Minnesota Youth Murder Case Analyzed Through Psychology of Mind

Introduction

Criminal behavior is described and understood using theoretical models. These models are based on concepts that attempt to explain the root causes of deviance and how they are expressed through certain actions. It is difficult to understand or gain perspective on what could drive a person to commit a crime as heinous as murder. In the spring of 2006, a 16-year-old youth, Jeremiah Ratzlaff, was charged with murder. Allegedly, Ratzlaff shot his own father in the back of the head, hid his body, and spoke to a friend regarding plans to burn the body (Stodghill, 4/22/2006; Stodghill, 4/25/2006). The youth told a friend that he and his father had gotten into an argument that escalated to his father pushing him around. Ratzlaff then retrieved a sawed-off shotgun from inside the house and shot his father in the head. He then placed the body in a brush pile near the family's property and intended to return later and burn it. How can behavior like this be explained? How is it possible for a person to reasonably believe that this sort of deviant behavior is a justified response to any situation?

Theorists utilize several different approaches to understand criminal behavior, and many are based on the fundamental principle that humans are either innately good or innately bad. Although this may seem oversimplified, most theories use this as a basis to explain behavior and its possible causes, the role of environmental factors, as well as predictive factors and possible treatments and interventions to curb problem behaviors.

Psychology of Mind (POM) theory can be used to explain all forms of criminal and delinquent behavior through the logic of certain principles, and an accurate, advanced understanding of these principles could contribute immensely to the field of criminology (Kelley, 1996). POM encompasses three major principles: mind, consciousness, and thought. The main principles of POM can give clarity to why the Ratzlaff crime occurred and to what measures may be employed to predict and prevent the likelihood of crimes of this nature in the future. In addition, POM theory may provide a foundational basis for treatment and criminal justice interventions.

POM Theory: Core Principles

Mind, according to POM, is the ultimate source of experience. It is the source of the offender's thoughts, emotions, and perceptions, as well as the ability to have sensory experiences of the outside world (Kelley, 1996). Kelley (1996) offered the analogy of a movie projector to describe how an offender's thoughts are essentially projected from within to create an experience of life. Mind creates how we think about things, and it operates before thought. Therefore, it is conceptually impossible to have an intellectually complete or accurate model of mind. In regards to criminality, POM defines the mind of an offender as a neutral projector of all thoughts, which in its natural state is designed to function in a way that promotes health, intelligence, wisdom, and high self-esteem (Kelley, 1996).

Consciousness, the second major principle involved in POM, is defined as an offender's ability to be fully aware of an external reality (Kelley, 1996). This is the principle that uses the senses to bring thoughts to life, where thoughts are converted into experience. In the movie projector analogy, consciousness would be the light — it is the power that makes images created by thought appear as a reality to the senses. The mind orchestrates thought and consciousness for the production of an experienced reality.

The third and final principle involved in POM theory is thought. Since mind and consciousness are both constants according to POM theory, thought is the only variable in psychological functioning (Kelley, 1996). In the movie projector analogy, thought would be the film whose images come into existence when light (consciousness) is shone through it (Kelley, 1996). Moreover, POM sees thought as a natural life function — the ability of an offender to create images within his own being. Thought is a continuous process that is the source of moment-to-moment, changing life experience (Kelley, 1996).

There are two distinct, observable modes of thinking that dictate how thoughts are generated and used by offenders (Kelley, 1996). The first mode is called original or unconditioned thought, which is a rational, innate, insightful thought process. This is the source of common sense, psychological health, positive change, and perspective (Kelley, 1996). This thought process seems natural and largely unnoticed by most people, whereby individuals experience practical ideas and insights about their lives and gain greater understanding and perspective (Kelley, 1996). It represents the way the mind was intended to function; learning occurs mostly through a process of realization and insight. Furthermore, original thought allows unconditioned modes of learning through insight to dominate (Kelley, 1996).

