What does "psychological portrait" mean?

Southern Weekend

In the process of detecting criminal cases, there is an important auxiliary means, which is to complete the portrait according to the witness's description of the suspect's physical characteristics. Another "psychological portrait" method, which is widely used in the west, has been partially used in China since the 1990s, but it only provides reference for early detection. In fact, it could have done more in research and crime prevention.

With Ma Jiajue's criminal psychology questionnaire, Li Meijin was lost in thought. Photo by our reporter Chai Chunya.

□ Our reporter in Shanghai, Shen Ying.

On April 24th, Ma Jiajue was sentenced to death by Kunming Intermediate People's Court for intentional homicide. This serious case, which caused a sensation in the whole country, has now entered the procedure of death penalty review, and it seems that the last step at the legal level is about to be completed.

Even the people's grievances, feelings or arguments that have been raging have gradually calmed down without combing.

In the judgment of Kunming Intermediate People's Court, there are only four words about the criminal motive of this amazing case-"trivial grievances".

However, the analysis conclusion given by criminal psychologist Li Meijin is endless, which actually constitutes an accurate portrait of Ma Jiajue's criminal psychology.

As a special "painter", Li Meijin pays more attention to this face. In the face of typical malignant cases, she tried to give answers in her own way and give back valuable information to the society through "portraits".

Deciphering the psychological code of crime

During the Spring Festival last year, there were three murders in a certain place in Hebei, one of which happened in a small hotel. All the family members were killed and an old lady was raped. The murderer left almost no clues at the scene, and the local police were at a loss.

Li Meijin, a professor of criminal psychology at the People's Public Security University of China, was invited to attend. After listening to the introduction of the case, she determined the general characteristics of the murderer through analysis: a migrant worker whose residence is not nearby; Have a criminal record; A person with strong sexual desire has no normal marriage life and no female partner. Finally, according to the locations of the three cases, Li Meijin drew a rough road map of the suspects.

According to this, the police narrowed down the scope and launched an investigation. Soon, the suspect was arrested, and all kinds of situations coincided with Li Meijin's analysis.

"My analysis is to describe criminal psychology." Li Meijin, who has studied in this field for many years, said that using criminal psychological portraits can quickly and accurately determine the direction of investigation. "But the significance of criminal psychological portrait goes far beyond these."

"Give antipyretics if you have a fever. If you have an infectious disease, you will be quarantined. This is obviously not enough. " As a professor of criminal psychology at the People's Public Security University of China, Li Meijin believes that there are some similarities between the research of criminal psychology and clinical medicine, and it is necessary to find the specific causes to really play a preventive role.

Crime is a complex social problem, and the psychological problems that drive crime are also complex and diverse. It is impossible to explain different criminal behaviors with a fixed model.

The most incomprehensible thing about Huang Yong, a criminal who was tried in Pingyu, Henan Province more than five months ago, is that he designed a wooden horse bed for killing people and killed 17 teenagers in succession.

Huang Yong's criminal motive is equally shocking, and it is difficult for people to give an answer according to common sense of life.

Li Meijin also made his own in-depth analysis of Huang Yong's murder. Huang Yong's series of murders first reminded her of a case studied by foreign peers-

A child who grew up alone, feeling that no one looked down on him, would cut down the dolls at home to show his courage. When he grows up, seeing a blonde like a doll will arouse his childhood impulse and show his heroic temperament by killing people. Actually, this is a distorted expression of my frustration.

According to the conclusion of psychological research on serial killers abroad, Li Meijin's judgment is that Huang Yong must have some imagination when he carries out the murder plan. He should have a family that lacks affection and should be single.

Later, a reporter asked Huang Yong: Why kill people? He said that because he saw a movie when he was a child, he thought it was cool to be a killer and always wanted to be a killer.

This is the imagination of childhood at work.

However, knowing that letting the other person go would definitely lead to his arrest, he was finally moved by the affection of 18' s killer-rather than being moved, he was accidentally hit by the other person's most sensitive point in his heart. This plot also confirmed Li Meijin's judgment on lack of emotion.

This is obviously a successful psychological portrait. By summarizing some common characteristics in some typical cases, this paper analyzes the criminal characteristics of the new series of murderers and quickly finds out his psychological background.

However, some cases are explained by the environment, which is not enough to objectively and comprehensively see the motive of committing crimes.

After a murder case occurred in Zhejiang at the beginning of this year, Li Meijin met the suspect Liu Chao who was arrested and brought to justice. In five years, he wandered in Hangzhou, Kunming, Guangzhou, Changchun and other places, raped, murdered, committed dozens of crimes, and even provoked the public security department, writing letters to the police from time to time to expose his killing process. Liu Chao's description of the killing process is like telling a very common thing, and he hasn't felt anything wrong until now.

Li Meijin found through conversation that Liu Chao's family environment is normal. He is the seventh child in the family, and his brother and sister are completely normal. In the eyes of people around him, this child has been particularly bad since he was a child. The reason for his crime is murder.

Li Meijin's judgment is that Liu Chao is a typical antisocial personality.

