Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective see aside of life the average person is never
Speaker 1: exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop.
Speaker 1: For twenty five of those years I was catching killers.
Speaker 1: That's what I did for a living. I was a
Speaker 1: homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead,
Speaker 1: I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
Speaker 1: The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
Speaker 1: from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
Speaker 1: and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some
Speaker 1: of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
Speaker 1: no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
Speaker 1: Join me now as I take you into this world.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to part two of my chat with forensic
Speaker 1: psychologists Nathan Brooks. In part one, we talked about Nathan's work,
Speaker 1: the difference between serial killers and mass murderers, and the
Speaker 1: emerging trend of loan actors who go on killing sprees.
Speaker 1: In part two, Nathan talks about the christ Church massacre,
Speaker 1: where the actions of one man led to the death
Speaker 1: of fifty one people. Nathan breaks down how and why
Speaker 1: this crime occurred and how we can try and prevent
Speaker 1: these types of killings in the future. It was a
Speaker 1: fascinating and informative chat. Have a listened to what Nathan
Speaker 1: has to say, Nathan Brooks or doctor Nathan Brooks, I
Speaker 1: should say, welcome back to part two of I Catch Killers.
Speaker 2: Thanks Gary.
Speaker 1: I've got to say I am finding this conversation fascinating
Speaker 1: and was working as a homicide detective. I found this
Speaker 1: inside the mind of killers or all the type of
Speaker 1: things that you're examining absolutely fascinating. I'm sure you're getting
Speaker 1: this all the time, but is that people are fascinating?
Speaker 2: I think unpacking what makes troubling and sometimes very violent
Speaker 2: people tick is it is it's fascinating because most of
Speaker 2: us can't understand it. And when we think about psychopaths,
Speaker 2: for instance, Yeah, they are the ones that think different
Speaker 2: and make different decisions, and we're often caught up in
Speaker 2: our own emotions. But for some folks, like psychopathic folks,
Speaker 2: that they're cool and calm under pressure, that they're not
Speaker 2: burdened by the anxiety that we have, and that's hard
Speaker 2: for everyday people to understand.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I want to talk about the christ Church
Speaker 1: massacre which is you know, I'm sure most people know it.
Speaker 1: I'll just read out a summary of it, just so
Speaker 1: people that haven't been aware of it they are aware
Speaker 1: of what happened. So two consecutive mass shootings took place
Speaker 1: in christ Church, New Zealand, on the fifteenth of March
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen. They were committed during Friday prayer, first at
Speaker 1: the Elnora Mosque at Rickiton at one forty pm, and
Speaker 1: almost immediately after at Limbwood Islamic Center at one point
Speaker 1: fifty two. Altogether, fifty one people were killed and eighty
Speaker 1: nine others were injured, including forty by gunfire. The perpetrator
Speaker 1: was an Australian man, Brenton Tarrant, then age twenty eight.
Speaker 1: Tarrant was arrested after his vehicles ran by a police
Speaker 1: car as he was driving to a third mosque, nash Burton.
Speaker 1: He live streamed the first shooting on Facebook, making the
Speaker 1: first successful live stream far right terror attack, and had
Speaker 1: published a manifesto online before the attack that just sort
Speaker 1: of sets the saying. I think anyone that recalls that
Speaker 1: incident knows how horrifying it was. You've looked at it
Speaker 1: in depth, what's your take on what caused the lead
Speaker 1: up to it and why did it get that dramatic
Speaker 1: And we touched on small parts of it in part one.
Speaker 1: If we could just deep dive into it now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So before we get into it, my caveat that
Speaker 2: I'm obviously with the New Zealand Police and this is
Speaker 2: certainly my view on the situation. It's not at all
Speaker 2: reflective of theirs. But it is a really complex case.
Speaker 2: I think when anyone carries out such a horrific mass
Speaker 2: act of violence, there are many many layers and what
Speaker 2: we saw in that incident and that tragic attack was
Speaker 2: that several years of build up went into it. It
Speaker 2: wasn't something that just happened overnight. We know that Tarrent
Speaker 2: moved to New Zealand with the intention of carrying out
Speaker 2: a mass casualty attack, and that was his reason for
Speaker 2: moving over there. I believe he cited the fact that
Speaker 2: it was partly the ability to access the firearms that
Speaker 2: was one of the primary factors, and shortly after getting
Speaker 2: there he commenced training with firearms and acquiring tactical capabilities.
Speaker 2: But to understand him, we probably need to trace things
Speaker 2: back to his childhood and he had in many ways,
Speaker 2: probably something that hasn't garnered a lot of attention. Quite
Speaker 2: a traumatic childhood we focused a lot, particularly, I think
Speaker 2: the media courage has been a lot around his ideology.
Speaker 2: But there are a lot of puzzle pieces that were
Speaker 2: there early on for him in his early years.
Speaker 1: What type of things were they.
Speaker 2: So one of the things that we look at for
Speaker 2: childhood is whether people experience trauma and the influence that
Speaker 2: that can have on them as they develop and grow
Speaker 2: into adults. And adverse childhood experiences is often a marker
Speaker 2: that we use to look at how bad that trauma
Speaker 2: is or how much adversity your child has had in
Speaker 2: their upbringing, And a lot of research would say around
Speaker 2: four or five adverse experiences can have quite significant impact
Speaker 2: on someone as they age and really shape who they become.
Speaker 2: And we know Arran had a troubled upbringing. So his
Speaker 2: parents separated, which I'll just run through some of it.
Speaker 2: So some of the adverse experiences are parental separation, parental
Speaker 2: mental health, criminality, unstable housing, financial issues, drug use. So
Speaker 2: the tip things that we that we might expect. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and so so Terence's parents obviously split up, so we
Speaker 2: had the separation his mother then started dating a new
Speaker 2: individual I believe it was an aboriginal fellow, and he
Speaker 2: was reportedly violent towards Tarrant and his sister, and that
Speaker 2: abuse continued over several years. Then we also had his
Speaker 2: father who suffered from mental health difficulties and then also
Speaker 2: developed cancer I believe for Mary and ultimately then committed
Speaker 2: suicide as well. So there were some quite notable things there. Drama, yeah,
Speaker 2: and he also Terrant himself was struggled to fit in socially,
Speaker 2: as we which touched on before. He was often bullied.
Speaker 2: He was considered to be quite overweight as well, and
Speaker 2: then in his late teens he had a big transformation
Speaker 2: and became quite fixated and about the gym and lost
Speaker 2: quite a lot of weight.
Speaker 1: I think it was in your book it was something
Speaker 1: like forty or fifty years huge, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Quite remarkable. And also during that adolescence we see that
Speaker 2: some early racist remarks were coming out in his school years,
Speaker 2: which suggests there's certainly, you know, some difficulties with how
Speaker 2: we're seeing the world and people and maybe even seeing
Speaker 2: that there's certain people that are to blame or that
Speaker 2: are causing hardships for him, and that might have been
Speaker 2: reflective of what things were like on the home front,
Speaker 2: with you know, with the physical abuse that was happening
Speaker 2: at home, and from there as he aged. I think
Speaker 2: he has spent a period being a personal trainer after
Speaker 2: high school, and then he inherited a large sum of
Speaker 2: money once his father passed away, and that basically funded
Speaker 2: him to go and travel overseas for quite a few years.
