
'perceived discrepancy', between materialist values and goals cherished and the availability of
legitimate means, then crime and delinquency occurs. Groups and individuals experience high
level of 'strain' are forced to decide whether to accept of violate norms or laws, consequently
they conform, withdraw or rebel. *'Non-conformist' perspective: Assumes that human beings are
basically undisciplined creatures, given the chance would flout society's convention and
commit crime indiscriminately. Travis Hisschi's[sup][3] social control theory contentes
that crime and delinquency occur when an individuals ties to the conventional order or
normative standards are weak or largely nonexistent, where checks and balances in the society
are at fault. This assumes that human nature in fundamentally 'bad' or 'antisocial'. *The third
perspective assumes that human beings are basically 'neutral' by birth and they learn all their
behaviors, beliefs and tendencies from social environment and this is the cornerstone of learning
approach. A good example is Sutherland's differential association theory. Accordingly, criminal
behavior is learned through social interaction with other people. "It is not the result of emotional
disturbance, mental illness or innate qualities of 'goodness' or 'badness' "... People learn to be
criminal as a result of messages they get from others, who were also thought to be criminals.
The conventional wisdom that "bad company promotes bad behavior" aptly summarizes the
theme.

ROLE IN CRIMINOLOGY

Hence, criminology utilizes multi-disciplinary approach. Knowledge about criminal actions

encompasses psychology, sociology, psychiatry, anthropology, biology, neurology, political
science, economics etc. Though our expertise is in the field of psychological principles, we need
to learn concepts, theories and research knowledge from other disciplines to understand, explain
and prevent criminal behavior.

SOCIOLOGICAL ISSUES

The demographic and group variables such as "age, race, gender, socio-economic status,
interpersonal relationships, ethnic-cultural application" are significant for certain categories and
patterns of crime. It also probes situational or environmental factors that are conducive to
criminal action such as the time, place, kind of weapon used, circumstances surrounding
the crime etc. In the broader sense, it covers underlying social conditions - which may be
inequities in education, employment or criminal justice system.

PSYCHOLOGICAL ISSUES

What can be called 'Psychological criminology' encompasses science of behavior and Mental
processes of the criminal. Here the focus is "individual's criminal behavior - how it is acquired,
evoked, maintained or modified". It considers both the social and personality factors and how
these are mediated by mental processes. Recently there is a shift in its focus to the cognitive
aspects of offending.[sup] [3] Exploring consistent, stable personality disposition or traits was
the serious study in the past.[sup] [4] In search of personality traits little attention was paid to
the environment or situation. It was thought that once personality variables were identified it
would be possible to determine and predict which individual was most likely to engage in criminal
behavior! Search for single personality type of the murderer, rapist or psychopathic killer is not
possible. 'Criminal profiling' refers to the process of identifying personality traits, behavioral
tendencies and demographic variables of an offender based on characteristics of the crime.[sup]
[5] Frequently this is based on database collected on previous offenders who have committed
similar offences. Bartol et al[sup] [3] contend that this is 95% an art based on speculation and
only 5% science. Unvalidated clinical judgement and unsubstantiated hunches are common.

PSYCHIATRIC CRIMINOLOGY

Psychiatric criminology is also called forensic psychiatry. Traditionally, at least in America and
Europe, Freudian psycho-analytic or psycho-dynamic tradition and subsequently neo-Freudian
formulations are common. The psycho-analytic position assumes that one must dwell into the
abysses of human personality to find unconscious determinants of human behavior, including
criminal behavior. Abramsen[sup] [6] had noted "that the criminal rarely knows completely the
reasons for his conduct" or as Roche,[sup] [7] emphases that 'every criminal is such by reason
of unconscious forces within him..' In short overt behaviors are indirectly signals of symbolic
dynamic, underlying attributes. Unconscious defenses distort or disguise the real meaning of
absurd behavior. However, contemporary psychiatric criminology has tried to overcome
traditional psychiatric criminology which had failed in replicable research data base.

Criminal Behavior: Definition

The earliest definition of crime in Tappan, 1947 quoted in Bartol[sup] [3] as 'an intentional act in
violation of the criminal laws committed without defense or excuse and penalized by the state as
a felony or misdemeanor'. To establish criminal behavior is that sense needs proving that it is
intentional, it did not occur accidentally or without justification or excuse. To be held criminally
responsible, a person must have known what he or she is doing during the criminal act and must
have known that it was wrong. Surely it raises many questions.

*Whether one should restrict oneself to a legal definition and study only those individuals who
have been convicted ofcrime? *Whether one should include individuals who indulge in antisocial
behavior but have not been detected by the criminal justice system? *Can we include persons
predisposed to be criminal and how to identify them? *Bartol[sup] [3] reports that even by
conservative estimates 16-18% of total U.S. population have arrest records for non-traffic
offences (U.S Dept of justice, 1988).[sup] [8] How to include many who violate law but escape
detection? Those who come to the attention but never arrested?

In U.S the system of recording incidence on basis of official police report, self-report studies and
national or regional victimization studies may be fine to an extent but what about many other
countries, including India where the system itself needs many corrections? Sellin[sup] [9] and
others though argue about sticking to legal definition of criminal - one who is detected, arrested
or committed, psychological point of view is that we should not limit ourselves to the mere legal
definition. Because each society has different and changing set of values, the judgment of
criminal act also varies from time to time and society to society. Many states in the U.S.A. differ
significantly in their criminal codes and one continually revising them.[sup] [3] Chemical or
substance possession, prostitution and pornography are classic examples of changing statue and
selective enforcement.

