The acts of depravity that no one wants to think about are what Eric Hickey, a Canadian criminal psychologist now living in California, and a faculty member in the department of forensic psychology at Walden University has made his life’s study.
Hickey has more than 40 years of experience in forensics, working with the criminally insane, psychopaths, sex offenders and other habitual criminals.
He works with law enforcement and testifies as an expert witness in criminal and civil cases.
The Squamish Chief caught up with Hickey by phone to find out how folks end up as serious criminals and what regular folks can do to be safer from such crimes.
What follows is an edited version of that conversation.
What drew you to this type of work?
I’m from Canada, originally, and I was going to become a Mountie — a cop. But I couldn’t pass the eye exam; they didn’t have contacts back in those days.
So, I went on to graduate school and got some good opportunities there. I worked in the state hospital for the criminally insane for almost three years. I worked with sex offenders, rapists, child molesters, pedophiles and psychopaths.
Then I moved to California because of its level of crime.
There’s a lot of crime out here and many people to study, research, and publish about.
I do love my work. I will never retire.
I really like to do research and publishing, and I enjoy teaching. I also love consulting work. I consult with private agencies and testify as an expert witness in both criminal and civil cases.
Is there something common among all the serious offenders you have worked with?
For mass murderers, serial killers, rapists, serial arsonists, I would say a lot of trauma, childhood trauma. That’s very common.
There’s a lack of attachment. That’s the common denominator amongst those who are seriously violent offenders.
If we could do one thing in the world, it would be to reduce domestic violence. I think that would reduce the number of offenders because it’s a lack of attachment and childhood trauma. There’s neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse — all those things damage a child.
But, sadly, many of us have had childhood traumas or abuse in our lives. In your view, what would have steered even those with trauma away from the acts that they’ve done?
Many people have trauma in childhood, but they don’t turn out to become offenders. Because genetically, biologically, we have things about us that protect us. We can handle stressors better than some other people. That’s one area. Another area is nurturing: having, outside our family, peers, religion, relatives or friends who can influence us. And so it’s just not one stroke. It is not a dichotomy, either/or. And I think the majority of people get into therapy; they learn how to manage their trauma.
I want to be careful never to blame victims for their crimes, obviously, but in terms of who predators pick to victimize, what are they looking for?
Access.
When we are talking about sexual assaults, 75% are done by people you know.
The younger victims are, the easier it is for a perpetrator within the family or acquaintance to perp on them. So, that’s really important to consider — access.
Less common are perpetrators who want a specific type of victim.
With pedophilia and child molesters creeping around kids, they want to spend time with children. Healthy men don’t want to spend a lot of extra time with other people’s children. For example, they would likely not volunteer to babysit someone else’s children.
Disabled children are three times more likely to be sexually assaulted than non-disabled children because they can’t fight back. Often, they can’t talk about it.
And there are tens of thousands of predators online. Most teenagers are quite tech-savvy, but the ones who are being abused, the ones who lack attachment, are easy prey for these offenders.
The victims may not be aware of their surroundings. Women always have to be aware of their surroundings. We live in a world where if you aren’t aware of your surroundings, you could be victimized, and that’s an unfortunate commentary on our society, but that’s where it is.
I think most of us have a sense that we would recognize a predator if they were in our lives, but I imagine you would say that isn’t the case?
The truth is, predators, tend to be the ones who can hide the best.
It can be a therapist, religious leader, teacher, nurse, scout leader, etc.
We need to be far more vigilant because some of the nicest people we meet are offenders. They just cover it up.
And I think people look the other way. They don’t want to be involved. They don’t want to report things. We have a duty to really be very careful about who we hire to watch our kids, and that we check on them.
Interesting when we talk about offenders, especially with violent crime, if there’s a woman involved, usually there’s a man involved too. They typically don’t do violence by themselves. For example, 85% of serial killers are male, 15% are female. Women are socialized differently than men when they are growing up. Women are much more likely to become promiscuous or be runaways, have suicide attempts as ways of crying for help, rather than turning to violence.
We hear of things like abuse of animals as signs of early deviancy that can lead to someone becoming a serious violent offender, but are there other signs?
Chronic problems at school, bullying, poor school performance — though of course, those aren’t always signs. I had terrible grades in high school.
And of course, harming animals. It is interesting because sometimes kids, with other kids, will harm an animal. The parents find out about it and tell the kid not to do it again. And the kids don’t do it anymore. But when a child is suffering, and they don’t have a voice, that behaviour becomes their voice. And they will continue to do it, even when they are punished for it because it is the way they are expressing themselves.
Fire-setting is another behaviour.
I will give you an example from several years ago; a six-year-old had been setting fires since he was three. He had burned down two houses and a garage. The parents wanted me to interview the kid, but I wanted to start with the family.
The mother worked a lot and the father, who had been in and out of jail a few times, was the primary caregiver to the children. It turned out that one of their children had previously died. The six-year-old was a baby at the time. His older brother had been playing with the father’s matches and started a fire. The three-year-old sibling died in the fire. As the kids grew up, the father told them that if they had not been playing with matches, their brother would be alive.
When I finally interviewed the little boy who was starting fires, I asked him how he felt when he lit fires and he said “magic.” He thought if he could set a fire again, he could see his brother again.
The child was removed from the home and never started another fire. You can see that childhood can really mess kids up.
You hear a lot of awful things. How do you feel safe?
For me, the hardest part is my interviews about children. I have 14 grandchildren, and the idea of one of them being victimized — it’s very painful to think about children being victimized. That is probably the part where I have to check myself very carefully. I have to make sure I am being objective in my interviews.
Do you have a therapist?
No. I live on four acres. I clear my land and burn brush and plant trees and flowers and take care of my students and do my research and publishing. So, I’m pretty active, pretty busy. My wife works for the FBI and she’s a marriage and family therapist by trade, so we have some good conversations.
Knowing what you know, what do you tell your own children and grandchildren to keep them safe?
You always have to be on your guard when you’re in public. Parks are a great place to visit with kids, but never take your eyes off of them. They are also great places for child molesters and pedophiles.
Be mindful of who is watching your kids. We live in a world where it’s a wonderful place to be, but be on guard.
What advice do you have for young people who may want to get into forensic or criminal psychology?
I always tell students, you have to know how to network. You have to join organizations in forensic psychology. Co-author with people. And you also have to develop your expertise. You want to make a name for yourself.
I don't do therapy, assessments, treatment, I do more investigative work. I do dark, dark work. I work on cases involving sex crimes, homicide, stalking, that dark, dark stuff. That is not for everybody. But there are other areas such as threat assessments. That's such a great field to get into, because there is such a need for that.
We see more women coming into the field and that is fantastic. We need that perspective. We need People of Colour, different religions, coming from different countries. So that we have more expertise from different perspectives.
To learn more about the programs in forensic psychology at Walden, go to www.waldenu.edu.