Speaker 2: And unfortunately, rather than taking inspiration from the the cultures
Speaker 2: and the different people, he became very cynical, and if
Speaker 2: we look at the various accounts and things that have
Speaker 2: been covered on the topic, his views were shaped in
Speaker 2: a very negative manner. It did coincide with while he
Speaker 2: was in Europe with some Islamic based attacks occurring, so
Speaker 2: in Islamic most terrorist attacks at the time, and that
Speaker 2: all sort of seemed to come together along with his
Speaker 2: strong reliance on online groups in four chan and eight
Speaker 2: chan and some of these other forums where he was
Speaker 2: really fueling his beliefs about the world and having those
Speaker 2: reciprocad back to him, and the classic sort of echo
Speaker 2: chamber effects started to happen from there, where the ideology
Speaker 2: really became perpetuated and continued to get reinforced.
Speaker 1: Out the time. I suppose what he's exposing himself too
Speaker 1: is only going to people people that share the same ideology,
Speaker 1: and that becomes that cycle. Yes, it reinforces his belief Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I think the further down that rabbit hole that
Speaker 2: you go, the more you find things that support those views.
Speaker 2: And you know, we get that the classic distortion aspect
Speaker 2: happen where you look for things that are what you want,
Speaker 2: you look for things that reinforce your beliefs, and then
Speaker 2: you ignore anything that's contradictory. And that's what we find
Speaker 2: with a lot of ideological aspects is people cherry pick
Speaker 2: what they focus on and they ignore the things that
Speaker 2: are contradictory to that, and that of course can very
Speaker 2: easily then start to lead to quite extreme beliefs when
Speaker 2: you're only looking at a small fragment of an issue.
Speaker 1: So the build up would you describe as a perfect
Speaker 1: storm in terms of what the build up before he
Speaker 1: carried out this horrible act.
Speaker 2: Well, there certainly, I think the cycle, logical makeup, the
Speaker 2: psychological foundation was a big factor. So he had a
Speaker 2: lot of vulnerabilities. There clearly a lot of unresolved anger
Speaker 2: that was never addressed, and then we had the Internet
Speaker 2: peace on top of that, where he's engaging in various ideological,
Speaker 2: extreme right wing views that are being perpetuated and fueled.
Speaker 2: He's then quite financially well off as well, which gave
Speaker 2: him access and capability factors, and then develops the plan
Speaker 2: or the intent to carry out some sort of violence
Speaker 2: to avenge or seek justice for the injustice which he's
Speaker 2: perceiving in the world. And then starts to begin planning
Speaker 2: and moves to New Zealand with the intention of carrying
Speaker 2: out a mass casualty attack, And a bit like with
Speaker 2: Anders Bravic in Norway, we see the culmination of factors
Speaker 2: come together, along with the secrecy and the willingness to
Speaker 2: dedicate a couple of years of your life to carrying
Speaker 2: out such a horrific active violence. I mean that itself
Speaker 2: is nearly unheard of and so remarkable that someone could
Speaker 2: be so dedicated over that obsession to give their life
Speaker 2: to that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there were a number of inquiries that flowed on
Speaker 1: from the event. Did anything jump out in the part
Speaker 1: where it could have been I won't say prevented, because
Speaker 1: as I keep saying that it's easy in hindsight, But
Speaker 1: is there any indicators or ways that it could have
Speaker 1: been diffused? Do you think how could you approach it
Speaker 1: if you look back with the benefit of hindsight. Okay,
Speaker 1: when he got to this point, there should have been
Speaker 1: some intervention.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's again in hindsight. So there was a Royal
Speaker 2: commission in New Zealand into Royal Commission of Inquiry into
Speaker 2: the attack and it's a nearly nine hundred page document
Speaker 2: which reviewed it. Now, some of the interesting findings were
Speaker 2: more around systems and processes rather than terror himself, so
Speaker 2: it looked at, you know things. So he had a
Speaker 2: gunshot wound in the months prior to the attack, and
Speaker 2: at the time there were no mandatory reporting practices for
Speaker 2: gunshot wounds. So that has since changed so that if
Speaker 2: someone presents to hospital with a gunshot wound, that is
Speaker 2: then passed on to police and then followed up. Firearm
Speaker 2: register was something that wasn't strong and that's been completely
Speaker 2: revamped to make access to firearms much more difficult and
Speaker 2: mental health checks and interviews and those sorts of processes.
Speaker 2: So again another positive step that has been put in place. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and of course the access to guns has been reduced
Speaker 2: as well, So some of those capability and incident reporting
Speaker 2: systems have been improved, been a lot more funding as well.
Speaker 2: That's gone into violent extremism, and I think as well
Speaker 2: that improved police practic and that's not being critical at
Speaker 2: all of the police practices, but unfortunately when we have incidents,
Speaker 2: of course that reviews, that leads.
Speaker 1: To change and the improvements. Of course, when when it
Speaker 1: gets that way not well, I suppose it's the magnitude
Speaker 1: of the crime that he created there required that review
Speaker 1: lesser type of crimes. But one you and I spoke
Speaker 1: off camera about it, and you are, you're over here
Speaker 1: and you're going to deliver a lecture on it. Stalking.
Speaker 1: Stalking to me is a major concern. What message have
Speaker 1: you got or what have you learned about stalking people
Speaker 1: that are prepared to stalk? And over here in Australia
Speaker 1: and not just New South Wales, across the across the country,
Speaker 1: we've got a lot of domestic violence where unfortunately it's
Speaker 1: male partners invariably murdering female partners. And you look at
Speaker 1: it and I can virtually guarantee they'll be stalking involved
Speaker 1: and not accepting the relationship being over and different things
Speaker 1: like that. What's your your assessment of stalking?
Speaker 2: Oh, look, it's so it's so troubling. And one of
Speaker 2: the challenges we're stalking is that it exists on such
Speaker 2: a spectrum from small unwanted acts, repeated contact that's unwanted,
Speaker 2: all the way through to very predatory and concerning behaviors,
Speaker 2: you know, such as breaking into a house and going
Speaker 2: through a person's underwear drawer and moving things around. So
Speaker 2: it is a type of offending that is so broad,
Speaker 2: but we need to think about it, I think from
Speaker 2: a from a couple of different lenses, and one is
Speaker 2: how persistent is it? And then also how likely is
Speaker 2: it to become severe and escalating nature. So stalking can
Speaker 2: be very broad in motivation. So sometimes it's targeted because
Speaker 2: of you resentment towards an ex partner. Sometimes it's revenge
Speaker 2: towards a workplace. Other times it might be because the
Speaker 2: person's mentally unwell and they are constantly making unwanted contact
Speaker 2: because of quite a distortion about the person of the targeting.
Speaker 2: And then other times it's very predatory and that can
Speaker 2: often end up being quite significant violence or even sexual
Speaker 2: offending towards a person so it's multifaceted and it exists
Speaker 2: on a spectrum.
Speaker 1: Have you in your work with New Zealand Plece some
Speaker 1: have been involved in stalking cases and how they play
Speaker 1: that You don't have to identify the specific case, but
Speaker 1: stalking cases are the vscalated. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Look as both a consultant forensic psychologist and also working
Speaker 2: in the police and a lot of the times it's
Speaker 2: looking at it from a threat lens and how concerned
Speaker 2: do we need to be about the case. And sometimes
Speaker 2: it's about understanding the motivation and the functionality of the
Speaker 2: stalking So what is it that the person's trying to
Speaker 2: achieve here and why is it that they are failing
Speaker 2: to understand that that behavior is unwanted and not reciprocated.
Speaker 2: Often there's an educational component and then sometimes it's looking
Speaker 2: at as well, is this going to persist or is
Speaker 2: this going to escalate with the stalking case. Intimate partner
Speaker 2: violence is another one that we sometimes become very concerned about.
Speaker 2: Often stalking will exist amongst a range of other forms
Speaker 2: of intimate partner violence, particularly coercive control, and we know
Speaker 2: that across cases of fatal intimate partner violence that around
Speaker 2: about seventy five percent of those cases have stalking in them.
