Antisocial Personality Disorder And Incarcerated Individuals

Antisocial Personality Disorder and Incarcerated Individuals Long-term patterns of manipulating, exploiting, or violating the rights of others are qualities that are often related to criminal behavior. This is a mental condition that is defined as Antisocial Personality Disorder by the U.S. National Library of Medicine. Antisocial Personality Disorder, or otherwise known as ASPD, is a disorder that fits into two essential categories: psychopathy and sociopathy. ASPD can be caused by many deformations within the brain, these deformations can be caused by a number of outside influences including child abuse and parental neglect. With this in mind, psychopathy and sociopathy are two different forms of this very severe mental disorder. Not†¦show more content†¦Those who suffer from this also have many other issues as well. â€Å"The disorder is associated with significant psychosocial impairment, depression, substance misuse, and domestic violence; suicide is an all too common outcome† (Black, 114). Those who suffer from ASPD are c ommonly considered societies rule breakers. Children who lie, steal, and bully others, as well as adults who abuse their partners or children, sometimes ending up with criminal charges. The personality traits of those with ASPD can vary from one person to another, but the brain chemistry of ASPD is similar throughout all the patients. When the PCL-R is used as a screening tool, it â€Å"was possible to find that psychopaths have reduced gray matter in their frontal lobes, increased striatal volume, abnormal asymmetry in the hippocampus, a larger corpus callosum, a lack of structural integrity in the uncinate fasciculus, abnormal activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, and deformations within the amygdala† (Pemment, 2). Gray matter in the frontal lobe of the brain controls your decision making, and thought processing. Psychopaths have a reduced amount of gray matter that makes them less able to evaluate possible rewards and consequences. Introspection is also dependent on h ow much gray matter you have, the more gray matter, the more introspective you are, thus allowing you to be more self aware of your thinking. Keeping in