Psychology of Crime Case Study Brett Peter Cowan

Case Study - Brett Peter Cowan “Every person has specific rights that cannot be given nor taken away such as Life, Liberty, Property and the Pursuit of Happiness. You can exercise your rights as long as you do not take away the rights of others”. (Costly, 2001) People all over the world have broken rules that are put in place for them to abide by and to protect them however; some people have also not broken these same rules. Everyone has their own individual reason for doing the things they do. Some may do things because they think it is their right to do something, whilst others do it because the law tells them to. One may question by looking at their actions, what their moral reasoning behind what they do is, and at what stage does morality start to play a role. Lawrence Kohlberg came up with the theory of Moral Development and it is here through this case study of Brett Peter Cowan, that after studying his crimes committed and the extent of his criminal history, how his behaviour was immoral and the convictions of crime that he committed took away the rights, such as life and liberty, from a young innocent thirteen year old boy and have traumatised many others alike. the It will also discuss how his behaviour could be seen as part of Moral Development Theory. Moral Development theory focuses on the emergence, change and understanding of morality from infancy through to adulthood. It studies how individuals reason about the rights and wrongs of their behaviour and that offenders are often thought to have mental moral reasoning absence. Brett Peter Cowan is a man with an intense criminal history of sexual abuse of victims that turned more violent as the years went on. Cowan was offender behind the abduction, indecent assault and murder of the now infamous Daniel Morcombe in 2003. Brett and Peter was Cowan the grew up in a strict catholic military household second youngest of four boys. Whilst his brothers seemed to have been reasonably good children, Brett was a handful. His peers at school thought of him as an “ordinary guy” who seemed alright, whilst his teachers thought of him as a bully who taunted students and was often parading around his erection proudly to other children. His Aunt, Jenny Philbrook, a Pastor at a local church explained that Cowan was a little boy who was looking for attention and acceptance. Brett’s sexual abuse of victims began when he was a child himself in the 1970’s, although he was never a victim himself of sexual abuse, the question led to what triggered him to begin offending such heinous crimes. At the age of nine he began a sexual relationship with a six-year old that lasted around nine years and by the age of eleven, Cowan was hooked on marijuana. Brett’s sexual encounters with children stemmed up to thirty victims ranging from boys and girls aged between six and eight. He worked at a local playground in Brisbane’s north where his first violent assault took place. Brett had coerced a young boy into a toilet where he grabbed the boy around the neck and sexually assaulted him, a vicious crime that lasted no more than ten minutes. For this crime he was charged and sentenced to two years of jail however only served just over half of this sentence. Years later Cowan had relocated to Darwin in which he lived in a caravan park with his then girlfriend. Cowan lured another victim through the parks fence to a rubbish pile of old burnt out cars. It was here that Cowan brutally sexually assaulted the boy strangling the boy unconscious and threw him into the boot of another vehicle. The boy suffered a punctured lung, cuts and had signs of being strangled on his neck. After four days of searching, Cowan was convicted by way of DNA evidence and sentenced to seven years in prison, where he again only served half of this. (Elks, 2014) In 2003 Brett Peter Cowan, abducted, sexually assaulted and murdered Daniel Morcombe in a highly publicised case in which media attention was following closely the leads along with the public appeals of Daniels Parents – Bruce and Denise. It was only in 2011; eight years after Daniels disappearance did the Police finally get a confession out of Cohan after an undercover Police 3 bust had taken place. He was tried, convicted and sentenced to life without parole until August 2031. Lawrence Kholberg (1958) agreed with his mentor, Jean Piaget’s (1932) moral development in children by way of thinking/basic truth/rule, but he wanted to develop his ideas further. He used Piaget’s acts of telling stories to people involving how to do things, to tell stories to which there were problems that were difficult to figure out which way was right or wrong. Kholberg in each scenario presented a choice to be thought and carefully examined, for example, the rights of some authorities and the needs of a worthy person who is being treated unfairly. (Sander, n.d.) His work was criticised however for his belief that women seem to be more deficient in moral reasoning than that of a male and for his cultural and gendered bias towards white, upper class men and boys. Lawrence Kohlberg’s Moral development theory contains three levels of moral development:  Proconventional – a child sense of morality is externally controlled by their parents/guardians/upbringing  Conventional – a person’s morality is tied to personal and societal relationships  Post Conventional – more abstract principles and values. (Sander, n.d.) Cowan’s behaviours varied over the years, from his drug addiction, to pathological lying to his uncertainty of his gender preference, he continued to sexually molester and assault young children. Whilst his behaviour to him may seem morally attributed to his use of drugs, the moral conception of his crimes was heinous and appalling. For Cowan to offend at such a young age and continue to do so and also be able to hide these crimes without remorse or guilt, it would seem clear that Cowan had severe psychological