Could Criminal Profiling Prevent the Jonestown Incident? Essay

In the 1950s, a man named Jim Jones established the Peoples Temple, a religious movement that was based on Christianity but also incorporated socialists themes. Within the next twenty years, Jones acquired a cult following as a spiritual leader and gained thousands of supporters who were fanatically devoted to him. The community he established was closed and confrontational toward the society, as the members of the community believed that their souls would be saved because of their devotion to Jones, while those who refuse to follow him would perish on the doomsday (Scheeres, 2011). In 1978, more than 900 people died of poisoning in a settlement referred to as Jonestown, the place where the community lived in Guyana. Before that, Jones had ordered the killing of United States Senator Leo Ryan and four members of his delegation. There is still a debate on whether the Jonestown incident was a mass suicide or a mass murder. The case was heavily publicized and had become one of the largest tragedies in the modern American history. From the perspective of forensic psychology, it can be assessed whether the story would have been different if Jones had been profiled before the first killings.

Criminal profiling is “the process of identifying personality traits, behavioral tendencies, and demographic variables of an offender, based on the characteristics of a crime” (Bartol & Bartol, 2016, p. 19). Descriptive and predictive profiling can help investigators find offenders in committed crimes cases or prevent crimes. Although retrospection is challenging for forensic psychologists (i.e. arguing whether a particular crime would or would not have happened under different circumstances), some address the question: would there have been a mass suicide/murder if Jones had been profiled? To answer the question, it is necessary to regard the nature of the Peoples Temple. The movement was driven by its leader’s desire to have total control over his commune (Scheeres, 2011). Jones would challenge his followers by forcing them to drink something, then revealing that it was poison, and observing the reaction. Suffering from paranoia and substance abuse, Jones constantly pursued confirmation of absolute loyalty. Although his profiling would have shown repeated cases of mental issues, it is unlikely that someone could have predicted that Jones would initiate mass killings (Russell, 2012). The developments within the Peoples Temple that lead to the mass suicide/murder had been hard to predict.

In assessing the case, it is important to approach the causes of willingly taking poison by hundreds of people in Jonestown. From the point of view of psychology, multiple answers can be proposed. The possible causes can be divided into three categories: psychological backgrounds of the community’s members, the Peoples Temple’s inner regulations, and persuasion strategies employed by Jones. First, the community largely consisted of people who had had negative experiences. They had been persecuted, ostracized, or traumatized. The Peoples Temple became a shelter for people who were homeless, vulnerable after being through hardship, or escaping abuse. Some suffered from the battered woman syndrome and rape trauma syndrome, and these conditions are fertile soil for fanaticism, which can be ignited if victims are given a new purpose such as serving a righteous leader (Flannery, 2012).

Second, the community’s internal structure implied strict order and compliance with rules (Scheeres, 2011). Misconduct would be severely punished, which shaped almost total obedience of the members. Finally, the discourses that Jones employed greatly contributed to his followers’ readiness to commit suicide upon his order. Jonestown was a doomsday cult because Jones had been imposing the feeling of the impending doom on his community (Lockwood, 2013). Anticipating the end of time, members of the Peoples Temple became radicalized to the point where mass suicide became possible.

The Jonestown case is also an example of a collision between law and forensic psychology. The fundamental conflict between the two is that law should be strict: it determines borders and sets rules that should be as clear and precise as possible. Psychology, on the other hand, operates within complicated frameworks that imply profound analysis and allow ambiguity. As Padowitz (n.d.) puts it, “the legal system is ‘black and white’, while psychology is full of gray areas” (para. 5). In the Jonestown case, several attempts were made to investigate the community’s suspicious activities such as contraband, including gun smuggling. However, the constitutional provisions for privacy were the tool that Jones used to stop authorities from intervening in the Peoples Temple. The constitutional ramifications of profiling Jim Jones would have included much indignation and resistance, although they could have promoted some changes in the legal system.

There is a presumption that profiling could have been carried out based on the data that appeared in newspapers. However, there are also doubts that such profiling would have been accurate or effective. The Peoples Temple was a closed structure that allegedly distorted information about itself, thus undermining the validity of representation in mass media (Scheeres, 2011). Jones was an influential figure not only in Peoples Temple but also in many other religious communities of the United States. His communication strategies included manipulation and provocation. Although criminal psychologists might have gained some valuable information about Jonestown from newspaper accounts, there was no sufficient data for comprehensive profiling.

Much academic attention has been dedicated to the Jonestown incident within recent decades. Researchers have been debating on how the tragedy could have been prevented. A special role in the debate is played by forensic psychology specialists who pursue exploring if adequate criminal profiling of Jones could have been performed and if the profiling would have prevented the mass suicide/murder. According to the analysis, it is unlikely that profiling could have dramatically changed the tragic story of Jonestown. The reasons are personal characteristics and backgrounds of the Peoples Temple’s members, the internal structure and regulations of the community, and the leader’s control over the minds and will of his followers.

References

Bartol, C., & Bartol, A. (2016). Current perspectives in forensic psychology and criminal behavior. Los Angeles, CA: Sage.

Flannery, R. (2012). Post-traumatic stress disorder: The victim’s guide to healing and recovery. New York, NY: Lantern Books.

Lockwood, R. (2013). Heaven’s gate: Postmodernity and popular culture in a suicide group. Journal of Contemporary Religion, 28(2), 322-324.

Padowitz, K. (n.d.). Conflict between two disciplines: Psychology and law. Web.

Russell, G. (2012). The left’s great crime: Jim Jones, Marxist mass-murderer. Web.

Scheeres, J. (2011). A thousand lives: The untold story of hope, deception, and survival at Jonestown. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.