We continue with the interview of Anuja Kapur, Criminal Psychologist about criminal minds.
How do you find out that the criminals are not lying?
There’s no one indicator to tell if someone is lying. One of the very first steps of the process is to establish a baseline that how the charged person would act in normal circumstances. In other words, it may be difficult to tell when someone is lying if you don’t know how he or she acts when they are telling the truth and the compare both the situations. Certain points to figure out if a person is lying are:
- Their bodily expressions may not match what they are saying out loud. Look and listen with intensity for behavioral and language changes.
- Unusual gesticulating, that is, they are unconsciously trying to calm that anxiety response or at least get the blood flowing back to their extremities, all of which could point to nervousness about telling a lie.
- A change in their voice.
- Identify key elements and changes in a story. A liar would improvise with the details and makeup facts and figures to convince the people but usually end up with a different story each time they explain themselves.
They might have the guts to lie to the law very easily. Is prison the only option for them?
Once a criminal is locked away in prison, we can satisfy ourselves that a social debt is paid by the criminal sitting idle for a few years behind the bars. Sorry, this is a wrong notion that we live by. I have always judged that governments should work to make prisons active employment and education centers. Instead of having prisoners kill time and get involved in more corrupted activities while they are in prison, I would recommend making them work and compensate for what they did, towards the society. Currently prison breeds crime. It’s become clear that prison in its current state does not help the society. Prison only serves the right purpose if the offender in prison can be helped to reform their ways.
There are many reasons why a person commits a crime and it is the duty of us as a caring society, to help the offender. With the availability of psychology, healthier social conditions and an effective rehabilitation program, the offender has a better chance to come clean with their participation and successful completion of the program. This approach will definitely meet with great success.
Prison may not be the best punishment in many cases. There has got to be a better way to rehabilitate offenders while maintaining their dignity, freedom, and rights. Prison systems at present may not be having the effect we desire because they are becoming more and more lenient. Prison is meant to be uncomfortable and hard. These days, prisoners have movies, sports, and other activities, they would not normally have on the outside. They are actually rewarded for their behavior. Various prospects of drug and alcohol treatment, career training, and psychological counseling should be affixed into the prison substructure, in order to cure people while they are behind bars.
Due to a lot of stockpile in previous judicial cases, a new method of justice has been composed by the government. The method is known as Restorative Justice, where a set of rules for criminal justice focuses on the restoration and reclamation of offenders through cooperation with both the victims and the society. Basically, it is an indemnification understanding between the criminal and the victim of a concerned case. It paves a course of action for the wrongdoers to take social control for their actions and also to grasp the chance to correct their wrongs. The objective of restorative justice conceptualization is to convince the offenders against committing crimes in the future and to free themselves of the crimes they have committed in the past. This method is very much usable in juvenile offenses at present.
Do you think they need some psychiatric treatment/counseling?
Counseling for all criminals should be made mandatory after a criminal surpasses a certain set level. Psychiatrists and counselors help rehabilitate convicts during their stay in correctional institutions and gear them up to incorporate themselves into the real world once they are released from prison. Prison counselors and psychiatrists also offer occupational, academic, social and personal counseling to help prisoners develop new skills and prepare insight to forbid backsliding in the attitude of the victims. Counselors at times also help provide with individual counseling on issues such as depression, stress or substance abuse. Another crucial task of a prison counselor is to assess a prisoner’s treatment progress. They write faithful and detailed case notes after every connection with a prisoner, amass prisoner case files and shape appropriate treatment plans. Prison counselors also help ascertain whether an inmate has met specific treatment goals, such as improvements in behavior or completing programs to be ready for bail or release from prison.