Speaker 2: And often when a partner is killed or an ext
Speaker 2: partner is killed, it's where there's been a high level
Speaker 2: of coercive control and the victim has tried to regain
Speaker 2: a level of independence and autonomy and that has been
Speaker 2: the final tipping point for the offender and they have
Speaker 2: killed that person as that sort of final active trying
Speaker 2: to have dominance and control over their lives, which is
Speaker 2: really quite horrific.
Speaker 1: Well, the scary part is a dangerous period is in
Speaker 1: those domestic violent situations when the partner is trying to leave,
Speaker 1: that's when they're at the greatest, greatest risk.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yeah, ed is concerning and again education is quite important,
Speaker 2: but the flip side of that is it's hard to
Speaker 2: have that conversation with people as well, and should people
Speaker 2: really have to be that well educated and informed? You know,
Speaker 2: everyone has a right to safety in many ways, and
Speaker 2: unfortunately we still have huge concerns with people willing to
Speaker 2: take matters into their own hands and become violent.
Speaker 1: Do you think and I'm talking New South Wales or
Speaker 1: Australia may be relevant to New Zealand whether the courts
Speaker 1: fully appreciate the nature of it. If someone even the
Speaker 1: public's perception that's almost a joke, like I've got a
Speaker 1: stalker and we saw the laugh. Yeah, but I've had
Speaker 1: so many people contact me when I was in the
Speaker 1: police as police, but people contact me post police, reaching
Speaker 1: out and they've got a stalker and no one seems
Speaker 1: to take it seriously and they're terrified. Do you think
Speaker 1: the courts take it and the police take it seriously
Speaker 1: enough for stalking.
Speaker 2: It's hard to give a blanket answer to that. But
Speaker 2: with what you're saying, there are of course many cases
Speaker 2: where people just go it's unwanted contact, they'll stop, or
Speaker 2: they just dismiss it. And that's where stalking becomes a problem,
Speaker 2: because when we dismiss it, it keeps going, and we
Speaker 2: need to make sure that we're putting the right level
Speaker 2: of response to a situation. And the temptation is unfortunately
Speaker 2: to water down the seriousness of it, and that of
Speaker 2: course allows it to keep going, and then before you
Speaker 2: know it, it's three months, then it's six months. We've
Speaker 2: hit a year, and that's a really reinforced and ingrained
Speaker 2: pattern and the person may or the offender may have
Speaker 2: had quite a bit of feedback that this is a
Speaker 2: successful way to keep that person in their life. By
Speaker 2: that stage, well.
Speaker 1: I think, and this is when I'm giving people advice.
Speaker 1: If they've got a stalk with if they make contact
Speaker 1: that does end up in court, their concern is that
Speaker 1: brings this person back into my life. And so the
Speaker 1: stalkers achieved what they want to achieve. So it's a
Speaker 1: hard thing to police, but it's something that I've always thought.
Speaker 1: They were red flags to me when I saw it
Speaker 1: in any capacity of an investigation. If someone was stalking someone,
Speaker 1: the being told we don't want to speak to you,
Speaker 1: stay away from us, and they ignore that, that is
Speaker 1: a warning sign of I on the right track there,
Speaker 1: Like it's.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, yeah. You look at things like approach behavior.
Speaker 2: You know, how much are they prepared to or toward
Speaker 2: extent are they prepared to approach the victim, to be
Speaker 2: intrusive towards the victim? Are they engaging inst surveillance like behaviors,
Speaker 2: are they entering the person's residence, And also factors such
Speaker 2: as mental illness can play a role, personality disorders, and
Speaker 2: we look at as well, you know, are they deterred
Speaker 2: by things such as court orders. If it keeps going
Speaker 2: after court orders again, that's very troubling.
Speaker 1: Well, I've had people that the victims of the stalking
Speaker 1: that have come back to me when the courts haven't
Speaker 1: gone hard on the stalker, the stalker comes back to
Speaker 1: them just laughing, going, look the courts don't even care
Speaker 1: and empowers them on coercive control. Relatively recently had that
Speaker 1: start to come into a play, legislation that come into play.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it actually play out in court, so
Speaker 1: I think a big part of it is going to
Speaker 1: be how the police uses as a tool. I think
Speaker 1: it's a powerful tool. Is coercive control legislative over in
Speaker 1: New Zealand? Is that something that's come into play over there?
Speaker 2: No, it's not legislated over there yet. And remarkably, we
Speaker 2: don't actually have a stalking law or a stalking chargers yet.
Speaker 2: So there's been talk that shouldn't say talk, it's probably
Speaker 2: a loose word for that, but there's been political movement
Speaker 2: that legislation is going to be proposed quite soon and
Speaker 2: then we will have a stalking law, but no coercive control.
Speaker 2: Over in Australia, here is a reasonably new charge in
Speaker 2: a couple of states, so it'd be really interesting to
Speaker 2: monitor how that goes. But the research on intimate partner
Speaker 2: violence has certainly been the big reason that we're seeing
Speaker 2: that law come in because it's been so prevalent but
Speaker 2: also relevant to fatal cases.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there's been to many of them in this country,
Speaker 1: that's for sure. The interview room, Yes, you're working for
Speaker 1: New Zealand Police. Is that part of the role that
Speaker 1: you do help investigators prepare for an interview, to sit
Speaker 1: down in the interview room.
Speaker 2: Yeah. We've been doing quite a bit of work in
Speaker 2: that space of late over the last two years or so,
Speaker 2: and it is one of the main things that we're
Speaker 2: doing currently around how do we under stand the person
Speaker 2: in front of us and how do we tailor our
Speaker 2: response to ensure that we're meeting them at their level.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I look, I find the interview room fascinating.
Speaker 1: That was that was my happy place in policing. I
Speaker 1: found it very stimulating to be in the interview room.
Speaker 1: A lot of pressure, a lot of build up and
Speaker 1: all that, but the way that you approach and the investigation.
Speaker 1: I'll throw a couple of things out just for a
Speaker 1: point of discussion I learned from people that I looked
Speaker 1: up to as interviewers, and I've sort of tried to
Speaker 1: adopt the aspects of the way they approached the interview.
Speaker 1: But I also learned that you've got to be You've
Speaker 1: got to be legitimate, like you've got to be yourself
Speaker 1: in the interview room. I've seen people try to I've
Speaker 1: tried to mimic people the way they interview someone doesn't work.
Speaker 1: I've got to be myself. I've had other people try
Speaker 1: to mimic me the way I interview. It doesn't work.
Speaker 1: So I think there's something that you've got to build,
Speaker 1: that rapport with someone in the interview room. Would you
Speaker 1: agree agree with that?
Speaker 2: Yes, spot on. I member poor has become arguably the
Speaker 2: most crucial ingredient in an interview now, and we have
Speaker 2: come a long way. It's hard to talk about what
Speaker 2: current police practices are, but I dare say that across
Speaker 2: Australia and New Zealand there's an improved understanding that rapport
Speaker 2: really is a cornerstone of the interview. So it's very
Speaker 2: hard to have a serious major crime interview without rapport.
Speaker 2: We can't just get the person in now and go
Speaker 2: straight into the offending straight into the issues that there's
Speaker 2: got to be a build up to that because we
Speaker 2: can't we can't expect someone to want to talk to
Speaker 2: us if we're not establishing rapport with them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree with that, and I people have said
Speaker 1: characteristics of a good detective empathy empathy in the interview
Speaker 1: room that you're sitting down and trying to understand where
Speaker 1: this person's coming from. It might discuss me where they're
Speaker 1: coming from. I might agree with it, but I won't
Speaker 1: show that on my face. That will be very much
Speaker 1: a poker face in what they're telling me, So there's
Speaker 1: not judgment there to go with people. Again, I'll just
Speaker 1: throw in some of my thoughts on the interview room
Speaker 1: because I'm interested in getting getting your thoughts. Some people
Speaker 1: are going to the interview room and I would be
Speaker 1: very professional. I'd deliberately present professionally because I thought that
Speaker 1: was the best way to communicate. Otherwise I'd get in
Speaker 1: there and be very relaxed when we talk about rapport.