Society and for that matter judicial system which are part of that society, perceive and process
violators with some discrimination, so much so the offenders background, social status,
personality, motivation, sex, age, race, legal council and circumstances surrounding the offence,
all affects the legal process. It is highly likely that individuals who have been arrested, convicted
or punished represent a distinctly different sample from those who participate in illegal activity
but avoid detection, conviction or punishment. Also error and subjectivity cannot be removed
realistically for determination of guilt, innocence or sentencing process. It is reported that if the
victim is respectable citizen, the offender will receive stiffer sentence than if the case involves an
'unrespectable' Victim.[sup] [10] It is also reported that defendants who raped a married woman
or virgin were more likely to receive longer sentences than defendants who raped a divorced
woman.[sup] [11]

Conclusion

The psychological or psychiatric criminology has to look beyond the individuals who have reached
the final stage of the legal process to understand the 'criminal mind'. There is a filtering as
'suspect', 'arrested', 'charged', 'convicted' to the ultimate label of convict, inmate prisoner or
criminal shows funneling effect. That means only fewer and fewer individuals reach subsequent
step in the criminal justice process, which is called 'the great pyramid of legal order' or 'legal
iceberg'.[sup] [12] Our approach should go beyond the behavior that generally qualifies as
criminal. From this perspective, we can include the vast body of psychological research that
deals with such areas as aggression, "deviant" sexual behavior and moral development.[sup] [3]
Our focus has to be on the persistent repetitive offender, whether detected or undetected by the
criminal justice system. In this process, psychiatrists are uniquely placed with a vast information
which is personal, clinical and social. However, that entails higher responsibility to oneself,
profession and to the society.

References

High on crime fiction and detection

Author(s):Torben Grodal
Source:Projections:The Journal for Movies and Mind . 4.2 (Winter 2010): p64.
Document Type:Essay
DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/proj.2010.040205
Copyright:COPYRIGHT 2010 Berghahn Books, Inc.
http://journals.berghahnbooks.com/proj/index.php

Abstract: 
This article analyzes the psychological and neurological underpinnings of crime fiction and
discusses the interrelation between cultural and biological-evolutionary determinants of fictions
of detection. It argues that althoughcrime fiction is a product of modern life conditions, it is also
centrally fueled in the minds of viewers and readers by the mammalian dopamine
seeking/wanting system developed for seeking out resources by foraging and hunting and
important for focused mental and physical goal-directed activities. The article describes the way
the working of the seeking system explains how crime fiction activates strong salience (in some
respects similar to the effect of dopamine-drugs like cocaine, Ritalin, and amphetamine) and
discusses the role of social intelligence in crime fiction. It further contrasts the unempathic
classical detector fictions with two subtypes of crime fiction that blend seeking with other
emotions: the hardboiled crimefiction that blends detection with action and hot emotions like
anger and bonding, and the moral crime fiction that strongly evokes moral disgust and
contempt, often in conjunction with detectors that perform hard to fake signals of moral
commitment that make them role models for modern work ethics. The article is part of bio-
cultural research that describes how biology and culture interact as argued in Grodal's Embodied
Visions.

Full Text: 
Keywords: bioculturalism, crime fiction, detection, dopaminergic seeking, emotions, incentive
salience, moral emotions, obsessive-compulsive fiction

Detection as Entertainment

Many dominant fiction forms--action-adventure, tragedy, comedy, and love stories--have existed

for thousands of years. Detective fiction is, however, a fairly recent invention, emerging in the
middle of the nineteenth century, with Poe's The Murders in Rue Morgue as an early example and
Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories as a mature form. Detective fiction belongs to a family
of crime fictions that includes police stories, gangster stories, and stories that focus on ordinary
criminals (like noir films such as Double Indemnity) or possible victims of crimes, as in thrillers
(see Leitch 2002).

Even though crime fiction emerged as a major narrative form in the middle of the nineteenth
century, the content of crimefiction has existed in literature and drama for several thousand
years; examples include the stories of Oedipus and Macbeth (Messac 1929). Many types
of crime fiction or segments of crime fiction bleed into other kinds of fictions. Thus, parts of
many crime stories are indistinguishable from action-adventure forms, and crime stories may be
combined with love stories, tragic elements, or violent action. Classical crime fictions and police
fictions focus on the detector (I use the word "detector" to cover private eyes, police, and
amateurs), gangster films or noir films focus on the criminal agent, and thrillers focus on
possible victims of crime. This article mainly focuses on those crime fictions that are centered on
detectors.

In the ancient mode of dealing with crime, family, relatives, or the local community were
"vigilante" executioners of justice, whereas the executioners of justice in detective and
police crime fiction predominantly have non-personal relations to victims of crime, reflecting a
modern institutionalization of the exertion of justice. In the first part of my analysis of detector
fiction I focus on the "classical" detector fictions in which the detectors have impersonal, third-
person relations to the crimes, victims, and their relatives. I then address the types of detection
that are more strongly motivated by the detector's personal emotions, like bonding and anger in
hardboiled fictions, and moral disgust in many relatively recent police stories and forensic
stories.

The type of agency-focus employed is important for the types of emotions that are dominantly
activated in a given film. Thrillers activate fear; gangster films rely on anger, aggression, and
different desires. I argue that the classical detector fiction is characterized by the activation of
the emotions that Panksepp (1998) calls seeking emotions, and that Berridge and Robinson
(2003) call wanting emotions, which have other emotions as background motivation for seeking.
Seeking emotions are supported by the dopamine system in the brain and have evolved to
support seeking for resources such as food and mates (Figure 1). The use of seeking emotions
often functions in tandem with social intelligence.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

The typical, traditional story that involves a crime has emotionally charged and personalized
relations among criminal agent, victim, and avengers/punishers. A murder or a similar violation
has been committed and family members or people from the same tribe seek revenge or
vengeance, as in many westerns, and justice is provided by destiny or supernatural agencies, as
in tragedies. Central to traditional stories of transgressions of norms by murder or property right
violations are such emotional reactions as sorrow, anger, and disgust. These emotional reactions
are linked to some personalized bonds between victim and avenger, as in Once Upon a Time in
the West where Harmonica revenges his murdered brother. The detective fiction of the classical
whodunit type is radically different: The detector has a personalized relation to neither victim nor
criminal, and the emotions activated during the detection have little, if any, relations to those
emotions experienced by the criminal or the victim. They are focused on the intellectual
processes (Cawelti 1976). In contrast to revenge stories the process of punishment is often
separated from the process of detection. Extreme aspects of this detached cognitive seeking are
callous forensic inspections of bodies that have the same emotional status as physical objects in
relation to investigators. Other emotions may exist as background emotions like pride of the
ability to solve problems or a general disgust in relation to violators but the prime focus is on the
excitement of detection.

