Add another to dumb criminals!

TIJUANA, Mexico (Reuters) Something you don't see too often.. "A motorcyclist with a helmet-wearing corpse strapped to his back crashed in this Mexican city on the U.S. border on Friday and fled on foot, setting off a police murder hunt."


LOL....

How can someone drive with a corpse on the motorcycle with them (putting a helmet on to boot!)???? You would think that rigamortus would have set in to begin with - and the audacity of driving the corpse straight through a city as well. The driver lost manueverability of a corner in the streets of Tijuana, and ran leaving the motorcycle and corpse behind. It is the idea that they think that the driver was heading to more desolate areas to bury the dead; but, didn't consider not being able to negotiate the motorcycle with dead weight on the motorcycle as well. Apparently, it was part of a drug deal gone bad with the corpse having meth on him as well.

:)

What WAS he thinking????

Transparent People - Are you one?

"Shall I permit my fellow men to know me as I truly am, or shall I seek instead to remain an enigma, and be seen as someone I am not?”

Before you jump to any immediate conclusions, I am not talking about those people transparent people as being the false people.

I am talking about what Sidney M. Jourard refers to the “Transparent Self”:

“Throughout history...man has chosen the road of concealment rather than “openness,” a route that all too often results in sickness, misunderstanding, and alienation from self. . . . Man can attain health and fullest personal developmeent only insofar as he gaines courage to be himself with others and only when he finds goals that have meaning for him, goals which include the reshaping of society so that it is fit for all to live and grow in."

I was reading this off of a cover of a book I found in a Bargain Books store that was as quiet as a library, looking for some additional resources for my forensic psychology classes when suddenly a lot of my thoughts I had been having over the course of several months came together for me as I read this - and exclaimed a rather loud, “Yes!!” The disruption had people glaring their eyes at me and I slowly added that book to my stack and took it to the counter to pay for my new found resource books.

The book was written in 1971; however, I can’t help but think that, if the book was updated, that he might also affirm the need for blogging that people have been finding themselves doing in this day and age - nearly 25 years later! After all, blogging is simply a medium for one to expose a little bit about themselves. I think that the people that have the greater problems with blogging are the same people who aren’t very revealing about themselves to others - at varying levels. On the other hand, the people who do well in blogging often reveal a lot about themselves. If a a survey were to be taken, I wonder how many folks were to affirm that they feel healthier, even just on the mental level?

I know, speaking for myself, that I have become healthier in many senses and enjoy a greater freedom of myself. It is, as if, a weight of the world has been lifted from my shoulders as I blog and receive3 the feedback from others in the blog communities that I post my blogs.

So....

knowing what you do know now:

1. Are you a transparent person?
2. Have you always been? or , is much of it attributed to your blogging experiences?

Defense: By Reason of Insanity

Last night, a former UT student was found NOT GUILTY by reason of insanity, with the The Daily Texan (a University of Texas newspaper) pointed out that this defense is rarely successful.

I have been following this case to some degree with some interest because I have been involved with the National Alliance for Mental Illnesses organization which supports the mental health issues and finding treatments for those who are mentally ill with some form of ailments affecting the wellbeing of the mind. If you talk to the NAMI members individually though, you will see some division in supporting this defense. While there are, indeed, fine examples of where this defense is justifiable, there are those cases which you must give pause to make sure that this defense didn't just let loose a murderer who was indeed sane and had actual thought processes that led up to and including the murder. One thing that certainly clouded the issue was the presentation of fact that he had the where-for-with-all to call 911 for help after the murder. It is the idea that one, who is truly insane at the time of the murder, couldn't turn off his insanity so quickly to have the proper processing of thought to call 911.

Other articles on this same announcement of "Not Guilty":

Family, friends testify to Ngai's mental state: Defendant diagnosed as bipolar, victim was helping him handle it

Jury accepts insanity defense in piano prof's death

Former UT student pleads insanity: Jury hears details of horrific killing

The art of Forensic Psychology - Back to 1901!!

"Forensic Psychology dates back to at least the turn of the twentieth century. William Stern studied memory in 1901 by asking students to examine a picture for forty-five seconds and then try to recall what was happening in it. He would see how much the person could recall at various intervals after seeing the picture. These experiments came before more contemporary research about the reliability of eyewitnesses testimony in court. Stern concluded from his research that recall memories are generally inaccurate; the more time between seeing the picture and being asked to recall it, the more errors were made. People especially recalled false information when the experimenter gave them a lead-in question such as, "Did you see the man with the knife?" The person would answer, "yes," even if there was no knife present. Lead-in questions are often used in police interrogations and in questioning witnesses.



Hugo Munsterberg is often called the first forensic psychologist. He wrote a book called On the Witness Stand. It was published in 1908, after the work of William Stern. Other psychologists before this, such as Alfred Binet and Sigmund Freud, had also constructed tests that could be used in judicial proceeding. They both did studies suggesting that the time it takes for a person to answer a question could be a factor in determining guilt or innocence.


In 1916, Lewis Terman, a Stanford psychologist, began to apply psychology to law enforcement. He revised Alfred Binet's intelligence tests and formed the Stanford-Binet intelligence test. These tests were used to assess the intelligence of thirty applicants for the police and firefighting jobs in San Jose, CA. A few years later, L. L. Thurstone used the same type of test in Detroit. Now, this type of testing is used in most police departments in the country.

The application of psychology in law and law enforcement continued throughout the 1920's and 1930's. To this day, there is still a special interest in extending psychology to police work. The demand for psychologists in the legal system has grown considerably over the past several decades. Currently, almost 2,000 psychologists belong to the American Psychology-Law Society."

Careers in Forensic Psychology: A Brief History

Bachelor's in CJ w/Concentration Forensic Psychology!

A renewed focus has been created. I am moving towards a degree in Forensic Psychology under the Criminal Justice program at Kaplan University to complement my education of an Associates in Criminal Justice at Kaplan University and a Legal Assistant Certificate from the University of Texas' program. This, along with my experiences in the legal field, volunteering with the police department (and other volunteer experiences) will contribute to a well-rounded basis to lay the foundation for and amplify my education studying forensic pyschology.

I am looking foward to November 14th (the first day of the next series of classes going towards my Bachelor's in Criminal Justice program) to begin! It can't begin too soon!!! :D

Hope you will enjoy this blog which will outline my experiences with obtaining the education at Kaplan in Forensic Psychology, as well as other commentaries, trainings, etc. that I might receive along the way.