Speaker 1: That's the type of thing I'm assessing the person in
Speaker 1: the way that I want to approach. Sarah Ure, the
Speaker 1: forensic psychologists I work with a talk about the carrot
Speaker 1: or the stick, whether you're dangling something to them that
Speaker 1: they want or they're feeling. And we can't threaten people
Speaker 1: in an interview room obviously stick figuratively, we don't go
Speaker 1: in there with a stick. What's your thoughts on different
Speaker 1: approaches for different offenders, Like, there's not a one model
Speaker 1: fits all, is there?
Speaker 2: No? No, there's not, But I think there's some rules
Speaker 2: of thumb that do hold up really well with with rapport.
Speaker 2: So firstly, we need to foster commonality. So first principle
Speaker 2: is if you're going in to interview someone, what is
Speaker 2: it about you that's going to allow you to relate
Speaker 2: to that person? What have you got in common? So
Speaker 2: everyone should be able to find those things. Secondly, wein
Speaker 2: look at our ability to compliment the person. And I
Speaker 2: think when we say compliments, people think, oh, you know,
Speaker 2: what are you on about? You're just basically trying to
Speaker 2: praise them unnecessarily. But there's always things when we step
Speaker 2: back and look at someone's life that we can acknowledge
Speaker 2: and validate, and that is quite crucial that we still
Speaker 2: do that we recognize them as individuals and as small
Speaker 2: as that achievement may be, it may be significant for them,
Speaker 2: So where is this scope to compliment and validate that person?
Speaker 2: And then the other one is humor, and that probably
Speaker 2: sounds like it doesn't belong in an interview room. But
Speaker 2: how can we find moments of lightheartednessnst a really heavy
Speaker 2: and serious conversation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, I get where you're coming from. And that's
Speaker 1: very much creating that relaxed environment where the conversation will
Speaker 1: be for flowing. I think the way I approach interviews,
Speaker 1: some people are very specific, word orientated. Listening to your answer,
Speaker 1: what you exactly you said? I know, I've got that's
Speaker 1: what comes down because the transcripts only reflects what you said.
Speaker 1: But if I'm interviewing you in an interview room, in
Speaker 1: a tense interview, and this is one where it's not
Speaker 1: a lay down, as you haven't got all the evidence,
Speaker 1: A lot's going to depend on what the person of
Speaker 1: interest that you're interviewing talks about. It's about creating that,
Speaker 1: creating that environment where they feel comfortable to talk. But
Speaker 1: I'm watching their body language like I might throw something
Speaker 1: out a little bit left field, a little bit strange.
Speaker 1: See how you react, Which way do you lean to
Speaker 1: within interviewing or is this coming down to I said
Speaker 1: at the start that it's individual styles.
Speaker 2: Look, I think of these individual styles and some people
Speaker 2: naturally have a really good style and some can learn it.
Speaker 2: There's the intrusiveness peace to an interview as well. So
Speaker 2: when do you become intrusive about the content of that conversation.
Speaker 2: And when I say intrusiveness, what I'm really talking about
Speaker 2: is topics that are uncomfortable and maybe more confronting. So
Speaker 2: you would want to start low and soft and easier
Speaker 2: conversation piece topics in the early stages of the interview,
Speaker 2: and as the rapport develops, then you can become more
Speaker 2: intrusive because there's a level of trust and respect understanding
Speaker 2: developed between the interviewer and the interview we so you
Speaker 2: can't go in too hot or too intrusive too early,
Speaker 2: because you put yourself on the back foot and you
Speaker 2: risk upsetting the person. So I think with the peace model,
Speaker 2: which is widely used, you know, really in some ways
Speaker 2: it's a bit like a five set tennis match where
Speaker 2: we're looking at the cumulative momentum over several hours and
Speaker 2: it's going back and forth, and if you do enough,
Speaker 2: thing's the right way, it tips in your favor.
Speaker 1: And a lot of the public's perception is that we've
Speaker 1: got the right to interview people too, as in you're
Speaker 1: obliged to answer questions. That's very much not the case,
Speaker 1: so they're well within their rights. I've also found, and
Speaker 1: talk to me about the characteristics of the people that
Speaker 1: would buy into this, that I've sat down with people
Speaker 1: that have an arrogance about them and that's the very
Speaker 1: thing I'm going to exploit that, Like, they're dumb to
Speaker 1: sit down and have an interview with me, but they're
Speaker 1: so arrogant they think they're going to it doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be me outsmart the police. I'm smarter than you,
Speaker 1: and that's why they can't resist themselves sitting down having
Speaker 1: an interview. Do you see that type of personality.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's the tendency of people that believe that they
Speaker 2: can control the situation and that they can talk their
Speaker 2: way out of it, although they are the smartest person
Speaker 2: in the room and that can sometimes bring them undone.
Speaker 2: You A case over in New Zealand which has been
Speaker 2: quite public and there's been a Netflix documentary on it
Speaker 2: is Jesse Kimson and the Grace Malayan case and.
Speaker 1: Your assessment on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's been a lot published and segments of the
Speaker 2: interview that have been publicly put out there of Kimsen
Speaker 2: during his interview, and we certainly saw that he started
Speaker 2: off very calm and believed that he could talk his
Speaker 2: way out of it during the first interview that ended
Speaker 2: up bringing him undone during the second interview, where a
Speaker 2: lot of those stories were then able to be corroborated
Speaker 2: and that worked against him in the end. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it is interesting what may devates people to
Speaker 1: sit down and participate in the interview. What about crime scenes?
Speaker 1: Your interpretation of crime scenes? And I think a discussion
Speaker 1: initially when you came in here before on camera talking
Speaker 1: about psychopaths how they can commit a horrendous crime and
Speaker 1: not be rattled by it than leave. I would see
Speaker 1: crime scenes where I would call it like a panic
Speaker 1: crime scene. I don't think the person planned this, that
Speaker 1: shocked them, that they've killed a person, and the crime
Speaker 1: scene represents that. What's you're taken? What can you learn
Speaker 1: from going to a crime scene?
Speaker 2: Crime scenes are so valuable from anyone in the operational spaces.
Speaker 2: You nearly need to see the crime scene or at
Speaker 2: least have incredibly good photos of it to be able
Speaker 2: to form any conclusions around it. But look, you look
Speaker 2: for contradictions ultimately in the crime scene, don't you. And
Speaker 2: sometimes chaotic crime scenes are stage crime scenes as well,
Speaker 2: and then the absence of things that crime scenes can
Speaker 2: also be very telling. So it's sometimes it's what's not
Speaker 2: there that's important, and then the disarray as well can
Speaker 2: also be quite telling. So I know that you know,
Speaker 2: FBI would say that you study the work of the artists,
Speaker 2: which is their crime scene, to try and understand them.
Speaker 2: But I think the crime scene gives us very good
Speaker 2: insights into one how the crime has occurred, and then
Speaker 2: why things may or may not be there that should
Speaker 2: be there or have been removed from a scene. So
Speaker 2: it really looks at, you know, three stages before the crime,
Speaker 2: during the crime, and then after the crime, and that
Speaker 2: can give us valuable information across those three and then
Speaker 2: together you form whether it's a profile or a working
Speaker 2: theory around the offender and how.
