ASPD Research Paper

If a criminal has Antisocial Personality Disorder(ASPD), is she or he born to be a criminal, or is she or he raised to be one? Before discussing this question further, what is ASPD exactly? According the definition U.S. National Library of Medicine provided, ASPD is “a mental condition in which a person has a long-term pattern of manipulating, exploiting, or violating the rights of others” (Berger). People with ASPD often lack of empathy, ignore rules, and isolate themselves. They also have a tendency of breaking laws because they are not capable of concerning about their own or others’ safety. While researchers suggest that 47 percent of male inmates and 21 percent of female inmates have ASPD (Goldberg), there is only 0.6 percent of U.S.
Researches show that people with ASPD have a higher risk of being abused as children than the others. Considering ASPD can be inherent, it is likely that their parents have the same or similar conditions, which means that many people with ASPD may grow up in an aggressive and neglectful environment. The lacking of care and love in the family may result in children’s inability of developing empathy for others and following laws, which eventually can lead to ASPD. Aside from emotional damage, emotional abuse can result in physical damage as well: “Traumatic events can disrupt normal development of the central nervous system, a process that continues through the adolescent years. By triggering a release of hormones and other brain chemicals, stressful events could alter the pattern of normal development” (Black). Even though emotional abuse seems less “dangerous” than physical abuse, it still gives children permanent scarce not only in their heart but also in their
Child abuse can cause permanent damage to a person, regard it is physical or emotional. As discussed earlier in this essay, both physical and emotional abuse can cause abnormal brain function and alter normal development, which contribute to developing ASPD. Even though ASPD does not lead to crime on its own, ASPD and abused childhood increase the chance of committing crime drastically. A child who is either emotionally abused or physically abused often fails to develop strong bonds with others, especially with his or her family members. Suffering from long term child abuse, these people are likely to develop twisted moral stances and imitate their parents’ aggressive and violent behaviors, including committing crimes, to achieve their goals. Therefore, if a person with ASPD was abused as a child, he or she not only lacks of empathy but also may regard violent as the solution to conflicts. Because of that, a person with ASPD and was abused as a child has a a high risk of crime. However, the latter has more significant impacts on a person. Child abuse increases the risk of crime not only of people with ASPD but also of people without the disorder. Widom conducted the well-known long-term effects of child abuse with a sample of 908 children. She discovered that “being abused or neglected as a child increases