The second mode of thinking recognized by POM is conditioned or reactive thought (Kelley, 1996). This process involves the application of conditioned learning to circumstances, and it is a noticeable process that requires deliberate effort. The main goal in utilizing this process is to forcefully find solutions and understandings based on a familiar personal frame of reference. Objectivity, creative ideas, and clarity do not come into play with this thought process; it is conditioned and results in experiences that are redundant and predictable (Kelley, 1996). This mode of thinking is what is generally considered by most people to be "thought," since it is how we learn to deliberately use our minds (Kelley, 1996). The understandings gained through conditioned thought are based more on appearance and interpretation rather than objectivity and insight (Kelley, 1996). The forms this mode of thinking takes include preconceptions, fixed attitudes, prejudices, and expectations. The thought system of an offender predictably takes external events and circumstances and organizes them into specific perceptual patterns that fit a predetermined personal frame of reference (Kelley, 1996).

According to POM, the reason offenders commit crimes is that they are completely unaware of the screening and translating functions involved in thought systems (Kelley, 1996). This causes offenders to truly believe that their experienced beliefs, thoughts, and prejudices are accurate representations of reality rather than the subjective, conditioned interpretations of circumstances that they actually are (Kelley, 1996). However, every offender is capable of the healthy, unconditioned thinking that promotes understanding, perspective, and psychological health, and prevention and treatment initiatives based on the principles of POM address these factors.

Etiology of the Ratzlaff Case

What factors led Jeremiah to kill his own father? Several different approaches could be used in attempting to understand the details of this case. Theories of criminology that postulate the causation of deviant behavior often blend philosophical underpinnings with political ideology (Gregory, 2004). POM theory, which focuses on the inherent existence of wellness and potential within all people, can be used to identify factors in the Ratzlaff case that caused this youth to murder his father. At the root of all deviant behavior, according to POM, are feelings of insecurity and certain mood states (Kelley, 1996). Insecurity predisposes offenders toward unhealthy conditioned or reactive thinking. The degree to which an offender engages in conditioned or reactive thinking is directly correlated with the experience of insecure feelings. This relationship is the root cause of all delinquent behavior according to POM. Furthermore, the more insecure an offender feels, the more likely he is to respond to situations using maladaptive insights and information based on past experience. This response most likely expresses an urge for deviant behavior in order to somehow relieve insecure feelings, even if only temporarily. Feelings of insecurity and subsequent conditioned thinking are the main components underlying criminality, and when an offender is entrenched in this state, he feels it is necessary to take whatever measures are needed to validate or prove his own warped view of reality. This often results in a continuous cycle of deviant, criminal behavior (Kelley, 1996).

One could postulate that Jeremiah Ratzlaff was plagued with feelings of insecurity when he committed the murder. The insecurities he felt caused him to resort to reactive, conditioned thinking, which is generally maladaptive. This type of thinking would have caused him to make decisions to behave in certain desperate ways that would validate his worldview — a worldview that probably included the idea that his father was an awful person and that violence would be the only answer to the difficulties he experienced at home. If his father had been violent with him, Jeremiah would have had that experience to draw upon when solving problems. He may have seen violence as the only way out of the situation. Moreover, Jeremiah's extreme insecurity led him to be fully engaged in conditioned thinking, which compelled him to assert the validity of his worldview by any means necessary — in this instance, that meant resorting to murder.

Where do these feelings of insecurity originate? According to POM, insecurities are not a result of circumstances or life events. On the contrary, POM suggests that the source of insecure feelings exists within the mind of the offender and occurs as a function of different mood states (Kelley, 1996). The reason why a person may have feelings of insecurity in one instance but not in another, even under identical circumstances, stems from mood. When individuals experience an overall sense of well-being, insecurities diminish. However, when individuals' moods drop, insecurities emerge and the tendency to resort to reactive, habitual thinking becomes highly likely.

Furthermore, POM theory suggests that moods combined with insecurities and conditioned thinking spawn a continuous cycle of maladaptive thought that results in maladaptive behavior. This phenomenon is considered to be at the core of all forms of criminal and delinquent behavior (Kelley, 1996). Due to low mood, an offender has feelings of insecurity, which results in the reliance on conditioned thinking. This further activates automatic thought patterns and conditioned beliefs, which are generally faulty. This state of mind leads to a self-created negative perception of reality without any awareness of the underlying psychological processes or how they could be remedied. The presence of this condition greatly increases the likelihood of criminal, self-destructive, or delinquent behavior (Kelley, 1996).

