Psychosocial Profile of an Offender: Andrea Pia Yates - Research Paper Example

? Criminal Justice Psychosocial Profile of an Offender: Andrea Pia Yates of the and Number Submission Psychosocial Profile of an Offender: Andrea Pia Yates Introduction Andrea Pia Yates was an accomplished person, as a high school valedictorian, swim team champion, college graduate, and registered nurse. After a four-year courtship, she married Russell Yates in 1993, when both were twenty-eight years of age (Denno, 2003). They had a traditional wedding according to the teachings of fundamentalist Christianity that her husband Russell or ‘Rusty’followed. Andrea Yates also started practising the same form of religion. This sect of Christianity, led by the religious mentor and traveling preacher, Michael Woronieck, was considered by some to be a religious ‘cult’. Over the next seven years, Yates gave birth to five children, and suffered one miscarriage. Throughout this time, her mental health declined steadily. On June 20th, 2001, Andrea Yates drowned all her children in the bathtub, one by one, within one hour’s time. In a few months’ time, she was convicted of capital murder in Harris County, Texas, and sentenced to life imprisonment, which was revoked after three years of her serving her sentence. After a retrial, on the grounds of not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI) she was transferred to a forensic mental health facility (Denno, 2003). Thesis Statement: The purpose of this paper is to develop a psychosocial profile of the offender Andrea Yates, who drowned all her five children in a bathtub. Criminal Profiling of Andrea Yates Yates had a long psychiatric history prior to her killing her children. She had suffered several psychotic episodes and had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and postpartum depression. Consequently, she had undergone numerous hospitalizations, including one just a month prior to the killings, and was under treatment with psychotropic medications (Ayres, 2006). Among the psychological reasons attributed to Yates’ killing of her five children, was the element of guilt which she felt at having lived with her husband before marriage. Further, she had guilt feelings after her two suicide attempts, realizing that she was needed by her family to look after them. She also suffered from guilt at her children behaving in a detached manner with her due to her hospitalizations and day treatments. Moreover, she blamed herself for her father’s death, believing that as a nurse she could have prolonged his life (West & Lichtenstein, 2006). Yates’ daily life became burdensome for her. The stress of homeschooling her children, her motherly duties and wanting more children overwhelmed her. Her stress increased with the Yates family living for a few years in the crowded space in a bus. She expressed to her husband that she felt guilty for not being able to make a successful home life on the bus. Yates’ belief systems ranged from the ordinary to the bizarre. She looked up to the concept of an ideal mother, as sermonized by the couple’s religious mentor and traveling preacher, Michael Woronieck (Delph, 2007). Among other teachings, Woronieck instilled in Yates that women are sinners as the descendants of Mother Eve, and if they do not raise their children in the right manner, they deserve to be drowned in the depth of the sea. Andrea’s husband Russell faithfully followed these teachings, and insisted that her role was that of homemaker (Forlizzi, 2006). Yates struggling with mental illness was further exacerbated by the pressures of taking care of a large family. “This set her up for disaster” (West & Lichenstein, 2006, p.181). She considered her husband Rusty to be controlling and manipulative, imposing his ideas of having as many children as God would allow. Feeling extremely inadequate in her role as mother, she was obsessed about how her children would turn out. Moreover, “her religious beliefs included the existence of demons and their ability to possess” (Delph, 2007, p.5). Further, she suffered from referential delusions, and thought that her television was speaking directly to her. Andrea Yates also had particular character traits that played a part in her illness. She felt anxiety and experienced loneliness. While growing up, she felt like a “mistake” and “the forgotten baby” being the last child. As a child, she tried hard to please her parents, and avoided confrontations and arguments. Shy and studious as a teenager, she was a competitive swimmer, high school valedictorian, and worked as a qualified nurse (Delph, 2007). Yates was described by her friends and neighbours as a gentle woman and a loving mother, and she was considered to have a giving, sweet nature. As the essence of the caring mother and loving daughter she home-schooled her children and cared for her ill father before his death. After her father’s death, she stopped homeschooling her children, resulting in further guilt feelings that they would be tainted and retarded, and that she was not raising them properly (West & Lichtenstein, 2006). After Yates’ father passed away in March, 2001, there was a radical change in her. Andrea appeared lethargic at all times, with a ghostly-white face and pronounced dark circles under her eyes. “She paced through the house all day, walking in circles, shaking, and scratching her scalp so hard her hair fell out” (Forlizzi, 2006, p.61), and neglectful of her personal hygiene. The thirty-six year old mother feeling overwhelmed and trapped, confessed to her close family members about hearing Satan’s voice. Her doctor again prescribed her the antipsychotic drug Haldol. According to Ayres (2006, p.338), “Yates suffered from postpartum psychosis and perhaps bipolar disease”. Yates’ had hallucinations urging her repeatedly to get a knife, and she saw visions of stabbing. Her