Speaker 1: They breakdown in an example or give examples for those
Speaker 1: three breakdowns all.
Speaker 2: So we go back to the Jesse Kimson case. So
Speaker 2: it's been quite well publicized that he met Grace mulane
Speaker 2: and then they went out for dinner, and then they
Speaker 2: went back to his hotel room. Something transpired there which
Speaker 2: resulted in Grace's death. It certainly seems like it was
Speaker 2: probably unlikely that there was any intention to kill her.
Speaker 2: But then when we look at post crime, we see
Speaker 2: that he was very methodical after the offense, and there
Speaker 2: was a lot of clean up. There was a lot
Speaker 2: of stages, it's been well documented around him. He moved
Speaker 2: her body, went and buried the body, cleaned the scene,
Speaker 2: and there was quite a calmness in the chaos at
Speaker 2: the time. And that's rather unusual. You know, we think
Speaker 2: about someone trying to recover from a horrific event. There's
Speaker 2: a lot of anxiety and panic and concern. It's unusual
Speaker 2: to be quite methodical and calm.
Speaker 1: Very much so, and that was something I always look
Speaker 1: to exploit that mistakes made after that the murders occurred
Speaker 1: or the crime has occurred. Little things like if a
Speaker 1: murder weapon has been introduced to the crime soon, if
Speaker 1: someone's bought, if it's a murder's happened in the house
Speaker 1: and it's the kitchen knife from the kitchen bench that's
Speaker 1: been used as a murder weapon. That tells me it
Speaker 1: wasn't intent at the time they're going there, something escalated,
Speaker 1: something has happened at the time, so not the planning.
Speaker 1: These are the type of things you look for as
Speaker 1: a forensic psychologist.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely, you know, how prepared and planned was someone
Speaker 2: prior to the crime And going back to is there
Speaker 2: evidence of cleanup and have items been taken away from
Speaker 2: the scene, whether it's weapons or belongings of the victim.
Speaker 2: Has the body been moved? If the body is there,
Speaker 2: you know, is there a quite a bit of forensic
Speaker 2: evidence it still remains. You know, often we think loosely
Speaker 2: as a rule of thumb, you know, the less evidence
Speaker 2: that's at the scene and the more that has been removed.
Speaker 2: We're talking about a plan and prepared offender. Go back
Speaker 2: to the classic FBI organized disorganized profile, which looked at
Speaker 2: that the organized fellows tend to come to the scene
Speaker 2: prepared and take things away and leave limited forensic evidence.
Speaker 2: That disorganized Often there's a lot of forensic evidence. Things
Speaker 2: are in disarray. There can be a scrambled a tempt
Speaker 2: to cover the crime up and make it look like
Speaker 2: something else.
Speaker 1: Well, I take a lot away from the way the
Speaker 1: bodies are disposed of to and you can almost see
Speaker 1: the panic in the way some bodies are disposed of,
Speaker 1: or you can see the planning and the time. So
Speaker 1: that's all very telling, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Yes, so some of them are quite superficially disposed of
Speaker 2: essentially it's the first opportunity, or they're buried very.
Speaker 1: Basically get this body.
Speaker 2: Away from me here, and then others are you know,
Speaker 2: take much longer and much more time.
Speaker 1: Without going into methodology, is this the type of thing
Speaker 1: you sit down with police New Zealand Police like, they'll
Speaker 1: come to you, there's been a crime, the body has
Speaker 1: been found, they contact you and this is how you
Speaker 1: work work with the police.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, absolutely so. It could be in avariety of stages.
Speaker 2: It could be the homicides just happened and we're trying
Speaker 2: to understand the crime scene and the behavior that's happened
Speaker 2: and insights into the offender. It could be that we're
Speaker 2: four weeks on and things have hit a wall and
Speaker 2: leads have run dry, and will review the crime and
Speaker 2: look at trying to generate new lines of inquiry.
Speaker 1: Right, we spoke in part one about serial killers or
Speaker 1: the demise of serial killers, which is a pretty good
Speaker 1: way of saying that that's good that they're reducing that
Speaker 1: serial sex offenders, but yeah, I've worked serial sex crimes.
Speaker 1: Have they reduced serial killing? So the same things that
Speaker 1: are reducing serial murderers reducing serial sex offenders or is
Speaker 1: it still Yeah?
Speaker 2: The big one would be our intrue to rapists and
Speaker 2: it is rare for us to get a series of
Speaker 2: those these days. I think that's true across Australia and
Speaker 2: New Zealand. We still get lots of touch based offenses
Speaker 2: towards strangers, bus stops, those sorts of public public areas,
Speaker 2: but you know, the rapist that's targeting strangers or going
Speaker 2: in to homes is it's much less common. That doesn't
Speaker 2: mean that they don't happen those offenses, but it's rare
Speaker 2: that they are a series. Now they are often caught
Speaker 2: much quicker, and again that's because of all the improvements
Speaker 2: in technology that we.
Speaker 1: Have and just a sharing of information too. I think
Speaker 1: that's a big part because before we would often be
Speaker 1: looking for an offender that's got a certain type of
Speaker 1: characteristic about characteristics about the way he commits a crime.
Speaker 1: Someone else in the neighboring lac might be doing the
Speaker 1: same thing. In the old days, it wasn't a case
Speaker 1: that would be sharing the information, But we've to waken
Speaker 1: up to that.
Speaker 2: Now and see New Zealand runs by Class which catalogs
Speaker 2: all the stranger sex offenses across the country. So our
Speaker 2: behavioral science unit is keeping a data lot of over
Speaker 2: a decade and more of all the stranger six crimes.
Speaker 2: So if we do have something that comes up, we're
Speaker 2: able to draw on more than eight to nine thousand
Speaker 2: cases and look at what we know about something of
Speaker 2: a similar nature with a similar type of offending pattern.
Speaker 2: And of course if we do get something, we could
Speaker 2: also look back at whether it is linked to any
Speaker 2: other crimes as well.
Speaker 1: Okay, again, excuse me from jumping from point to point,
Speaker 1: but I'm finding the whole chat very interesting. Mental health
Speaker 1: what part does that play? And I've got some stats
Speaker 1: here that I pulled out of your book, so I'm
Speaker 1: hoping they're correct that seventeen and fifty percent of loane
Speaker 1: actors are suffering from a mental illness at the time
Speaker 1: of offending. Two thirds of perpetrators experiencing mental health concerns
Speaker 1: in the period leading up to their attack. So look,
Speaker 1: regardless of the specifics of the stats, it's saying that
Speaker 1: mental health is a big thing in loan actors. What
Speaker 1: type of mental health issues are we looking at them?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's the catch twenty two, isn't it?
Speaker 2: In many ways of mental health, because again it's on
Speaker 2: a spectrum, and it can be all the way from
Speaker 2: psychotic based presentations where someone has completely lost touch with
Speaker 2: reality and they are unaware and they don't have sound
Speaker 2: mind with what they're doing. And it seems as though
Speaker 2: that is a good example of the bond dijunction with
Speaker 2: attack with Joel Kuchi, that he was schizophrenic for a
Speaker 2: long period of time and psychotic at the time.
Speaker 1: How much did you know about that particular case.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's still emerging. I know there was
Speaker 2: the recent inquiry and the results haven't been published, but
Speaker 2: the psychotic aspect and his long term schizophrenic diagnosis seems
Speaker 2: to be quite central.