According to POM, it is necessary to assume that Jeremiah Ratzlaff was experiencing lower mood states when he committed murder. It is possible, and quite likely, that Jeremiah suffered from a mood disorder such as depression or bipolar disorder, which results in extremely low moods. These low mood states caused the experience of insecure feelings, which subsequently led to conditioned thinking and the decision to engage in murder. Moodiness would explain why Jeremiah was pushed to murder his father on this particular occasion and not in others, when it is most likely that he and his father had similar altercations in the past that did not result in extreme violence. Jeremiah's exceptionally low mood on that day caused him to feel insecure, which prompted him to react conditionally to the situation at hand by behaving in the most violent, extreme way possible in order to prove the validity of his worldview — essentially, that his father was wrong and he was right. Jeremiah was unable to reasonably assess the appropriateness of his reactive behavior because he was unaware of the psychological processes underlying his decision-making.

POM proposes that all individuals have a natural and innate capacity for healthy psychological functioning (Kelley, 1996). Youth are therefore not inherently predisposed to delinquent behavior by nature, unlike the ideas proposed by social control theory (Kelley, 1996). According to POM, all individuals are born with healthy attributes such as unconditional positive self-worth, common sense, an intrinsic desire to learn, and satisfaction in understanding and socially mastering the environment (Kelley, 1996). Furthermore, due to these inherent qualities, self-esteem is considered by POM to be an effortless and automatic condition of being that does not require instruction, strengthening, or development. In the natural condition of high self-esteem, thinking is unconditioned and responsive and lends itself to common sense, insight, and peace of mind.

According to POM, the likelihood of deviant and criminal behavior increases in youth when low mood states lead to feelings of insecurity and the reliance on reactive, conditioned modes of thinking and decision-making (Kelley, 1996). POM theory suggests that making youth aware of these psychological processes may result in an understanding of the source of certain urges and a reduction in criminal behavior (Kelley, 1996).

POM theory would propose that Jeremiah Ratzlaff was not inherently destined for criminal behavior. The innately healthy psychological attributes Jeremiah possessed at birth were compromised later in life due to the development of conditioned, reactive thought patterns as a result of mood-induced insecurities. This conditioned mode of thinking caused him to lose the high self-esteem he was born with, which resulted in the loss of the ability for unconditioned, responsive thought — and subsequently a loss of common sense, a loss of insight, and increased psychological disturbance. The ultimate result of this shift away from natural unconditioned thought was Jeremiah's decision to act upon urges and murder his father.

Some theorists adhering to social containment theory of criminal behavior explain how delinquency results from certain inner psychological pushes and outer environmental pulls, arguing that containment is necessary to adequately deal with these forces (Kelley, 1996). These theorists also emphasize a good self-concept, considered to be the most important inner containment of behavior. POM theory does not view these pushes and pulls in the same light. According to POM, all of these concepts proposed by containment theory are constructs of personal interpretation created by each individual's thought mechanisms (Kelley, 1996).

POM theory would interpret the criminal behavior of Jeremiah Ratzlaff as a product of insecurities that result from conditioned interpretational beliefs. He was conditioned to believe, most likely through maltreatment, that his father was deserving of violence. These maladaptive interpretations and subsequent violent behavior occurred in states of low mood. Unlike containment theory, POM would explain Jeremiah's behavior as the result of habitual negative feelings that are continually reinforced through conditioned thought beliefs, rather than constant psychological drives and impulses. The impact of environmental factors on Jeremiah's behavior would also be seen as not constant, and as influential only when low mood states left him insecure and vulnerable to the effects of external situations or circumstances. Furthermore, in order for Jeremiah to behave in response to internal urges or external influences, he must have believed that such behavior was necessary, justified, and valid.

Conclusion

In order for rehabilitation of Jeremiah to take place, POM theory would suggest that it is necessary for him to have a clear understanding that he is a continually thinking being who is constantly confronted with maladaptive, learned thoughts that do not provide an accurate view of reality (Kelley, 2004). Once Jeremiah realizes that his faulty perceptions of reality are fleeting and tied to his mood states, he will gain perspective on his behavior and life in general (Kelley, 2004). Therefore, the key component to psychiatric rehabilitation would be the awareness and recognition on Jeremiah's part that there is an integral connection between thoughts and experiences. This would redirect his attention away from perceived external factors of causation and maladaptive thoughts toward a healthy process of unconditioned, responsive thought and experience expressed from the inside out (Kelley, 2004). Overall, the principles proposed by Psychology of Mind theory have the immense power to change perceptions of experiences and further contribute to optimal youth functioning.

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