psychosis was successfully treated with injections of Haldol, and she was warned against having any more children. Despite these reasons, Yates avoided taking her medications, and also agreed with her husband on having as many children as possible. Gaines and Miller (2008) state that Freud’s psychoanalytic theory helps to explain Yates’ criminal behavior. The theory is composed of three parts: The id which controls strong urges, the ego which controls behavior leading to the fulfillment of id, and the superego directly associated with the conscience, determining the actions which are right and wrong in the context of a person’s environment. The psychoanalytic theory contends that individuals who exhibit criminal behavior have an overdeveloped ego or an underdeveloped superego. A strong ego leads to such feelings of guilt that a person commits a crime for the purpose of being punished. On the other hand, a weak superego indicates that a person is unable to control his violent urges. On 20th June, 2001, Andrea Yates drowned all her children, one by one in the bathtub, and then called the police to take her into custody. She believed that she was Satan, with the number 666, the mark of the beast on her scalp; and that killing her children would save them, “ensuring their lives in eternity at the expense of her own damnation” (Ayres, 2006, p.339) and that of Satan within her. While in jail, her auditory hallucinations of Satan’s voice continued to occur through the intercom system in her cell, similar to her past hallucinations (Ayres, 2006). From news accounts and court records, it is evident that Andrea discouraged her attorneys’ efforts to plead insanity, though she faced possible execution. Contrastingly, Adler, Mueller and Laufer (2003) state that “Andrea Yates pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity”, on being sentenced in March 2002 to life imprisonment after committing the crime. Defense for her case was already hampered by the unusually strict Texas insanity standards, and its culture of strict retribution. Yates insisted that there was nothing wrong with her mind, and that she deserved to die. This self-blame did not surprise those close to her, “in fact both the prosecution and the defense agreed that she was mentally ill” (Denno, 2003, p.2). Although postpartum depression has a strong scientific basis, the jury’s acceptance of this reason as a defense for women who have killed their children, is not evident. According to Manchester (2003), the American courts are inconsistent in responding to infanticides. They also continue to evaluate postpartum depression defenses and other mental illnesses under the current insanity defense which is considerably narrow, and makes it difficult to prove legal insanity even for the most severaly psychotic women affected by postpartum depression. Further, Yates had a family history of mental illness. Her brother and sister were undergoing treatment for depression, another brother was bipolar, and her father had also suffered from depression. Thus, Yates’ “family history of mental disorder, particularly bipolar disorder, along with Andrea’s pre- and post-pregnancy experiences with depression” (Denno, 2003, p.29) were factors that would increase the possibility of postpartum psychotic features. Conclusion This paper has highlighted Andrea Yates’ criminal case of drowning all her five children in the bath tub. Yates’ psychological delusions, her hearing the voice of Satan, and other symptoms are attributed to her severe postpartum depression from multiple pregnancies. Her situation was compounded by crowded living quarters, caring for family including homeschooling, and caring for her ailing father. Insanity and competence to stand trial are two major issues in the criminal justice system. At the defendant’s trial, it was found that despite severe mental psychosis, Andrea Yates consistently expressed the desire to plead guilty and not use an insanity plea in her own defense. Yates’ mental condition is reflected in the highly complex and conflicting aspects of her case, where contradictory maternal feelings compelled her to kill all her children for their salvation, while she accepted damnation for herself which she believed would destroy Satan within her. It is concluded that the criminal profiling of Andrea Yates reveals a deeply disturbed young woman who needed understanding, right guidance, and adequate psychological, physical and medical help to prevent her downward spiral into the psychotic killing of her own children. References Adler, F., Mueller, G.O.W., & Laufer, W.S. (2003). Criminology. Edition 5. New Jersey: McGraw-Hill. Ayres, S. (2006). Newfound religion: Mothers, God, and infanticide. Fordham Urban Law Journal, 33(2), 335-354. Delph, J.B. (2007). Andrea Pia Yates: The biopsychosocial model. Abnormal Psychology. University of Texas at Arlington. Retrieved from: http://www.dandelph.com/jbdelph/andres.yates.biopsychosocial.model.pdf Denno, D.W. (2003). Who is Andrea Yates? A short story about insanity. Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy, 10(1), 1-60. Forlizzi, K.P. (2006). The mommy myth: Perfect mother or maternal monster: Press coverage of Women who kill their children. A Senior Honors Thesis Submitted to the Department of Communication, Boston College. Retrieved from: http://www.bc.edu/content/dam/files/schools/cas_sites/communication/pdf/thesis07.forlizzi.pdf Gaines, L.K. & Miller, R.L. (2008). Criminal justice in action. New York: Wadsworth Publishing Co. Manchester, J. (2003). Beyond accommodation: Reconstructing the insanity defense to provide an adequate remedy for postpartum psychotic women. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 93(2-3), 713-735. West, D.A. & Lichtenstein, B. (2006). Andrea Bates and the criminalization of the filicidal maternal body. Feminist Criminology, 1, 173-187. Read More