InsaneJournal

Current mood:	busy
Entry tags:	:class, buffy summers, dawn summers, derek morgan, enma kozato, kitty pryde (aoa), peter parker (tas), piter de vries, sam winchester, yuuki kuran

207 ✝ Criminology Class ✝ Open to All
[It’s Criminology Class time! And standing at the front of the class is not Doctor Spencer Reid. Nope. It’s Derek Morgan. He’s even sort of dressed up for the occasion in what he’d usually wear to the office back home, nice dress pants and a dress shirt. He looks completely confident up there, used to speaking in front of groups of people even if he usually has the support of other members of the BAU with him. This time he’s alone. And he’s okay with that. Reid asked him to do this next class and Derek was happy to oblige.]

Alright, let’s get this thing going. [It’s said loud enough to be heard among the chatter of the attendees. Once it’s quiet, he offers up one of his most charming smiles at the room.] As you can probably tell, I’m not Doctor Reid. But for those of you who don’t know, he and I work together back home where I’m Supervisory Special Agent Morgan. Here in the prison I’m just Derek Morgan. You can call me Derek or Morgan. Just none of that Mister stuff or you’ll make me feel old. Here in the prison I run the Investigative Team on the Defense Force and patrol Sector One. Anyway, Reid’s asked me to teach this class on one of my areas of special interest, obsessions… or more accurately, crimes of obsession. So let’s get started.


SPECIALIZED CRIME LECTURE – Obsession

The definition of obsession in regards to psychology: the inability of a person to stop thinking about a particular topic or feeling a certain emotion without a high amount of anxiety.

Now usually obsession can be harmless. We’ve all been there at some point, obsessed with a particular television show, or a musician we love, obsessed with a project at work or a really good book series. We can be obsessed with any number of things. These obsessions can even motivate and inspire us to do amazing things. Much of the world’s greatest artwork or literature was sparked by an obsession. Some the greatest inventions ever created have come from an obsession. Think of Michelangelo and most of his life’s work or the Wright Brothers and their obsession with flight as examples. Good things can come from obsession.

Bad things can come from obsession too. There is no real definitive line that if crossed makes a harmless obsession become a dangerous one. You can’t convict somebody for thinking about something too much. You can profile someone and make all the predictions in the world, but you still can’t put somebody behind bars for a crime they might eventually commit. Everyone’s different. Each case is different. Some people snap. Some people don’t. The only certainty of obsession going bad is sadly when an actual crime is committed… after the fact.

But what changed? What makes someone take a fixation on something and turn it into an enactment of something illegal? In profiling we call this a stressor, something that tipped the scales from the logical to the illogical, from harmless to harmful, from reality to a fantasy world where that one thing that was holding that anxiety in check has become warped and damaged in a way that that person in turn becomes a danger to the people around them and society in general. This stressor could be any number of things from a change in the unsub’s personal life to a change in the object of their obsession.

At their core, beneath all the details specific to a certain case, obsessive crimes are about a loss of control over something that was previously thought to be under complete control. Even if that control was an illusion to the person who committed the crime, it was still control from their perspective. And to them, their response to that loss of control is completely legitimate, completely rational. To them, everyone else is the ones who don’t see reason. It’s everyone else who’s being irrational.

One person’s reality is another person’s craziness… and vice versa… [He seems to drift off in thought for a moment, not accustomed to teaching classes by himself. Normally another of his team would pick up where he’d become lost in a thought. But here and now, there’s nothing… just a few seconds of silence before he takes a deep breath and is back in the moment.]

In fact, most crimes of obsession end with a high fatality count, including that of the unsub. And those few cases where we might have the opportunity to talk the unsub down, the best tactical solution is to talk to them as if their perception is the right perception. You’ve gotta get them to believe that you believe them, that they’re right, that you’re on their side. You have to enter their warped world to get them to take that first step back into reality.


PRACTICAL APPLICATION – Open Discussion

Alright. [Derek claps his hands and rubs them together, looking around the class.] Doctor Reid usually does a practical application here at the end of the lecture. So for this class, I think you should just talk among yourselves about what your obsessions are or maybe some of the obsessions you’ve seen other people have. Use your imagination. Profile the obsession. Could it ever be warped in a way that would make you or someone else do things that you wouldn’t normally do? How obsessed are you? What could push you over the edge? And what would happen in the aftermath? How would you stop someone who’s reached that breaking point?

Good class. Thanks for coming.


Q&A

[ A Q&A thread can be found here for all your question-based needs! There is also a suggestions box available — just note that your character is dropping a note in the box in the subject header and it will be brought up during the next class! ]



ooc: The Criminology Class is held in an open lecture format, meaning that there's no ic signup process involved! Feel free to mingle at your leisure — email notifs are off but Derek has a thread HERE if you wish to hit him up. For more information about the setup and purpose of the class, go HERE.