The historical-cultural conditions for this cool distance among detector, victim, and criminal is the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries' rise of modern urban mass society in combination with the
establishment of a series of institutions linked to that modern society. The development of the
police and the judiciary system created people, procedures, and discourses that supported the
evolution of a professionalized relation to crime. Activities like detection, evaluation of clues, and
witness reports became professionalized. Early crime fictions such as Collins's The Moonstone
were influenced by the legal procedures in courts of justice, just as Poe's Dupin fictions were
inspired by, among other things, the writings of a Paris chief of police, Eugene Vidoq (Knight
1980). The nineteenth century saw a massive growth in newspapers that had an extensive
coverage of crime. The reference to newspaper reporting on fashionable or heinous crimes is
central in many of Poe's and Conan Doyle's stories and later in crime films. The nineteenth
century saw a growth in the natural sciences and their systematization of rational analysis and
causal inference. Of special importance was the development of the medical sciences. Hence,
one of the central inspirations for the Holmes figure was Doyle's professor in medicine, Dr.
Joseph Bell (Sebeok and Umiker-Sebeok 1983). Medical science created procedures for studying
the symptoms of the body in a rational and objective fashion.

The social background for crime fiction is therefore the combination of the emerging anonymous
metropolitan mass society, the rise of professional classes, the development of their scientific
methods and discourses and last, but not least, the rise of mass media reports of crimes and the
police investigations of crimes. Crime would not only be dealt with by means of those
personalized emotions that are central to moral judgments, but also by means of rational,
cognitive, and utilitarian procedures that are to some degrees shielded from personalized moral
emotions. (1) The detection setting enhances a cool, rational approach to detection shielded
from personalized moral sentiments.

Mammalian Skills of Foraging and Hunting and Dopamine-Supported Seeking

Often the pleasure of viewing or reading crime fiction is enhanced by the background feeling of
the callousness of the approach compared with the viewers' or readers' normal moral-affective
engagement in the crimes. This development of rational and unemotional actions and
procedures for dealing with crime and criminals took place by systematizing innate skills and
transferring mental activities developed for other purposes, such as hunting and foraging, to
activities related to moral problems such as dealing with crimes.

The prime fascination provider in detector fiction is, as mentioned, an activation of what the
neurologist Jaak Panksepp (1998: 148) describes as the "seeking system," short for a
"foraging/exploration/investigation/curiosity/ interest/ expectancy/SEEKING" system. The
seeking system is an important part of the neural system of all mammals. It originated to
motivate and support the seeking out of resources, especially food, in contrast to, for instance,
the rage-aggression system that developed to support violent confrontations related to the
control of, for example, resources, body integrity, the panic system, and bondings in jeopardy.

The seeking system provides the brain with energy and supports interest and attention,
curiosity, sensation seeking, and a quest for higher or deeper meaning. According to Panksepp it
helps cement the linking of causal connections in the world and thereby creates ideas. The basics
are simple, like when a fox links a certain scent with a rabbit somewhere in the vicinity, or when
a hunter keenly observes footprints to guess the identity of the creature that have created them,
or when an animal connects a certain type of vegetation with the possible presence of a desired
food. The seeking system is also central in storing causal connections between clues and goals in
the memory for reuse in later situations. The cognitive seeking is intimately linked with motor
implementation, whether as actual actions or as mental simulations (thought actions), because
the seeking system is a kind of motivational and control outgrowth in the frontal brain of the
motor system to steer actions in an intelligent way.

The seeking system is involved in all goal-directed mental activities and cognition but to a
different degree. In the classical detector fictions, the crime that must be solved provides
background motivation and goal, but the emphasis is on enhancing those aspects that are
related to processing clues as elements of goals. Viewers and readers of crime fictions are
bombarded with hermeneutic puzzles and signs that are felt as being strongly meaningful,
pointing to vital conclusions. The pleasure of solving riddles and puzzles is derived from the
mammalian seeking system that you might even think of as the detection system. The seeking
system thus supports intellectual curiosity and mental focus in contrast to the rage system and
the fear system that support violent interaction. To relate detection in city jungles to the
behavior of hunter-gatherers was already registered by nineteenth-century French novelists.
Cooper's novel The Last of the Mohicans was seminal for fictionalizing such behavior. Holmes
sniffs clues and traces like a hunter or a dog on a trail (Carlo Ginzburg [1983] has described the
link between hunting, tracking, and Sherlock Holmes's detection abilities).

The seeking system is a major source of the confirmation bias, the tendency to selectively seek
confirmation for our hypotheses. A consequence of this is that an over-activation of the system
can lead to delusions, where, in a delusional fashion, you observe signs and traces and combine
them into farfetched hypotheses that you believe are fully confirmed. Such over-activations may
take place with overdoses of cocaine, amphetamine, or Ritalin, because those drugs work by
influencing the dopaminergic system, and they are therefore stimulants that activate and support
the seeking system. Conan Doyle was probably an abuser of cocaine, and certainly portrayed
Sherlock Holmes as a user of cocaine, just as part of his fictions (e.g., the Challenger novels) are
based on delusional affirmations of hypotheses and deductions. In the extreme forms of
detection and mystery the viewer is invited to share such delusional worlds, whereas the
mainstream serialized detector fictions invite viewers and readers to confirm more modest
inferences.

It is important to emphasize that the seeking system is different from the pleasure systems that
provide relaxation (e.g., eating, having orgasms, drinking alcohol). The seeking processes--
desiring, wanting--support the seeking out of such gratifications and support the making of
mental connections between clues of possible gratifications and the actual gratifications; they are
not the gratifications themselves. The seeking processes are supported by the secretion of the
neurotransmitter dopamine into the ventral tegmentum, the amygdala, the ventral pallidum, the
nucleus accumbens, and other dopamine sites (Berridge and Robinson 2003), providing positive
intellectual energy to the cognitive processes in the frontal parts of the brain. Dopamine is
equally vital for the functioning of the motor system, and vital parts of the system are located in
the basal ganglia that are important for motor control and learning. In contrast, the pleasure
reactions are supported by opioids and prolactin that produce relaxation. Dopamine is even a
prolactin-antagonist, and prolactin is central in relaxing pleasure processes such as orgasms, as
well as in bonding and breast-feeding, and this might explain why seeking may jam empathy and
support a certain cool distance.

