Alessia Badolati 1

Exploratory Essay

During my senior year of highschool as I was applying to colleges, I was trying to figure

out what major I wanted to declare and which fields it could possibly lead to. As I was narrowing

my options, criminal justice kind of just always stuck with me. I knew it was an interest of mine

because of all the movies and documentaries I watched and how I knew so much about it but,

that could have been said for a lot of the interests I took part in. Why couldn’t I be an art major? I

mean I like to draw but I wouldn’t want to spend my life doing that. How about a doctor? I

watched Grey’s Anatomy religiously. It really clicked when I realized that I couldn't be any of

these because that wouldn’t make me happy. I wanted to do something I enjoyed, something that

interested me. So, I became a double major in Criminal Justice and Psychology.

Imagine being inside the head of a person labeled as criminally insane… What goes on

up there? How are their life experiences different from ours? Why is their brain the way it is but

mine is completely normal? The criminally insane are labeled as such because of the sole fact

that they do not think the way we do. They have impulsive and intrusive thoughts way more than

normal and instead of pushing them away, they act on them. Is that why a person can be deemed

criminally insane? Could be. But, the criminally insane often do bad things to good people with

no remorse. That's why they are deemed. But why are they not just deemed a criminal? Must the

“insane” part be added on after? Their brainwaves move on totally different wavelengths than a

normal psychologically-fit person's brain would have. These are all such questions I wish to

study and research further. It has always been of great interest to me to study this field.

There is one text in particular that captured my attention when researching this topic: An

article posted in the Washington Post called “Drawing a Clear Line Between Criminals and the
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Criminally Insane” by Stephen Lally. This article helped me to research the difference of

deeming someone just a Criminal or deeming them criminally insane. Lally helps explain how

the subject of the insanity defense is coming up again in more recent cases. The insanity defense

is when someone pleads insanity just to get a quicker trial or a shorter sentence. Lally is a

Forensic Psychologist himself and he has seen how people try to plead insanity although they are

not actually insane.

In my research I would like to know how exactly a person would be labeled criminally

insane. I would also like to research what led them to criminal life? Was their family life when

they were children bad and that affected them? Did they have no guidance or parental figures to

show them right from wrong? Or were they already suffering from abnormalcy in the brain prior

to growing up and it just worsened over time? Think of the movie, The Silence of the Lambs for

example. It is based on a true story so it isn’t just pure fiction. The psychologist was meant to go

into the prison to examine and evaluate an extremely dangerous serial killer. It was her job to

return back to the courts and decide the verdict of the mental status of the criminal. That is what I

wish to do. Through further research, I want to be able to answer these questions not just for

myself but for others who may be curious as well. It is obvious that a criminal differs from just

your average human being. This is so because their brains are a little more damaged than ours

will ever be. It could be genetics, or something that just came to be but this is what I would like

to explore further. This study is so important to the future of criminal justice and forensic

psychology itself and hopefully, with some time and more learning and experience, I will one

day be able to fully comprehend exactly why criminals are the way they are. I would love to

learn about the effects that cause the brain to act out as such and hopefully one day, pursue my
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dream career of Forensic Psychology. After all, it was choosing my major senior year that led me

to this amazing and curious field of work.

Works Cited
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Lally, Stephen. “The Insanity Defense: Drawing a Clear Line Between Criminals and the

Criminally Insane.” The Washington Post, 23 November 1997,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/aron/expert1123.htm.