Understanding A Killer: Who Is A ‘Psychopath’?

Who is a psychopath? Taking references from cinema, Joffrey Baratheon from Game of Thrones for the Gen Z generation is a psychopath; for millennials, it is Javier Bardem’s portrayal in No Country for Old Men, recently voted “the most realistic psychopath ever”; Generation X had the 90s flooded with the likes of Dr. Hannibal Lecter, John Doe (Se7en) or The Talented Mr. Ripley; and the Baby Boomers had the chills down their spine thanks to Norman Bates in Psycho. Honorary mentions of Catherine Tramell from Basic Instinct and Prof. Moriarty from Arthur Conan Doyle bring clarity to the concept of what a psychopath is. And of course, in the Hindi film context, Kajol from Gupt! Gupt! and the ‘K.K.K.Kirran’ Shah Rukh Khan of Darr.

Now, a simple definition of abnormal is: what is not normal and from the studies of psychopaths, they constitute around 0.75 percent and 1 percent of the world population (Dr. Kevin Dutton - Oxford University). Various studies have come up with different characteristics of psychopaths, but the most acceptable ones, not exhaustive, across specific age, gender or sociological background, are that they have impaired empathy and remorse, tendencies to lie, and bold, disinhibited, and egotistical traits.

During my limited professional experience of around a decade, I’ve come across a spectrum of crimes, committed by some cold-blooded individuals who exhibited these typical behaviours. One such case of a kidnapping for ransom of a child wherein the criminal was later found to be his juvenile uncle who wanted to buy an iPhone, but had learned from the show Savdhaan India that old phones can be tracked back. He hatched a conspiracy to abduct his nephew and demanded around Rs. 2 lakh, while remaining in disguise. During the investigation, he was accompanying the police team, pretending to help but on learning that the kidnapee could be rescued, he killed the child. During the interrogation, he was found lacking conscience or a sense of guilt.

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From a criminal jurisprudence point of view, the term ‘psychopath’ has not been defined anywhere. However, Section 84 of the Indian Penal Code relates to general exceptions for the acts of a person of unsound mind which is an umbrella term. In Tufan @ Tufan vs State of MP, the judge writes:

“Even insanity is not exempted under Section 84 of IPC. There is a distinction between legal insanity and medical insanity. In order to take benefit of Section 84 of IPC, the accused must prove legal insanity, and not medical insanity. Any person, who is suffering from any kind of mental weakness is called “medical insanity”, however, “legal insanity” means, person suffering from mental illness should also have a loss of reasoning power. Furthermore, the legal insanity must be at the time of incident. In other words, it can be said that in order to attract legal insanity, a person should be incapable of knowing the nature of the act, or  he is doing  what is either wrong or either contrary to law. Thus, mere abnormality of mind or compulsive behavior is not sufficient to take benefit of  Section 84 of IPC.”

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There is no vaccine to instil empathy in an individual and the best medicine to prevent psychopathy in the world is to attend to the conditions that lead to it. Better child-rearing practices including non-exposure to violence, better role- modelling and providing a compassionate society to Generation Alpha would shift the normal distribution curve from the Joker with extreme psychopathy at one end, toward Bruce Wayne on the compassionate morality pole at the other.

(This appeared in the print edition as "Shifting The Curve")

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(Views expressed are personal)

Sagar Singh Kalsi is an IPS officer of the AGMUT Cadre, currently DCP, North District, Delhi