The dopaminergic seeking system is not only related to seeking positive rewards but also to
negative relations (Kapur 2003) that explain the role of dopamine reactions in paranoia, which is
an extreme, negative form of the seeking system. In paranoid seeking the immediate
environment is perceived as full of highly salient and highly ominous signs of dangers. Some of
Hitchcock's films have highly paranoid elements, just as spy thrillers often use and abuse
feelings to make it seem that the seemingly normal, peaceful environment is full of mortal
dangers, as in Coppola's The Conversation. Dan Brown has sold scores of millions of books and
cinema tickets by constructing fictions that over-activate the dopaminergic seeking system by
creating paranoid fictional universes full of ominous clues. Due to their total control of perceptual
input, films are well suited to induce such experiences of paranoia in viewers--the cool seeking is
eventually supplanted by fear.

Criminals as well as detectors (and viewers and readers) frequently show behaviors and thought
processes that are similar to those of people with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Persons
with OCD have heightened dopamine sensitivity (Harsanyi et al. 2007) and heightened frontal
lobe activity (Panksepp 1998), and compulsively perform rigid mental or physical rituals, such as
obsessively repeated checking (e.g., whether they have locked the apartment or turned off the
stove), repeated cleansing (e.g., obsessive washing rituals), or compulsive hoarding. According
to Boyer and Lienard (2006) this is linked to hazard precaution: non-conscious or semi-conscious
fears trigger rituals of cognitive and motor control that typically degrade by goaldemolition. That
is, the small action nuclei--like hand washing--lose their goal-functionality, for instance, when
general fears of body harm and contamination is reduced to simple, repetitive hand washing, or
when fears elicit small verbal prayers. One of the central cliches of crime fiction is the serial
killer that repeats certain rituals that have to be performed obsessively and compulsively (e.g.,
The Silence of the Lambs, Se7en, and American Psycho), but detectors may equally become
compulsive in their detection and seeking (e.g., Fincher's Zodiac). The detectors' seeking is often
described as an obsessive-compulsive workaholism. Detection may even tend to lose its goal-
orientation (e.g., Trier's The Element of Crime or Antonioni's Blowup) and many obsessive-
compulsive fictions describe such seeking that loses sight of the goal (see Grodal 1997). The
ritualized nature of crime fiction and its procedures may also serve as obsessive hazard
containment for viewers and readers in addition to the gratification derived from seeking.
The seeking in detector fictions thus comes in different forms, from the functional, goal-directed
seeking, based more or less on ritualized procedures, to the extreme forms of dysfunctional
obsessive seeking based on ritualized behaviors and thoughts, eventually combined with hyper-
activation of associative functions.

Cold, Intense Detection, Hot Emotions, and Mirror Resonance with Detectors

Panksepp points out that compared with the rage system the foraging-hunting system provides
relatively cold vitality feelings: it energizes the feelings of your embodied mental experiences of
agency and possible intellectual and motor actions, as when cocaine abusers play music and
dance without tiring. The modern work procedures are built on the same motivational systems as
foraging and hunting, and crime fiction has in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries
become one of the most dominant forms of portraying life in the workplace in fiction as a
gratifying, personal working out, a state especially linked to the work of police officers. The
seriousness of the crimes (e.g., murder, child abuse, trafficking, drug dealing) provides the
strong background motivation. However, the work is characterized by the eager seeking for data
and the procedural processing of data leading to the goal that resonates in the viewers' or
readers' minds as intellectual and bodily vitality feelings. The reason why certain types
of crime fiction have been regarded as low culture and as callous is linked to the way in which
arousal coming from all kinds of moral transgressions are channeled into an arousing experience
of excited exploration.

Ed Tan (1996, 2008) has focused on the emotion that he, following Frijda (1986), calls "interest"
and that has similarities to those mechanisms that Panksepp calls the seeking system. For Tan,
interest is the dominant emotion elicited by film viewing. Interest may be elicited by the viewer
taking an impersonal, third-person perspective on the narrative actions, whereas feelings such
as love, desire, fear, or aggression partly demand that the viewer simulates the narrative events
by resonating with some of the film characters' first-person perspective. However, although all
fictions and all endeavors activate some degrees of interest and seeking, different types of fiction
and different types of the segments of given fictions elicit different ratios between emotions
based on "interest-curiosity-seeking" and emotions like love and hate. Emotional resonance with
emotional situations does not need to be dominated by active seeking. The viewer's emotional
involvement in, say, versions of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet or Kubrick's The Shining are
very much driven by emotional resonance in relation to love, sadness, or fear, and although
seeking and expectations play a role, they need not be dominant. In contrast, films about
detection are very much driven by seeking and interest, as in The Murder on the Orient Express
or Blowup. Fiction evokes most emotions at some point in time and the difference between
genres such as action-adventure, romance, horror, or detection is the question of what emotions
are dominant and to what degree they dominate. Even if films, for instance horror movies, also
may evoke some seeking emotions related to the wish for escaping or the paranoid scanning for
ominous signs, the central emotional experience is the strong visceral fear in contrast to seeking,
that has its focus in cognitive and motor processes in the frontal parts of the brain. By
foregrounding seeking, hot resonance may decrease. The film experience is embodied and
different types of situations and emotions activate different configurations of our embodied mind
experiences.

The emphasis on seeking in detector fiction is enhanced by the way in which crime fiction is

often produced within a frame of serialization. The detectors--Holmes, Marple, Marlowe,
Columbo, or Inspector Morse--are the constants, the agents with whom the viewers or readers
resonate empathically in fiction after fiction, whereas victims and criminals vary from fiction to
fiction. Due to the pre-established familiarity and empathy with such well-known detectors, their
verbal language and body language automatically cue strong focused seeking in the viewer, for
instance via mirror neuron systems and their ability to evoke first person simulations (Gallese
and Stamenov 2002; Grodal 2009; Vogeley and Newen 2002). It is the prominence of this
resonance of the detectors' seeking-emotions in viewer or reader that enables the toning down
or block of other emotions in the criminal investigations. The cool, intense seeking is further
enhanced if there is a stock of procedures that the viewers may simulate, thereby reactivating
earlier seeking procedures.