dysfunction. However, Cowan believes his reason for committing such crimes was his extensive drug use, which he 4 believes haltered his judgement for making better moral judgement, yet failed to show remorse of his crimes. Cowan also stated that he was confused about his gender preference. Could Cowans offending be a result of his father not being present whilst growing up due to his army responsibilities? With this suggestion comes the logic behind Kohlberg’s theory of Proconventional level – “a child sense of morality is externally controlled by their parents/guardians/upbringing” (Sander, n.d.). Having an absent father who was also a sufferer of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) could have meant that the responsibilities of raising four boys was left up to Peters mother, Marlene Cowan. Not having a father figure around much meant that Peter and his brothers were not given the guidance of a male figure, the teachings of right and wrong or even how to treat a women. However, it was later told by Marlene, that Peter had always been a troubled child. For this reason, Peter acted out by sexually assaulting young innocent children, for decades with multiple victims rather than partying and being disobedient like most adolescent teenage boys. Due to Peters lack of having a father figure around, the harsh reality that faced those that may come in contact with him was more astounding. Knowing the difference from right and wrong, morally he showed no remorse for his actions and blamed his gender preference issue as a reason for this and believed that the young children he victimised were “enjoying the experience”. (ABC, 2014). These young victims had the liberty and life taken away from them, their lives were changed by the actions of a man who was known as a pathological liar and showed no sense of acceptance of his actions. This fantasy he lived turned into what seemed like a habit, a habit that he could not be rehabilitated for. His drug use, consisting of cocaine and methamphetamine, like many other users, could have made it difficult in choosing between right and wrong, perhaps because the precise parts of drug user’s brains that are used for moral processing and evaluating emotions are damaged by their prolonged drug habits. This could be referred to as the Conventional 5 Level “a person’s morality is tied to personal and societal relationships”. The evidence would show that the drugs are potentially the biggest impact on why Peter committed such crimes and of them being so violent in nature. Research has shown that stimulant users often find it difficult to identify other people’s emotions, particularly fear, and to show empathy. These aspects play an important role in moral decision making. Although, through Peters life of offending, it seemed that he was getting his life back in order before he reoffended again in 2003 with the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Morcombe, His last offences on record was in 1993, therefore it leaves to question what was the cause of him stopping for 10 years. Did his morality and better judgement come to realization from his reform of being a drug user? Another opportunity came for Peter to live a religious life, attending church weekly and living under the guidance of his Aunt and Uncle who were pastors of the church peter attended. This could be referred to as the Post Conventional level of Kohlberg’s theory “more abstract principles and values.” This gave him the perfect opportunity to clean up his act and get the rehabilitation that he needed. However, he relapsed again and began taking drugs, as confessed to police, and stopped attending church weekly. He had begun his drug habit again at the time of Daniels disappearance so with this evidence shown that at all stages of Peters offending, he was a user of drugs. It would be here that when Peter was of a sound mind and clean from drug use he did not offend, but when he was back onto the drugs his abuse of young children began again. This habit was interfering with his moral behaviour and prohibiting him from making the decision of what was right and wrong. Peters was checked several times by different psychologist and there was no concrete evidence that could support why or what caused his actions and behaviour especially to this extent yet still have no remorse. Although he was diagnosed as a “pathological liar and low level psychopathic features and mild psychopathy (also known as antisocial personality disorder ASPD)” (Wikipedia, n.d.), there has been no recorded reason for his offenses. The 6 truth is Brett Cowan was a monster, a man whose lies, deceit and propensity for violence made him a menace to society. “People of his kind are cunning, calculating and deliberate and every parent knows that they are lurking, whether on the internet or in the house down the road or within society.” (Olding, 2014). For years Peter was not punished accordingly for the crimes he committed, being charged for two offences and being let out of jail half way through these sentences, not participating in rehabilitation programs and being a selfconfessed threat to society, it may have been a behaviour that he deemed accepted in his mind due to the leniency displayed upon him. With Kohlberg’s theory of Moral Development, in this case, Peters drug use, absentee father at the early stages of his development as a young child and lack of remorse of his crimes played huge factors as to why he was continually offending and not making the moral and decisive effort to change his ways. It can be shown that it would be up to the offender and his crimes for the choices they make and what path they chose to take, even after being convicted of crimes that they have done previously. Peter was a repeat offender and a known suspect for the Daniel Morcombe disappearance, but due to his ability to lie, change his behaviour to make people believe he was something of a nice sweet genuine guy, he almost got away with this crime. 7