"One of the core characteristics of antisocial personality is no emotion, followed by extreme willfulness. The EEG of this kind of people has been tested abroad, and the result is always around 10 years old. "

Li Meijin said that even if some crimes are caused by external factors on the surface, they should be analyzed through his family background, growth process and the genetic characteristics of the criminals themselves. For example, Jin Ruchao, who made the Shijiazhuang bombing, committed crimes related to his own psychological problems. Because of his poor hearing, it is easy to cause some psychological obstacles.

Our society needs "risk personality assessment"

Deciphering the psychological code of crime is to better prevent crime.

"In the analysis of specific psychological processes, we must find effective solutions after discovering problems. For example, in some countries, if it is found that there is something wrong with the family, the father takes drugs, the mother remarries, and the children are left unattended, then the society will start the family intervention mechanism. The intervention in the family is not only to help one child, but for the safety of the whole society. "

In view of the Liu Chao case, Li Meijin believes that our society urgently needs to establish an evaluation system about dangerous personality. There are many indicators of "risk personality assessment", including the balance of intellectual development and personality tendency. More importantly, the psychological content, which cannot be measured by psychological measurement, needs to be observed in a consistent behavior pattern, which is an evaluation system.

"If in primary school or middle school, you see a child's family is normal, but very capricious, and no one can control him, it will attract attention. You can make a personality assessment, and symptomatic education may correct his personality problems. " Li Meijin said.

Last year, a series of murders in Yang Xinhai shocked the whole country, one killing was the whole family, and there were more than 20 murders in succession. For such a typical case similar to "natural born killers", Li Meijin thinks that the case is a tragedy caused by dangerous personality out of control.

For the sensational murder case of Ma Jiajue, people were shocked at first, and then inferred his criminal inducement according to conventional logic: Ma Jiajue's poverty led to inferiority, and inferiority led to extreme self-esteem. When his fragile self-esteem is hurt, of course, he will take revenge crazily.

The independent investigation started on March 26th enabled Li Meijin to draw his own judgment gradually. She found that Ma Jiajue's tragedy was more caused by his personality defect.

Ma Jiajue is not good at dealing with people. He can only associate with a few classmates with high natural frequency contact. Even with his closest classmates and fellow villagers, he quarrels at least twice a month 1, which is the high frequency of interpersonal conflicts, indicating that Ma Jiajue's ability to deal with interpersonal conflicts is very poor. "This problem is obviously not caused by his poverty. Most of his classmates who are in conflict with him live in the same poor dormitory as him. "

Ma Jiajue is so emotional, he often reacts strongly for a little thing. When I was a teenager, I heard my parents quarreling and even had the desire to kill my father. It is not difficult to find out the psychological background that led him to kill his classmates later. He is extremely sensitive and angry about quarreling, and his indifference to life is easy to cause his "killing" impulse.

Another remarkable feature of Ma Jiajue's way of thinking is that almost everything is based on "I". Psychological research points out that one of the most prominent manifestations of many people with serious mental illness is that when talking about anything, they all take "I" as the subject word, and the frequency of "I" is extremely high. They never put themselves in others' shoes. This personality characteristic is also one of the psychological characteristics shared by many criminals.

Li Meijin believes that Ma Jiajue's personality and human characteristics are typical "dangerous personality" and need to be guided and controlled in daily life.

Puzzlement of criminal psychology research

"The in-depth study of this case (Yang Xinhai) is of great value to the investigation work of the public security." Li Meijin regrets that there is no in-depth study of the Yang Xinhai case from the perspective of criminal psychology.

"I really want to know what happened after he left home, what was hidden in his heart, and why did he become so cruel? I really want to hear his answers to some questions, such as the real motive of his first crime. "

Li Meijin often suffers from the lack of face-to-face opportunities to deeply understand the psychology of criminals.

"It's like suddenly receiving a very strange disease in the hospital. It may be that some undiscovered virus is at work, or it may be a concentrated representative of a certain disease, but the doctor who really wants to ask the truth gets the answer-no need to study. "

The problem is that the research of criminal psychology is still difficult to succeed at present, and the cooperation at the grassroots level is not enough. "If you go to law, you can't stand it. If you go to psychology, you can't stand it. If you go to politics, you can't."

At present, few experts like Li Meijin are engaged in this research in China. Obviously, this field has not received due attention. "In some countries, some prisoners on death row will be suspended for a period of time according to their needs, so that criminal psychologists can study him."

Criminals sum up themselves at the last minute. For example, Huang Yong once said a valuable sentence-"Tell children not to trust strangers". Of course, it is necessary for our society to conduct more objective and comprehensive psychological analysis and put it on record.

Li Meijin suggested that all major cases in China should be accompanied by criminal psychology reports.

"When receiving the report, the behavior indicators should be registered. After solving the case, it is necessary to establish a registration of personality indicators through interrogation and accumulate to form a criminal psychological index system. "

This index system is also helpful to speed up the detection of serial and parallel cases. If there are several indicators attached to each case, if the indicators of three cases are the same, it can generally be judged that one person did it. "People's psychological laws are expressed through dynamic behavior." Li Meijin stressed.

Ma Jiajue's case opens a door for a more systematic analysis of criminal psychology. Li Meijin believes that as long as we pay full attention to this work and persist in it for five years, we can establish a criminal psychological index system suitable for China people.