Seeking and Making Everything Highly Salient and Meaningful

The central mechanism in seeking is to explore environment and look for traces and clues. This
means that the objects and phenomena in the environment are not only interesting in
themselves, but also as information about something else, so that a given item may get its
interest as an indexical sign of something else. (2) The signs may even get a fetish-like
emotional charge. In an article on dopamine, Berridge and Robinson (2003) describe how
laboratory animals that have learned to see a given stimulus as a sign for some future
gratification in Pavlovian conditioning experiments often transferred the liking of the promised
object to a liking of the sign itself. Birds might for instance like to peck on a light spot that
promised food even if they had learned that the light spot was a sign of some future food
gratifications. The interest and curiosity in revealing a given murderer may therefore provide
emotional energy for providing traces and clues with strong emotional salience. Traces of hair,
blood, semen, and fingerprints become highly interesting. Intense attention and scrutiny may for
a short while provide strong salience to scratches on walls, footprints, marks on bullets or
bodies, and so on. Also, different types of behavior become highly interesting even if they
themselves have a trivial nature, like making phone calls, looking into files, or working on a
computer. This is different from, say, horror fiction, in which the central horrifying images are
directly and visibly horrible.

Berridge and Robinson (2003) describe the effect of the motivational system (that is about the
same as Panksepp's seeking system) as providing "incentive salience" and describe the effect of
the dopamine-supported motivational system as working to provide salience to those phenomena
that may be linked to desired goals or feared outcomes. Detection abounds in such motivating
salience activations. The psychiatrist Joseph Carver (2010) writes that: "as Dopamine levels in
the brain begin to raise, we become excited/ energized, then suspicious and paranoid, then
finally hyperstimulated by our environment. With low levels of Dopamine, we can't focus while
with high levels of Dopamine our focus becomes narrowed and intense to the point of focusing
on everything in our environment as though it were directly related to our situation."
Schizophrenia is such an over-activation of dopamine reactions, and Kapur (2003) calls
dopamine the wind of the psychotic fire. Antipsychotic medications are typically dopamine-
antagonists. Some types of crime mysteries and thrillers evoke such delusional states in which
everything is highly salient and eventually related to the current fictional situation in a paranoid
fashion. Equally, some art films excel in quests for deeper meaning by means of a high degree of
perceptual salience, even if this feeling of deep meaning is just an effect of an over-activation of
the mental impact of indexical signs with unclear referents (see Grodal 2009).

Thus, an important aspect of detector fictions is that they provide a way of making exotica as
well as all the trivia of daily life highly interesting and salient; even those aspects that Siegfried
Kracauer in Theory of Film (1960) called the "refuse"--all those details of the world that do not
ordinarily get any attention, because they are trivial, dull, low-order, or eventually repulsive--
may by narrative and stylistic means become highly salient. Thus viewers of police fictions may
get their own daily routine life in places such as labs and offices in a version that is highly
meaningful.

Therefore, the crime formula excites the seeking system in such a way that it allows for a steady
stream of excited interest and focused attention toward whatever the detection process
highlights at the given moment in the narrative and creates associational links and confirmation
of hypotheses. Because the seeking system supports a wide array of vital interests, it may
transform salience and arousal linked to very different emotions (e.g., fear, sexual arousal,
disgust, anger) to intense seeking. It is therefore extremely well suited as a formula for mass
production of fiction.

The intense focusing and experience of relevance is enhanced by media procedures. Language as
well as the visual and acoustic focus of media controls our attention: close-ups of objects make
them salient and isolate them from their ordinary context and they may then be provided with
new contexts and meanings. Crime mystery viewers or readers come to the fictions with such
intense expectations of a hunt for meaning that a verbal or visually focused mentioning or
indexing of a given phenomenon triggers a search for meanings and connections. In Se7en, for
instance, the viewers are bombarded with all kinds of focused perceptions, from mysterious
religious images and strange sentences to images of weirdly mutilated bodies that provide a
delusional sense of meaning and coherence. Antonioni's Blowup is a paradigm case of how such
hyper-activations of the salience and meaning systems are staged in an art film setting.

Social Intelligence, Strategic Knowledge, and Moral Double Standards

The seeking procedures highlight the material evidence and those procedures that focus on
dealing with such types of evidence as hair, fingerprints, footprints, broken twigs, problems of
access and exit to given rooms. However, if the search is not for roots and berries but for other
living beings, it is important to be able to model those agents that you are searching for.
Whereas crime fiction in the masculine line of detection from Poe on often highlights the puzzles
and procedures linked to material evidence and circumstances, the feminine line of detection
(from Agatha Christie on) has provided more emphasis on those aspects of crime fiction that
focus on social intelligence. These include the modeling of motives, behaviors, character type;
the observation of alibis and the whereabouts of possible suspects; the reading of body language
and the micro-sociological understanding of the interpersonal relations in small groups. Detector
fictions thus provide a framework for searching the traces and clues in the mental and social
landscapes in the same detached and instrumental way as with physical clues in isolation from
personalized emotional relations. Crime fictions within this tradition are often staged in such
places as small, secluded environments so that the detection can take place by means of social
intelligence. (3)

Because the interest in other people and their private and public life is framed as a disinterested
seeking, motivated by solving a crime mystery, viewers and readers may participate in
numerous kinds of scrutiny into emotions and relations that will continuously provide background
activation of various emotions. Furthermore, detectors transgress all those emotionally charged
boundaries by which people are normally surrounded, such as all those elements connected to
barriers of privacy. Apartments and houses, diaries, drawers, dirty linen, trashcans, and
computers are searched. Detectors try to provide total transparency as to the deeds and
thoughts of possible suspects. Bodies are scrutinized for clues, and forensics is one of the most
important ways in which the body and its functions are dealt with as a profane object and in
which death is described as a purely physical event.

The activation of the seeking system thus circumvents normal rules of proximity and privacy in
ways similar to those of doctors in relation to patients (on the psychology of proximity and
proxemics, see Hall 1966). It may, as mentioned, be conjectured that strong forms of seeking
diminish empathy. The fictions provide a moral free ride into the secret aspects of the lives of
other people and into other types of behavior. We may call this moral tourism or moral double
standards because crime fiction allows viewers to mentally participate in a series of different
moral behaviors and even perversions, like child abuse and torture, so that on a given day, a
large part of TV entertainment consists of numerous tourist journeys into morally forbidden
terrains. Crime fiction activates a series of emotions linked to morally rejected behaviors and at
the same time contains the effect by making detectors perform moral surveillance, as well as
implement a punishment, and sometimes convey their moral disgust or contempt. The
presentation of these behaviors of a dubious morality can be given from different perspectives,
ranging from the classical detective's callous outside perspective to, say, noir films that portray
the subjective emotions from the mental insides of the criminals and eventually from a mixed
perspective of desire and regret when things have gone wrong.

