Editor's note: Anna Salter is an internationally
known expert on sex offenders, a psychologist
and the author of three books on sex abusers,
including " Predators. " She has worked at
assessing and treating sex offenders and
victims for more than 35 years and lectures
and consults throughout the United States and
abroad. She also writes mystery novels.
(CNN) -- "There are so many ways of being
despicable it quite makes one's head spin. But
the way to be really despicable is to be
contemptuous of other people's pain." -- James
Baldwin
No doubt most people who listened to Ariel
Castro's self-serving monologue during his
sentencing hearing on "consensual sex," and
"harmony in that house," wondered at his
sanity and his definition of "monster." Sanity,
however, is judged by reality testing and not
by caring or compassion. Human cruelty is not
a disease or a mental illness, although it is a
plague on humankind.
As someone who has worked with violent
offenders for 35 years, I can tell you
unequivocally the number of offenders who
deny, minimize or justify their behavior far
outweigh the number who take responsibility.
Never mind the tortuous loops the mind has
to jump through. If the sex was consensual,
what exactly were the chains and locks for?
There is no limit to the mind's ability to
rationalize.
A man who beat a 3-year-old to
death told me that he only
committed violence when "the
situation called for it. I never did
anything I didn't have to do." When
asked how he feels about the boy's
suffering, he replied, "I guess I
don't feel anything." When asked if
he saw himself as a criminal, he
said, "I know that's what I'm seen
as but no, I don't."
A man whose brother took him in when he had
no place to go after being released from prison
raped his benefactor's 12-year-old daughter --
his niece -- and stabbed his brother 12 times
when he came to her rescue.
When asked why he did this, he replied: "I was
drinking. It just happened. ... You can't blame
anybody for the rain. You can't blame anybody
for nothing."
We are familiar with whole cultures justifying
violence as extreme as genocide. Why are we
surprised when individuals do the same?
Violence is almost always denied or
rationalized -- after the fact, if not before.
Even violence that appears
impulsive is usually related to
thinking patterns and beliefs that
justify it. Such rationales are
important to protect self-image.
Again it was Baldwin who said, "No
man is a villain in his own eyes."
As to Castro's claim that he had an
illness, a sexual addiction, there is
a difference between urges and
behaviors. Castro could have dealt
with his urges by seeking help.
Medication and treatment have
been available for sex offenders for
well over a decade.
Would they have worked? Who
knows? He didn't try. He made a
decision to live out his sexual
fantasies, not to try to control
them. In treatment, at the least he
would have learned how not to
reinforce the fantasies through
violent pornography. At least by telling
someone, he would have had some check on
his behavior.
Castro may not have chosen the fantasies that
dominated his dreams, but he chose to act on
them -- for more than a decade. Even the most
persistent urges are not present 24 hours a
day. All Castro needed was for 51% of him to
have an attack of conscience for a few minutes
and want to release those women long enough
to open a door. In more than a decade he
never had it.
In fact, he tormented his victims not only in
sexual ways but in nonsexual ways as well: He
showed them TV coverage of their families
grieving. He told one that her family didn't
care about her. He fed them once a day. He
beat a pregnant woman until she miscarried.
None of these speak to sexual urges; these acts
speaks to psychopathic traits: the lack of a
conscience, lack of caring about other human
beings, callousness, lack of guilt and lack of
remorse -- in short, malevolence, the desire to
harm another human being gratuitously while
being contemptuous of her pain.
Even now, he has shown no genuine remorse
or regret. What we saw at the hearing instead
was a cocoon of aggressive narcissism wrapped
so tightly Castro could proclaim with a straight
face that chained women were having sex with
him consensually. Yet at the same time he
asked for their forgiveness.
No doubt there are those who will advise the
victims they must forgive in order to move on.
I disagree. Forgiveness is not a gift; it must be
earned. Atonement and change must precede
forgiveness or else it is an empty gesture.
It is difficult to imagine how much Castro
would have to change for forgiveness even to
be legitimately on the table. I'm not sure his
sentence is long enough for that to happen,
and to date, he has not taken a single step.
Opinion: Castro a psychopath who will never feel remorse - CNN.com
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