Handwriting analysis: A psychopathic viewpoint

Abstract

Mutuality between handwriting and individual’s inclination toward crime is an area of profound fascination. It is challenging to enter the most hidden corners of an abnormal mind in order to discover, understand and explain its resorts, and also to provide clues regarding the way of approaching, treating and planning rehabilitation. In India and other common law countries, insanity is exempted from punishment even if insanity leads to the person committing heinous crimes; because they are considered incapable of deciding the rightness or wrongness of an act. Therefore, it is crucial and imperative to understand the reason behind the anti-social crime and associated factors influencing personality of the offenders especially psychopaths. Forensic graphology and psychiatry are the two major disciplines involved in assessment of psychopathic tendencies and criminality. Both the approaches follow projective nature to analyse and get into deepest of the personality of an individual. Forensic is a punitive science concerned with the passing judgement on human conduct while psychiatry is a therapeutic and reformative science followed for the benefit of society, human rights and psychopaths. Though the two approaches assess personality from different perspectives, when applied together can give a more effective and holistic explanation of criminal behaviour. The present paper describes some important techniques of handwriting analysis and highlights common handwriting patterns of psychopaths.