In some dimensions the social detectors professionalize the constant surveillance and gossip that
is a central aspect of social life and social and moral control (see Barkow, Cosmides, and Tooby
1992; Dunbar 1996; Mithen 1996). In crimefiction the lives of the suspects are searched for
strategic knowledge: who sleeps with whom and what economic or emotional consequences does
it have on the behavior of suspects, what are their sexual preferences, are there hidden bonds,
such as being an illegitimate child with possible claims on fortunes, or are there other hidden
economic circumstances, and so on.

In pre-modern societies moral surveillance was to an important degree thought to be the job of
supernatural agents. Pascal Boyer (2001) has described how moral gods' omniscience is geared
at what he calls strategic knowledge, knowledge about transgressions of moral norms. In
modern societies the control has been supplanted by the profane surveillance exerted by private
and public detectors.

Classical and Hardboiled Crime Fiction

Whereas the classical crime fictions exclusively focused on detection, an important trend in

twentieth-century crime fiction has been to splice elements from detection stories with elements
from action-adventure stories, prominently in the so-called hardboiled crime story. As
mentioned, action-adventure mostly has 'hot' personalized emotional ties among victims and
villains like bonding emotions or anger. Just as important is the use of basic mammalian/
vertebrate behavior patterns, linked to hiding, tracking, observing, fleeing and fighting (HTOFF-
scenarios), while seeking in classical detector fiction is only linked to tracking and observing.

Central parts of the hardboiled stories consist of physical confrontations with evildoers, in
emotionally 'hot' situations involving rage, aggression, and fear, and using ancient mammalian
skills, such as pursuing, hiding, and sneaking up that are also prominent when children and other
mammalian youngsters play (Steen and Owens 2001). In the core HTOFF scenes the cognitive
dopamine-supported seeking skills, "foraging skills," are only activated in relation to personal
safety and do not, as in classical crime fiction, cue the cool joy of cognizing. Whereas the
classical whodunit had only few HTOFF segments and hot first-person emotions like fear, anger,
and panic caused by bonding in jeopardy, the hardboiled crimefictions incorporate those aspects,
and thus the hardboiled novels and films are hybrids of detection and action (with adventure and
romance elements). In a sense the term "hardboiled" is a bit misleading, because although such
works contain violent confrontations and often contain disillusioned situations, they are much
more centrally emotional, as in The Big Sleep that contains strong male bonding and loyalty,
romantic love, and aggressive confrontations. Marlowe is motivated partly by his care for Vivian
Rutledge and her father. Although some TV crime fictions use the cool detective forms, the
majority also rely heavily on HTOFF scenarios and very often use moral pathos and sentimental
interpersonal relations.

Disgust, Morality, and Dead or Mutilated Bodies

Even if classical detector fiction predominantly fuels an attitude of excited and sometimes callous
seeking, the seeking efforts are sometimes also motivated by moral reactions to the criminal act
and the criminal agent. Moral emotions therefore exist as background emotions that fuel the
seeking procedures. Many different emotions are supported by activation of arousal of the
sympathetic nervous system, and fictions very often create arousal in the viewer by one emotion
and then re-contextualize the arousal by means of another emotion. (For a description of the
mechanisms for transferring sympathetic arousal from underpinning one emotion to
underpinning another see, e.g., Grodal 1997 on relabeling of arousal and Dolf Zillmann 1998 on
arousal transfer.) In many modern crime fictions moral emotions provide powerful fuel for the
seeking procedures. Thus, the pure excited seeking and detection represents one end of the
spectrum of detector fictions, while the strong moral motivation for the seeking represents the
other end of the spectrum.

The strong moral motivation has become more prominent during the last decades as exemplified
by the enormous success of the films and novels in Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy that
strongly blend seeking, moral revulsion, and HTOFF scenarios.

Moral sentiments are not backed up by emotions special to morality but are supported by basic
emotions (Prinz 2008). The central emotions that underpin evaluations of transgressions of
moral norms are according to Rozin, Haidt, and McCauley (2000): 1) Anger: a reaction to
violations of rights, justice, and space. 2) Disgust: linked to violations of the body as in murder
and rape. 3) Contempt: a reaction to violations of social duties, social hierarchies, and norms of
social roles.

Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West or Altman's The Long Goodbye are typical examples of
how anger is driving revenge in order to re-establish justice. Vigilante fictions tap into very basic
vertebrate anger-motivated behavior patterns related to the defense of territory, mate, and
offspring. As fuel for achieving justice, anger is more typical for non- crime fictions such as
action, adventure, and western; anger-induced arousal may need violent confrontations in order
to achieve outlet because anger motivates violent approach. In the anger-fueled stories the
identity of the criminal is often clear from the outset; it is the implementation of justice that is
fueled by anger.

In contrast to anger that often underpins an active approach, disgust is in principle a mechanism
of withdrawal even if it may also later motivate a violent approach. Thus, murder may directly
activate anger, when interpreted as a violation of rights, but may also activate disgust if the
murder is perceived as a body mutilation; the disgust may eventually later be transformed into
anger--common, for example, in the numerous crime fictions about sex crimes.
Moral disgust is typically an emotion that expresses the needs of the ultrasocial humans (Boyd
and Richerson 1998) to regulate social interactions (Curtis and Biran 2001). Moral disgust is
therefore very compatible with detector fiction and depersonalized seeking. The depersonalized
seeking becomes easier because social disgust may express that the disgusting humans are
perceived as objects (see Harris and Fiske 2006). The disgust further makes the moral verdict
general as opposed to the anger-based personalized emotions.