Speaker 1: And I think it's already been mentioned in the public
Speaker 1: and would have been mentioned that the inquest. But the
Speaker 1: parents had concerns about him with his fascination with knives
Speaker 1: and different things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's where where mental health is tricky because
Speaker 2: there are so many people with mental health difficulties or
Speaker 2: mental illness or psychosis or schizophrenia that aren't ever violent,
Speaker 2: So that is quite important to put into context. But
Speaker 2: you have to add layers to the mental health that
Speaker 2: then add to the potential then to be violent. So yeah,
Speaker 2: the various issues with grievances in life, very very very
Speaker 2: much violent interests or things like that can then be
Speaker 2: exacerbators for the mental illness. But then we can also
Speaker 2: have things like depression that can be a catalyst for
Speaker 2: then developing a grievance and affixation, and that can then
Speaker 2: perpetuate and grow from there. So I think mental health
Speaker 2: can be a causal factor or an indirect factor as well,
Speaker 2: and sometimes as well. We also say that there's subclinical
Speaker 2: things that are not really at the diagnostic threshold which
Speaker 2: drive behavior. It might be that someone the struggles with
Speaker 2: shame and envy of others, and it's very likely to
Speaker 2: get quite jealous, and they've got a personality that makes
Speaker 2: them prone to collecting grievances or feeling like they've been wronged,
Speaker 2: and that then walks them down that path to violence.
Speaker 1: That's sitting here talking to you, I'm getting an appreciation
Speaker 1: of how complicated it is. If you see Sarah you're
Speaker 1: at the conference, apologize to her. I expected too much
Speaker 1: from her. There are so many layers and variables, isn't it.
Speaker 1: So I can see why you try to structure things
Speaker 1: as best you can. It's not foolproof, but yeah, here's
Speaker 1: some indicators. This might be the way we prevent this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we need to be careful that as psychologists,
Speaker 2: we're not always trying to come up with an explanation.
Speaker 2: So it's over complicated, but loosely, I always go how
Speaker 2: dyed up? Or are the dials for the persons or
Speaker 2: how intense are things? Then we can also think about
Speaker 2: how frequent is the symptoms or the traits, and then
Speaker 2: what's the severity of it as well, So we need
Speaker 2: to look at it through frameworks that make it understandable.
Speaker 1: And a framework makes it as understandable as best you
Speaker 1: can hope for. Leading into the use of AI, do
Speaker 1: you see that as something that's going to be very
Speaker 1: much in the forefront of criminal investigation.
Speaker 2: It's hard. I mean, in terms of the mass casualty
Speaker 2: space we've already seen over in the US that people
Speaker 2: have had AI right plans around how to carry out
Speaker 2: a mass casualty attack.
Speaker 1: For I was thinking from the good guys, you're looking
Speaker 1: from the bad guys.
Speaker 2: Offender capability enhancement aspect, and we know that that's happening already.
Speaker 2: What it means for police investigations, it's really hard to say.
Speaker 2: It'll make some of them more boring tasks of writing
Speaker 2: up things easier, but you know, facial recognition and those
Speaker 2: sorts of things I think will transform as well, So
Speaker 2: it's hard to anticipate where it will go.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking like by class you talk about like if
Speaker 1: you had an AI component of assessing all the information,
Speaker 1: that might make it even more readily about I think.
Speaker 2: The ability to analyze mass amounts of data or information
Speaker 2: will greatly improve, but it will still require the human
Speaker 2: analysts to develop the right meaning and interpretation of that.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at getting back to and prevention is the
Speaker 1: key of hopefully what you're achieving. And I've got a
Speaker 1: couple of headings here, but fixated thread assessments, fixated persons, unit,
Speaker 1: need for information sharing. So three main points. So if
Speaker 1: we're talking about preventing these type of loan actor attacks.
Speaker 1: Breaking down those three headings like fixated threat assessments, how
Speaker 1: do they play a part? And I know we've touched
Speaker 1: on it, but just breaking it down again.
Speaker 2: So, fixated threat assessments really are police and mental health
Speaker 2: specialists working together to make decisions about a person of concern,
Speaker 2: and that starts by information coming in about a person
Speaker 2: and then doing a screening judgment to look at, Okay,
Speaker 2: do we need to be concerned about this based on
Speaker 2: the information? Do we need to dig more? We might
Speaker 2: find that once we dig that it is concerning, then
Speaker 2: you would go through the process of doing a more
Speaker 2: rigorous assessment. Then you might look to engage with the
Speaker 2: person to understand things further, and then if you're still
Speaker 2: concern then it would be going, okay, let's put some
Speaker 2: wrap around support towards the person, and then you'd monitor,
Speaker 2: you'd review, and if it's still not improving, that might
Speaker 2: be then when there's more targeted responses that could emerge.
Speaker 1: It's a multi agency, isn't it. It's very much. It's
Speaker 1: not just the police, it's mental health, the health system,
Speaker 1: all sorts of things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and in this space we've realized that it is
Speaker 2: multi agency that we need to be very careful of
Speaker 2: silos of information being held and locked down and not
Speaker 2: being shared. Man around Monus was probably a good example
Speaker 2: of that. That information needs to flow to the right people,
Speaker 2: and then those reviews and those assessments then need to
Speaker 2: go back to other people in return, so we can't
Speaker 2: be locking down on things. We need to be very
Speaker 2: mindful of gaps in practice where we don't have knowledge
Speaker 2: disconnects between agencies as well, And I'd probably also say
Speaker 2: that a couple of other things around bunkers. So not
Speaker 2: just doing an assessment on someone and going, oh, you know,
Speaker 2: look that low concern. We'll just put the paperwork in
Speaker 2: the file and we're done with that, and two weeks
Speaker 2: later there's an incident. So we can't necessarily be reassured
Speaker 2: by the fact that we've done an assessment and go okay,
Speaker 2: we can wash our hands of that. And then the
Speaker 2: last one really is myopia, where we simply lose focus
Speaker 2: because we're looking at this too much, or we're not
Speaker 2: getting an outside perspective, so too much group think, well,
Speaker 2: whatever it might be, where it causes us just to
Speaker 2: not to see that this has changed. And probably I
Speaker 2: think in the lone actor space that the myopia aspect
Speaker 2: is where we may come undone again in the future
Speaker 2: because we're seeing more and more young people now presenting
Speaker 2: with risk factors and concerning behaviors that if someone had
Speaker 2: said that to you a decade ago, you would have
Speaker 2: been horrified and you would have hit the panic button.
Speaker 2: Now that our tolerance.
Speaker 1: For that we've become desensitizes.
Speaker 2: So you know, people with very violent ideations and purchasing
Speaker 2: of weapons and engagement in quite extreme goal and extremist
Speaker 2: material that are very young. It's become commonplace is not
Speaker 2: the right word, but in the work that we do,
Speaker 2: it's a little bit more commonplace now that that is
Speaker 2: the type of person of concerned that you're seeing. And
Speaker 2: the worry then is that we go, Okay, well, we're
Speaker 2: so used to that now and we've seen so many
Speaker 2: of them that don't do anything, but we need to
Speaker 2: be very rigorous and understand that that could change and
Speaker 2: that could escalate.
Speaker 1: I could see people dropping their guard down because we've
Speaker 1: seen this and there's one hundred people that are like that,
Speaker 1: Why are we worried about this person? But that could
Speaker 1: be the one person.
Speaker 2: Yes, And I think in Australia as well. You know,
Speaker 2: we had a good probably wake up call last last
Speaker 2: year in twenty twenty four. So obviously we had the
Speaker 2: Bondi Junction attack, which was sort of separate in some ways,
Speaker 2: but then there was the good chaper Church. A couple
Speaker 2: of weeks later, there was a young sixteen year old
Speaker 2: over in Western Australia that stabbed someone at Bunnings and
Speaker 2: then was killed by police. And then about six or
Speaker 2: seven weeks later it was either was it Paramatter or Newcastle,
Speaker 2: I can't remember. Young person with a go pro tactical
Speaker 2: vest walked in with a couple of knives into politician's
Speaker 2: office and fortunately they didn't go through with the attack.
