Criminality and psychopathology. The profile of stalkers

• Author: Giovanna Palermo
• Position: Researcher in legal sociology, deviance and social change Cassation lawyer Secretary General of the Cuam University Foundation Department of Psychology University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, Italy
• Pages: 76-84

AGORA International Journal of Juridical Sciences, http://univagora.ro/jour/index.php/aijjs

ISSN 1843-570X, E-ISSN 2067-7677

No. 2 (2018), pp. 76-84

76

CRIMINALITY AND PSYCHOPATHOLOGY. THE PROFILE OF STALKERS

G. PALERMO

Giovanna PALERMO, PhD

Researcher in legal sociology, deviance and social change

Cassation lawyer

Secretary General of the Cuam University Foundation

Department of Psychology

University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, Italy

Mail address:Giovanna Palermo, Agora University of Oradea, 8 Piaţa Tineretului St., Oradea,

Romania

E-mail: giovanna.palermo@unicampania.it

ABSTRACT:

The present research is aimed to analyze the evolution of the profile of stalkers in the

Italian culture. The stalking is a complex behavioral constellation with different motivations,

not always with psychopathological relevance. It is a desperate attempt to seek an

interpersonal relationship: to devalue and above all to subject the victim to constant control,

allows the stalker to keep alive, albeit in a persecutory key, the desire for an indissoluble

bond. KEYWORDS: stalking, behaviour, criminality, psychopathology

INTRODUCTION

The relationship between psychopathology and criminality can be tackled from

different perspectives, but I have chosen to minimize any legal, philosophical and

anthropological encroachment to then analyze the figure of the stalker. In this perspective,

starting from the complex history of criminological psychopathology, we proceeded to

analyze the evolution of the '50s and' 60s and then focus on the specifics of the "harassing

molester". The criminological investigation aims to grasp the motivations of those who break

the law, the causes of sometimes radical and apparently incomprehensible conduct, the

significance of crime in the biography of a criminal personality, sometimes overwhelmed by

the perception of uncontrollable dangers and unpredictable that enhance psychic

disturbance. In the history of criminology different theories have confronted different legal

and cultural systems. In particular, the scientific approach to the disease, and in particular to

mental illness, is born with Greek culture,

1

with the abandonment of magical thinking and the

arguments of humoralism and the removal of the disease from the universe of evil. The

present analysis, although aware of the richness and vivacity of the European tradition, will

tend to be limited to Italian culture alone.

I. CRIME AND PSYCHOPATHOLOGY

1

While in Greek culture the scientific knowledge matures, in the Roman culture the law matures. Already from

the XII tables (around 450 BC) the mentally ill is the object of care and is therefore in a particular position

before the law and in the Digests Iustiniani Augusti impubes and furiosus are assimilated and do not respond to

serious responsibility.