Disgust is related to mechanisms that are aimed at protecting humans from contact with
potentially poisonous food and substances like rotten food that might be a health hazard, and
disgust can be extended to a series of phenomena that may pose health hazards, like bodily
fluids (spit, snot, urine, excrements) or just physical contact with other beings. The mechanisms
of disgust belong to the oldest part of the brain, the brainstem and the elicitation is dependent
on learning, (4) even if it seems to rely on innate dispositions (Curtis and Biran 2001). People
that violate moral norms may by metaphorical projection be perceived as unclean and
disgusting. The facial expression of disgust is highly salient and contagious so that facial
expressions in relation to behaviors, objects, and situations may serve as a learning tool by
providing emotional labels to them. Because of the ease with which disgust can be associated
with various phenomena, disgust can by socialization be used to underpin moral social norms,
like sexual purity.

A special element in crime fiction is the disgust evoked by dead bodies that is also central in
horror fiction but as a personalized problem. Human bodies pose a double-bind problem: they
are rotting and potentially contagious, and they also evoke empathy by being remnants of living
humans (Boyer 2001; Grodal 2009). Fincher's Sejen is a good illustration of many dimensions of
the role of disgust in crime fiction (Figure 2). The general attitude toward the social life in the
(modern) city is one of moral disgust, as expressed by one of the two main characters, Detective
Lt. Somerset (Morgan Freeman), who sees city life as a scene of disgusting abuse. The film
mostly picks scenes and crimes that activate disgust. The victims are disgusting due to those
sins of physical lust that they have performed that have defiled their bodies and minds.
However, the criminal is even more disgusting by the way in which he performs his crimes, by
further amplifying the disgusting features, like feeding a fat man additional food in filthy
circumstances, or like further defiling a prostitute.

The disgusting elements are emotionally activating in themselves but are also rhetorical, ways in
which elements of basic disgust, such as vomit, wounds, dirt, can be linked, by association, to
moral transgressions. The disgust evoked thus increases the motivation for trying to catch the
criminal in order to purge the social body of the source of moral contamination. The film even
contrasts Somerset's disgust-driven seeking with that of his sidekick that shows anger and
aggression directed at the criminal.

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

Even if the classical detector fictions presuppose that the detectors are shielded from the hazards
of crime, modern detector fictions and noir films often have an undertow of fear, expressed as
moral disgust, of the hazards of modern life. Lt. Somerset is typical of the moral-disgust-
motivated detective who suffers from depression due to the moral filth in the world. Such
detectives as Holmes and his successors do not have a dopamine rush as primary motivation
because moral revulsion is the prime motivator; the seeking emotions then click in and make the
moral cleansing process operational. In contrast to the classical detective's impersonal
motivation, and the revenge drama's personal motivation, such figures have a personal-
impersonal motivation: Their general motivation is deeply personal but they have no personal
involvement in the specific cases. Such depressed heroes have been popular in the last twenty
years within TV crime series. A prototypical example is the leader of the forensic team in CSI
New York, Mac Taylor, who is imbued with profound sadness because his beloved wife died in the
9/11 attack, and this deeply personal experience of crime is a strong motivator for his
impersonal and obsessive pursuit of justice by repeating the procedures of detection.

The central subgenre for activating and defusing disgust in relation to dead, mutilated bodies is
forensic crime fiction (Figure 3). Crime fiction has had a forensic aspect from day one as
indicated in the title of Poe's The Murders in the Rue Morgue, some of the attraction of which is
the contrast between cool crime scene investigation and the underlying disgusting crime. Recent
advances in forensic techniques have enabled fictions that expand the forensic part of the
narrative. A series of procedures and techniques serve as cues for the seeking process. The
forensic concept motivates a continuous violation of normal taboos on treating other people,
including dead people, as objects. The body is just another "hunting" scene or foraging scene
that you can inspect for clues and signs that may reveal the violator and those violent acts that
caused the death of the victims. The body interior is sometimes inspected; the body is searched
for semen and other DNA samples.

[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]

The cool, scientific inspection of bodies that integrate arousal from disgust into forensic detection
procedures dominated by seeking emotions have from Poe and Holmes to CSI and Bones been
cued as modern, as a necessary modern, urban, and scientific control of emotions. The exertion
of justice is not linked to 'hot' scenes of aggressive personalized encounters as in old revenge
dramas, but to anonymous crimes. The strong disgust from seeing the mutilated body that has
been profaned fuels our moral condemnation of the violator, and thus energizes the seeking
procedures of viewer and detector. The seeking procedures may be motivated by sad moral
disgust but also be transformed into a kind of nearly pornographic callousness in relation to the
body as a profane object, as in perverted crime fictions such as Argento's Tenebre.

Moral Contempt and Costly Signaling of Professional and Moral Commitment

The term "costly signaling" originates in evolutionary biology to explain why some animals have
costly displays, like the peacock's tail. The idea is that a costly signal demonstrates sincerity in
signaling: only very fit animals may be able to pay the cost of such signals. In the evolutionary-
cognitive study of religion costly signaling is used to explain why numerous religions and
religious rituals demand costly and hard to fake proof of sincerity, such as fasting, inflicting pain
on oneself, giving away money, conducting costly rituals like praying many times a day or
sacrificing one's life. The idea is that only honest believers may be willing to perform such costly
signals of sincerity (Alcorta and Sosis 2005; Flesch 2007; Grodal 2009, esp. ch. 6) and they are
therefore difficult to fake.

Classical detectives were mainly motivated by the sheer excitement of the cognitive problems
involved. For instance, although Holmes sometimes suffered from over-excitement and lack of
sleep confronted with an especially hard problem--a symptom of over-activation of the dopamine
system--the typical hedonic economy for him is intellectual pleasure without cost. However, from
the American hardboiled crime fictions on, the detectives and the policepersons are often paying
a costly price when doing their job. There are three typical costs. The first is physical abuse, as
suffered by Marlowe in Dmytryk's Murder, My Sweet, or in L.A. Confidential where Ed Exley is
mutilated. Second, the detectors work for a low salary or fee, and yet they are incorruptible,
even when they are surrounded by rich people who might bribe them, as Marlowe in The Big
Sleep. Third, they work long and irregular hours and are therefore often unable to have a family
life. The typical detective is a workaholic and a lonely wolf, like Somerset in Se7en, and the
workaholics may often even seem obsessive-compulsive.

