Index Application of the PCL to John Wayne Gacy Jr. Conclusion References “Psychopathy is a clinical construct characterized by a fundamental set of affective, interpersonal, lifestyle and antisocial”. Psychopathic individuals tend to be callous, lack empathy for others, and show little guilt or remorse for their actions. Psychopaths often inflict physical harm on strangers or even known people. Psychopathy can be used to accurately predict future crime and violence. It is used as a risk indicator in the criminal justice system to make sentencing and release decisions, in death penalty cases, for sex offenders, and even in juvenile cases. Psychopathy can be detected in people by following a 20-point checklist formulated by Dr. Robert Hare. John Wayne Gacy Jr. is a name that lives in infamy in the study of serial killers. He was responsible for the rape and murder of 33 teenagers, so using the psychopathy checklist, we will try to correlate the psychopathic traits of his life and crimes and determine whether he was a psychopath or not. We say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay John Wayne Gacy's childhood was filled with physical and mental abuse by his father, John Gacy Sr. Gacy's father was a heavy alcoholic and was disappointed in his son for his feminine habits ('' John Wayne Gacy Biography', 2015). At a young age, Gacy preferred gardening and cooking, rather than fishing, sports, or other typically masculine activities that disappointed his father. This disappointment led his father to abuse him physically and mentally. His sexual identity was a great struggle for Gacy, but he found a way to hide it when he moved to Illinois, got married, and started a family which helped him hide and repress his homosexual desires. Although he tried to suppress his feelings under the cloak of a heterosexual family, he succumbed to his homosexual desires when he sodomized a young boy, the son of a fellow Jaycee in August 1967 (“John Wayne Gacy Biography,” 2015). He was sentenced to 10 years in state prison, but served only 18 months ("Biography of John Wayne Gacy," 2015). When Gacy was incarcerated, his father died of cirrhosis of the liver due to his excessive alcohol consumption ("Biography of John Wayne Gacy", 2015). Gacy believed that he was the reason for his father's death and that his father died because of his sodomy conviction. He began acting violently towards other inmates and further repressed his sexual desires for young males. After release, Gacy moved to Chicago in an attempt to reboot his life and became a highly respected member of the community ("Biography of John Wayne Gacy", 2015). He became a successful businessman by starting his own construction company and came into contact with various community leaders and political figures (“Biography of John Wayne Gacy,” 2015). Gacy also organized some neighborhood parties, where he dressed up as Pogo the Clown for the children. Pogo the Clown was a character that Gacy wore to gain the trust and respect of his community. In an interview, Gacy explained that when he wore his costume, it made him feel like a child ("John Wayne Gacy Biography", 2015). Although Gacy was successful on the outside, but on the inside he was still trying to hide his true colors as he lured teenagers to his home where he would subdue, rape and then kill them. Gacy often wore his Pogo the Clown costume, which gives him the image ofkiller clown that has in the eyes of people today. Later, when under surveillance, Gacy spoke about his work as a clown, with investigators remarking: “Clowns can get away with murder. Gacy's killing spree lasted six years without anyone suspecting a thing. This was interrupted when he raped and killed a young man who was well known and respected in the community. Gacy was the last known man to have interacted with the boy, invoking law enforcement in the investigation. Eventually a large number of victims were found buried in the crawl space under Gacy's house. John Wayne Gacy's killing spree lasted from 1972 to 1978 in which he killed 33 teenagers. Application of PCL to John Wayne Gacy Jr. Superficial charm is defined as giving the deception of being kind, engaging and charming but everything is only on the surface and a person feels nothing from his heart. He was very popular among his colleagues and was often at the forefront of charitable initiatives, but this was only to further his political career and make contacts to succeed and meant nothing to Gacy. This ease helped him avoid detection all the time he was not considered someone who would rape and kill teenagers, but instead a respected member of the community who worked for its well-being. He receives a score of 2. Furthermore, he was also a pathological liar. Pathological lying is a habit or compulsion to lie to achieve one's goal. He lied to his wives about his homosexual desires and hid his murderous face from them. He also lied to his victims to lure them to his home, often under the guise of giving them jobs. He also lied to the investigating police officers about the whereabouts of the victims and also to his colleagues and friends, hiding from them the double life he was living. You could even say he was lying to himself