Speaker 2: But you know, within that space of two months, that
Speaker 2: potentially could have been four very serious mass casualty attacks.
Speaker 1: Young males involved in it too. What there's a reason
Speaker 1: so many young males seem to be the ones that
Speaker 1: do these things that can be influenced.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's it is very concerning, and I think there's
Speaker 2: been a lot spoken about men and masculinity and where
Speaker 2: men at at the at the moment, a lot of
Speaker 2: them are searching for identity and their their place in
Speaker 2: society and for me, when they are struggling and can't
Speaker 2: find a way to connect, or can't have an intimate relationship,
Speaker 2: or are unsure how to cope with their mental health,
Speaker 2: they're not they don't know how to communicate, can take
Speaker 2: a troubling turn. And there's a lot of work I
Speaker 2: think for men to do and to find pro social
Speaker 2: outlets to express their challenges in the right way, because
Speaker 2: it's easy to turn to blame and frustration and also
Speaker 2: believe that you know others are others are responsible for
Speaker 2: what's happening to you, for your shortcomings and difficulties. So
Speaker 2: I think there's so much that we need to be
Speaker 2: doing with men to help them improve how they handle
Speaker 2: stresses and problems in their life.
Speaker 1: Well, I think it's in the nature of men that
Speaker 1: they internalize too and not creating an environment where they
Speaker 1: can express their feelings. And yeah, I think most men
Speaker 1: understand this. If you're going through an issue and your
Speaker 1: mate says how you go, and you say good, and
Speaker 1: that's oh, that's good, mate, I was worried about you.
Speaker 1: And then you move on from the conversation where if
Speaker 1: it's and this is probably been too harsh a comparison,
Speaker 1: and then with females it might be they talk. I
Speaker 1: can put my hand up. I know my partners know
Speaker 1: more about my friendships and life than I do. Like
Speaker 1: your best mates just had a baby? Did he? Who've
Speaker 1: told you that? Oh, Susan told me that or something
Speaker 1: like that. So we need to communicate a little bit better,
Speaker 1: don't we.
Speaker 2: Males? Unfortunately, they disproportionately make up the statistics for suicide, yeah,
Speaker 2: and disproportionately make up the statistics for violent offenses. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's not good with the work that you're doing with
Speaker 1: New Zealand Police. Can you see down the track where
Speaker 1: more attention will be given to the type of work
Speaker 1: that you do, because quite frankly, listening to you talk
Speaker 1: about your risk assessments and different things, there is so much.
Speaker 2: Work to do.
Speaker 1: Are we probably? I think policing. Then you don't have
Speaker 1: to comment because you're still employed by police. But I
Speaker 1: thought we fell behind the forensic science field in that
Speaker 1: with DNA and all that, we didn't have the capability
Speaker 1: of properly examining a crime scene. We didn't properly resource
Speaker 1: it with INTEL. Probably not properly resourced in your field,
Speaker 1: forensic psychology do you think police are starting to understand
Speaker 1: the benefits as a whole.
Speaker 2: Well, look, I've got very complimentary things to say about
Speaker 2: New Zealand place.
Speaker 1: So you're clever that your employees.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course they're my employer. But look, I think
Speaker 2: New Zealand's running a really good model which is very
Speaker 2: positive for bringing expertise in. So they have a fixated
Speaker 2: Threat Assessment Center over there as well, which but that's
Speaker 2: purely for politicians, so politicians that are subject to threats
Speaker 2: and being targeted. But we have our Behavioral Science Unit
Speaker 2: which is very much bring specialists in for operational support.
Speaker 2: So the model over there is really strong and there's
Speaker 2: a recognition that for major crimes, the input or experts
Speaker 2: or specialists is really one of the tools that we
Speaker 2: need to solve in these. In Australia, unfortunately it has
Speaker 2: fawned by the way. So we had that, but many
Speaker 2: of the units have closed down.
Speaker 1: Fixated Persons unit that in my experience notoriously under resource,
Speaker 1: but it was something a need that we just didn't
Speaker 1: have it. We had intel officers attached to major crime
Speaker 1: squads and that, but we really needed someone with the
Speaker 1: expertise for specifically fixated persons and being able to assess
Speaker 1: them properly.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and I think it will come back again
Speaker 2: because sometimes, as in policing, its money and resources that
Speaker 2: dictate where things go. And look Victoria, New South Wales,
Speaker 2: I think Western Australia, they all had specialist operational psychology
Speaker 2: arms to them. It's only Queensland Police now that still
Speaker 2: have it that I'm aware of.
Speaker 1: How do we go backwards in a progressive field?
Speaker 2: It is, yeah, because I look over in the UK
Speaker 2: they have behavioral investigative advisors over there, so they've got
Speaker 2: specialists that are recognized and they've done some great work.
Speaker 2: Over in the Canada, Royal Canadian amount of Police they've
Speaker 2: got a specialist behavioral unit as well. It's a mixture
Speaker 2: of psychologists and psychiatrists providing operational support. FBI have four
Speaker 2: dedicated units towards bringing specialty expertise in and then you
Speaker 2: look across all the different US states they've got specialized
Speaker 2: threat teams and things. So look, it is the model
Speaker 2: for dealing with challenging and difficult cases in policing.
Speaker 1: And UK and Canada. I've worked in both those eras
Speaker 1: in policing. Inquiries from New South Wales and they're set
Speaker 1: up very similar to what we've got here in Australia.
Speaker 1: New Zealand's are same and they're all moving forward with
Speaker 1: it and we're moving backwards. Yeah.
Speaker 2: One of the things that's interesting with New Zealand is
Speaker 2: it is a small place, but there's one police service
Speaker 2: for the country, so it's just one national unit. And
Speaker 2: obviously Australia has some of the challenges on a smaller
Speaker 2: scale to the US with the states at the federal level,
Speaker 2: and when it's one unit or one force for the country,
Speaker 2: then you can be a little bit more focused with
Speaker 2: what you're doing.
Speaker 1: And we're not too bad in this country compared to America.
Speaker 1: We had someone I forget who it was, that his
Speaker 1: first assignment as a police officer, there was twelve people
Speaker 1: in the police forces is in America and he had
Speaker 1: to buy his own gun. But that was I remember
Speaker 1: who it was. It was Steve Murphy from the Netflix
Speaker 1: Nacos series that took down Pablo Escobart and that was
Speaker 1: his first star first police force. One of the other
Speaker 1: points and we talked on fixated Persons Unit, the fixated
Speaker 1: threat assessments, need for information sharing. We talked about within organizations,
Speaker 1: government organizations, law enforcement agencies. But what about the public.
Speaker 1: What part can the public play in the role of
Speaker 1: making sure we identify these loan actors?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's some ways. It's the bystander challenges that we
Speaker 2: have with crime, that people are aware of something happening,
Speaker 2: but for whatever reason, it might be their own self doubt,
Speaker 2: it might be that they minimize it, but they don't
Speaker 2: always report really valuable information. And ultimately preventing loan actor
Speaker 2: attacks or mass casualty events is it's about information flowing
Speaker 2: from members of the community through to police or that
Speaker 2: police are then able to look over it, assess it,
Speaker 2: and make sense of that information. And a lot of
Speaker 2: policing is about information gathering and the public are a
Speaker 2: crucial part of that. So whether it is anything from
Speaker 2: unusual activities such as suddenly being into in firearms or
Speaker 2: trying to collect knives, and also at the same time,
Speaker 2: they might be saying that they're very angry with someone
Speaker 2: or they've got a particular problem with this person or
Speaker 2: an organization, all the way through to knowing maybe that
Speaker 2: your child is viewing some problematic and unhealthy content. So
Speaker 2: may not be always going to the police, But of
Speaker 2: course it's important that that information is shared with someone
Speaker 2: it might be a school counselor, but sharing the information
Speaker 2: so that it's not siloed and not pocketed and allowing
Speaker 2: some other eyeballs to get across that to make more
Speaker 2: informed judgments about that, and then if it needs to
Speaker 2: be escalated and passed on, then hopefully it does get
Speaker 2: to the police.