The cost that detectors pay is, in a sense, compatible with what it means to be a hero because
heroes are not only people with above average skills, they often also have above average
commitments to their tasks even if they have to pay a considerable cost or take considerable
risks. Action-adventure heroes often suffer considerable costs, and in sad war melodramas
heroes sacrifice their lives to show their commitment to their tribe (Grodal 2009). That detectors
perform such heroic costly signaling is, however, also related to the way in which they have
become the prime models of commitment to a given professional identity, just as cop shows
have become the prime vehicle for portraying the conflict between private life and its values and
professional life and its values. The small entrepreneurs Marlowe and Gittes (Chinatown) as well
as the police officers Taylor (CSI New York) and Exner (L.A. Confidential)are workaholics and
lonely wolves, and workaholics have become one of the central cliches in crime fiction. The
workaholics and their continuous obsessive-compulsive seeking express the social values of
serving, cooperating with and submitting to the social and moral order. Obsessive seeking in the
service of the moral order is a costly and hard to fake sign of moral righteousness, and it goes
hand in hand with the moral disgust that somehow isolates detectors from normal life.

Moral disgust and contempt as well as work ethics are the moralistic surface of callously peeping
into the moral abyss of the city jungle. This hard to fake ethical profile is enhanced by the way in
which many detective-heroes show a constant background grief caused by a dead partner
(sometimes a divorced partner). (5) Thus the hard to fake commitment-by-sadness supports the
ethical-professional ethos.

That the detectors have become paragons of moral commitment is further emphasized by the
importance that many crimefictions place on portraying moral contempt linked to corrupt law
enforcers. Rozin et al. (2000) suggest that moral contempt is linked to the violation of social
duties, social hierarchies, and the fulfillment of social roles. In L.A. Confidential Exley's costly
signaling of moral commitment is underlined by the contempt shown toward those cops who
violate the fulfillment of their social roles. Thus, the extent to which crime fiction activates moral
contempt by violations of social role expectations further strengthen the way in which detectors
may be portrayed as paragons of society's moral order and work-ethos, just as crime detection
has become the fascinating version of modern life in the workplace.

In Conclusion

The inventors of crime fiction in the nineteenth century developed a new type of entertainment
using the dopamine-supported seeking emotions to master interpersonal relations and to
supercharge the foraging and hunting skills by reading traces and signs in the social world. The
precondition for this has been a depersonalization of social interaction in general and the
exertion of justice in particular. The development of crime fiction profited from a series of new
procedures within science, media, and policing that provided models for modern depersonalized
seeking. Twentieth-century films and television series further developed the formula by adding
the routines and interactions of modern workplaces and by creating subgenres, for instance by
adding strong moral dimensions or by integrating elements from other genres such as action,
revenge, and romance.
Crime fictions excel in evoking incentive salience by activating the dopamine-supported seeking
system. The detector procedures and police procedures serve as ways to provide emotional
salience from mammalian brain mechanisms developed for foraging and hunting purposes to
modern work procedures (e.g., searching files, making phone calls, scrutinizing objects, DNA
testing). The procedures are sometimes obsessive-compulsive just as the criminals
investigated--especially serial killers--often suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorders. The
seeking procedures may be used to make even the most trivial aspects of daily life salient, from
hair and scratches to daily bureaucratic routines, as means to emotionally activating ends.

The seeking is often, for instance, mixed with HTOFF scenarios in hardboiled crime fictions.
Linked to basic mammalian emotions and skills for hunting and survival, such scenes activate
strong "hot" emotions.

Crime fiction is also a formula for motivating and integrating social and moral tourism in modern
mega-societies, and especially for allowing viewers and readers to enjoy the access to strategic
knowledge of hidden moral deviations, often by the use of social intelligence as a way of
understanding even the secret aspects of other minds.

Many types of crime fiction, especially TV series, motivate the seeking activities and seeking
emotions with moral disgust-emotions emanating from the killed or severely mutilated or raped
victims of crime. However, the disgust-emotions are also transformed into frivolous interest by
means of modern and professionally callous treating of other people's bodies as objects, thus
violating the emotions that normally protect the personal integrity of dead bodies, and violating
normal regulations of social proximity and bodily contact.

The classical detectors were meant to fascinate by their rational and callous seeking. However,
many modern detectors often activate empathy and

moral admiration due to the way in which they perform costly signaling of their moral superiority
by being workaholics, by suffering pain and abuse, and by their strong empathy with victims,
thus serving as pleasurable role models for modern readers and viewers.

Torben Grodal is a professor in the Department of Media, Cognition, and Communication at the
University of Copenhagen. In addition to having written books and articles on literature, he has
authored Moving Pictures. A New Theory of Genre, Feelings, and Emotions (1997), Embodied
Visions: Evolution, Emotion, Culture and Film (2009), an advanced introduction to film theory in
Danish, Filmoplevelse (2003), and edited Visual Authorship (2005). He has also published a
number of articles on film, emotions, narrative theory, art films, video games, and evolutionary
film theory.

doi: 10.3167/proj.2010.040205

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Notes

(1) Neurologists (Koenigs et al. 2007; Moll and Oliveira-Souza 2007) have demonstrated that
those persons that have damage to their ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC), important for
evoking personalized moral sentiments, are more utilitarian (cool rationalists) in their relation to
moral dilemmas than those with a normal VMPFC who make their decisions based on
personalized moral emotions. Professional detection procedures attempt to emulate such a
disruption of the influence from VMPFC.

(2) Everything may in principle activate what Roland Barthes in S/Z (1974) called the
hermeneutic code.

(3) See, e.g., Simon Baron-Cohen (1995, 2003) on theories of mind, intelligence, and empathy.
See also Grodal (2009: ch. 8) and Fiske and Taylor (1991).

(4) Izard (1991) reports how nurses who were stealing the juice of sick children in their care
were prevented from doing so by management putting the juice in sterile, new bottles made for
urine: the mere thought of a link between juice and urine created disgust among the nurses.

(5) This cliche in detective fiction also has narrative-technical reasons because it makes it
possible to play with potential new romantic openings that are sadly not carried through due to
the total commitment to the dead partner.
Grodal, Torben

Source Citation   (MLA 7th Edition)

Grodal, Torben. "High on crime fiction and detection." Projections:The Journal for Movies and Mind 4.2
(2010): 64+. Academic OneFile. Web. 23 Oct. 2014.
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