when he kept saying he wasn't homosexual because maybe he didn't want to get to the point of being gay. It again gets a score of 2. Manipulation can be defined as controlling or using something or someone in a skillful and unscrupulous way. Gacy was an expert at manipulation, the Pogo the Clown character he adorned was a prime example of his ability to coerce and manipulate people. He seemed so charming that parents eagerly allowed Face to interact with their children. He also used his position as an entrepreneur to get people to come to his house by offering them jobs in his company ("Biography of John Wayne Gacy", 2015). His charming nature combined with his ability to manipulate and coerce people was the reason he was able to obtain and manipulate so many victims who were easy to trust, trust which he then used to his advantage to restrain, rape and then kill these victims. which gets it a score of 2. Lack of guilt or remorse means not showing any guilt or remorse that a person did something bad and instead trying to blame others for your actions to justify a yourself that what you did wasn't your fault. Gacy had no remorse for his murders and often blamed the victims for their deaths, for example he mentioned that the mother of one of his victims told him that her son was very innocent, instead of feeling any remorse, he questioned the character of that boy saying that if he was so good, why did he run away? It receives a score of 2. Empathy means having feelings for someone when you have nothing to gain, lack of empathy means not having feelings for anyone and not doing anything outside of your own benefit. He showed no empathy towards his victims and killed them even whenthey kept begging him to release them. He showed no empathy towards the parents of the deceased boys and tried to blame their children for their deaths. It again receives a score of 2. The superficial effect is described as lacking depth in feelings and appearing to be perceived only from the outside. People who have superficial effects often do not react to fear, love, anger etc. Gacy started showing superficial effects since childhood, most noticeably, when his father beat his brothers and he showed no signs of fear and did not even cry when he was hit by his father, which would make him even more angry and beat him more, but it still had no effect on him emotionally. Although his father's death had an effect on him but he soon got over it, but I wouldn't consider it enough to reduce his points. Then, he receives 2 points again. Failure to accept responsibility is often similar to a lack of guilt as the person does not accept any wrongdoing. Gacy accepted no responsibility for his murders or for the divorce of his wives or for the sodomization of teenagers. She accepted responsibility for her father's death as she thought he died due to the shock of his conviction for sodomizing a teenager. It therefore receives a score of 1. Promiscuous sexual relationships are a person having multiple sexual partners at the same time and is often a characteristic associated with psychopaths. Gacy also had many sexual relationships, had extramarital affairs with his wife's consent, and also had homosexual relationships. He later began raping teenagers to satisfy his homosexual desires. Receives a score of 2. Gacy has also had many short-term relationships, these relationships often lack emotion on one or both sides, psychopaths often do not have relationships where they depend on each other, he has been married twice and his first wife left him after 5 years when she learned of his homosexual activities. He later married another woman who divorced him when he told her he was bisexual after 4 years of marriage. So it gets a score of 2 again. Need for stimulation is defined as the need to do something risky or different to be stimulated and feel satisfied. Gacy was always doing something to take his mind off things and keep him satisfied. Previously earning a name for himself and becoming wealthy and successful, once he faded he gave in to his homosexual desires, often indulging in extra martial affairs with men and later raping and killing teenage boys for sexual and emotional stimulation. So, it gets a score of 2. Parasitic lifestyle means the kind of lifestyle where a person is completely dependent on someone else to provide for him and gets rid of them like a parasite for his livelihood. Although Gacy fulfills many traits of psychopathy, he did not live a parasitic lifestyle as he became successful as a political leader and later as a successful businessman due to his hard work and did not live alone. (Kelly Falla. , n. d) Therefore, it receives a score of 0. Lack of goals is often found in psychopaths, it means not having long-term goals for which a person works. Gacy was focused on what he wanted to do and always had a long-term goal to work towards. First he was making a name for himself on the political scene and then he would become a rich and successful entrepreneur, even though he committed some crimes but he was always focused on what he wanted in the long term, so he gets a score of 0. Impulsiveness is described as doing something without thinking about the results. Gacy was/25731405