Speaker 1: Well, we do need to share that because quite often
Speaker 1: when you hear of an incident and men, yeah, the
Speaker 1: media have done their a bit and everyone's talking about, oh,
Speaker 1: that person was always strange, it was strange ever since
Speaker 1: that he went to kindergarten. All these people come out
Speaker 1: and identify with that. That's the type of information that
Speaker 1: we're going who has got to get across absolutely because
Speaker 1: it's sharing that information. We touched on the media and
Speaker 1: the copycat type situation and also about the media giving
Speaker 1: too high a profile to the people that carry out
Speaker 1: these crimes. I've thought for a long time, and it's
Speaker 1: hard because there's an inquiry in mind. People want to
Speaker 1: find out and there's a benefit by putting the name
Speaker 1: out because if it's someone man Mimus, other people might
Speaker 1: come forward and say, well he did this and did that,
Speaker 1: so you find out more information about it, but you
Speaker 1: don't want them to be put up there on a pedestal.
Speaker 1: What way do you think the media should treat someone
Speaker 1: like what happened in christ Church.
Speaker 2: I think uniform policies would be ideal.
Speaker 1: So they're not competing against each other.
Speaker 2: Especially across the trans Tasmin. I think we could get
Speaker 2: uniform policies that would be achievable. Where we need to
Speaker 2: make a decision around what we will and won't publish. Now,
Speaker 2: New Zealand made a really interesting decision to not publish
Speaker 2: Terrence's name was he is and will be forever known
Speaker 2: as the terrorist, so he wasn't named in New Zealand.
Speaker 2: Obviously it's very different within Australia. But that certainly I
Speaker 2: think took the sting out of it and the power
Speaker 2: of his actions and that he didn't receive the notoriety
Speaker 2: and it was very much victim lens focus and that
Speaker 2: is important the narratives and the survival stories of victims
Speaker 2: is it's probably what we want to come out of
Speaker 2: these attacks rather than it being about the perpetrator. Now
Speaker 2: that's chicky because talking about the perpetrator does as you say,
Speaker 2: serve some purposes where there's an understanding that we do
Speaker 2: need and it generates more information. But we don't want
Speaker 2: to sensationalize that. And that's a tricky point. But I
Speaker 2: think if we make it heavily victim focused, with basic
Speaker 2: details about the person rather than writing at length about
Speaker 2: their motivations or their ideology, then that's a nice balance.
Speaker 1: Point we might finish up here. I reckon we could
Speaker 1: talk all day. I just you're a wealth of knowledge
Speaker 1: and you've taken me back into a world that make
Speaker 1: me appreciate how complicated it is what you're doing. You're
Speaker 1: over here in Australia. Are you talking at some conferences?
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm at the New South Wales Correction Conference which
Speaker 2: is on and also we're also running a stalking symposium
Speaker 2: with a host of guests in Melbourne as well.
Speaker 1: Right, you work with corrective services. I haven't really touched
Speaker 1: on that. But what can you learn from people in prison?
Speaker 2: Oh? An enormous amount. I mean, we have individuals that
Speaker 2: are there for lengthy stints in custody and there's always
Speaker 2: the temptation to go, let's just lock them up, forget
Speaker 2: about them and not go and talk to them. And
Speaker 2: by talking to them and in engaging with them, first
Speaker 2: of all, we gain a rich amount of insight from
Speaker 2: their stories and their motivations and their reasons and their
Speaker 2: pathways to carrying out their active violence. We think can
Speaker 2: then improve our responses by learning about that. Now, the
Speaker 2: other side, of course, is rehabilitating them as well. Do
Speaker 2: we want to put the time and resources into them?
Speaker 2: And I think it's somewhat negligent if we don't go
Speaker 2: through the process of at least trying, and certainly in
Speaker 2: the lone active space, we've seen where some things have
Speaker 2: gone wrong for various reasons, that people have been held
Speaker 2: on remand for long periods and they haven't had treatment,
Speaker 2: and then they've come out and they've committed a mass attack.
Speaker 2: So that's a whole different landscape. But probably my key
Speaker 2: takeaway is that we shouldn't just lock people up and
Speaker 2: forget that they're there. There's a lot of value for
Speaker 2: various reasons to engage with them.
Speaker 1: That makes sense. Can we do radicalized people like young people?
Speaker 1: That doesn't have to be age based, but can you
Speaker 1: deradicalize someone with the proper proper work.
Speaker 2: You think de radicalization is an interesting one. It's topical
Speaker 2: and controversial. The UK has probably had the most challenging
Speaker 2: implications of that. So there was big efforts to deradicalize
Speaker 2: people in the UK and a lot of the de
Speaker 2: radicalization programs were emerged from there and they made their
Speaker 2: way over to Australia and New Zealand and we've kind
Speaker 2: of learned that de radicalization programs don't work right. But
Speaker 2: part of that is they were brought out during a
Speaker 2: time when it was all Islamic inspired violence or Gihardi
Speaker 2: inspired violence. A couple of years later it had evolved
Speaker 2: and then it was right wing violence, and then it
Speaker 2: was grievance based violence. So the fundamentals of a lot
Speaker 2: of the de radicalization process assume that it was just
Speaker 2: ideology that was causing violence, when actually maybe ideology was
Speaker 2: only the top layer of the problem and it didn't
Speaker 2: get to the core reasons that the person was becoming violent.
Speaker 2: So I think we need to take a few steps
Speaker 2: back and ask the questions of really around you know,
Speaker 2: why was violence a solution for this person? How did
Speaker 2: they start on the pathway to violence? So try and
Speaker 2: get to some of the core things rather than going okay,
Speaker 2: they just need to deradicalize and change these unhealthy and
Speaker 2: problematic beliefs.
Speaker 1: Well, you haven't disappointed me, because like every psychologist I
Speaker 1: speak to, there's always an if or but or maybe
Speaker 1: but yeah, that's I bring it back to Sarah. She
Speaker 1: would always yeah, that might be the case, but it
Speaker 1: could be this, and just can you give me a
Speaker 1: yes or not? No, I can't give you a yes
Speaker 1: or note. But I like the way you mind thinks
Speaker 1: and the work you're doing, and I think it's important work.
Speaker 1: And I thank you so much for taking time out
Speaker 1: of your busy schedule to come into the studio and
Speaker 1: talk to us today. And I thoroughly recommend your book
Speaker 1: mass Casually The Rise of Loan Actors so interesting. Really,
Speaker 1: where can people get it if they want it?
Speaker 2: So? It's available obviously on Amazon and online bookstores. It'll
Speaker 2: be Barnes and Noble overseas and shortly in bookstores here
Speaker 2: and also on the publisher's website, Groundproof Forensics dot com.
Speaker 1: Very good if people want to get in contact with you,
Speaker 1: and you don't have to answer this because you might
Speaker 1: get inundated, But if people wanted to reach out to
Speaker 1: how could they reach out?
Speaker 2: There? So I do private consulting works so doctor Nathan
Speaker 2: Brooks dot com as well.
Speaker 1: Okay, thanks very much for coming on. I've enjoyed the chat.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me Gary. Cheers