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  • 7 hours ago
When gruesome crimes occur, especially those perpetrated against children, the nation some-times plunges into a state of disbelief.

Regardless of economic and social class, race and other differences, there is solidarity in the outcry.

But what are some of the factors behind these heinous, inhumane acts and could some of the traits be identified early for intervention?

Alicia Boucher discusses these aspects with Psychiatrist Dr. Varma Deyalsingh.
Transcript
00:00What kind of a monster would do this? How can they sleep at night? They cannot be human.
00:05These are some of the recurring questions as people, communities, and at times the country
00:11are forced to wrap their minds around gruesome acts which the average person can never see
00:16themselves committing. Some past instances would include the murders of Sean Luke, Amy Ann Matudo,
00:22Ashanti Riley, Andrea Barath, Angelo Tobias Plaza, and just last Saturday, 12-year-old Mercedes Lane,
00:29who was sexually assaulted and beaten to death. But what if we told you that there are people
00:34who feel little to no remorse, guilt, sympathy, empathy, and other such emotions which would
00:40be associated with humane behavior? They exist, but there is a gap in assessing and gathering the
00:46statistics. Psychiatrist Dr. Varma D'Alsing says it is important to identify the perpetrators of these
00:53crimes. So we have to look at the perpetrators. Why would they reach that level where life comes
00:58like nothing? They are willing to snuff our lives. So we have to see how could we identify these
01:02people? Do they have some sort of antisocial personality disorder which we call psychopathy?
01:07Or are they individuals who just figure that a life is cheap? They have seen things that people
01:12are dying, so they think, well, it's nothing big. So if you are seeing murders, you are seeing
01:17death, it comes part of you, well, you may not feel any sort of remorse in doing crimes like this.
01:22So this is a frightening thing that we have to know. How could we get these individuals?
01:25Some of these mental health problems can be identified in childhood and can include abusing
01:31pets and children as well as having a high pain tolerance. Antipersonal personality disorder,
01:37antisocial personality disorder, which we used to refer to psychopathy a long time. You could look
01:42at that child, tracking that child's behavior. Do they have a conduct disorder where they are destroying
01:46things, burning things, dislike authority? Their action as a child could give you an inclination if that
01:54individual will be an adult with antisocial personality disorder. Other things we have to tackle. Remember,
01:59it's the gruesomeness of the crime. So why be looking out for these things? When these people
02:04are caught, we need a quick pipeline to justice. Without that, there is a breakdown of social
02:10learning where potential perpetrators fail to comprehend possible consequences for their actions.
02:16And so it fuels another thought process. If they get another way, I could do it. So social learning
02:22theory actually says, look, they did something, they get caught quick. Now we have, the Chief Justice
02:27has more judges. So this is something we have to commend that. But again, you have to look now,
02:32the police, the DPP, do they have the staff now to carry these investigation, to secure evidence,
02:39to ensure that when this case is held, we have everything in place. Would it help if those persons
02:45go through mandatory psychiatric testing by professionals so that we could create statistics
02:54to know what kind of mental health issues we have coming up in our population pertaining to the types
02:59of crimes that we are seeing? Yes, definitely. Because you have crimes where you have the personality
03:04disorders. And sometimes the prison population is filled with those individuals who have no remorse,
03:09they don't care about the law. You also have individuals who may be using drugs and the drugs
03:14itself having to gain money to maintain a drug habit or the drugs itself disinhibiting them. So I go out
03:20and do a crime. I just drop in a car because I'm disinhibited. So you have the drug use and
03:24you also
03:24have the personality disorder. So therefore, statistics is always important. And there is no doubt in Dr.
03:30Diel Singh's mind pertaining to one thing. We definitely know before that the the personality
03:38disorders, the borderline personal disorders, sometimes the the antisocial personality disorders,
03:42they are more prone to criminal activities. If you identified earlier as children or now, you know,
03:47because you have to make that diagnosis after 18. But if you could diagnose that strange behavior,
03:51we could put watchdogs in place to monitor them, mentor them and try to win them. While some people may
03:58use
03:58marijuana recreationally, perhaps more now that it is decriminalized, the drug can have psychotic
04:05effects on some people. Dr. Diel Singh points to the dangers as it relates to use and children.
04:12What we have here is it's figures that came out from 2024, which shows that if there's an 11 increase
04:19risk when teenagers start to use marijuana for them turning psychotic. So it's an increase in those
04:26because their minds are now developing. They have the neural pathways there. So marijuana now can affect
04:30that and cause that psychopathy. Alicia Boucher, TV6 News.
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