Robert Hare, from the University of British Columbia, Canada, said in a seminar on psychopathy that people with a certain degree of psychopathy sometimes have their own place in a society.

"They tend to be important to society sometimes," he said.

"These are people who take risks, tend to not be afraid."

He pointed out the example of a white-collar psychopath, viewed as "a good leader, good person and charismatic", but who secretly did harm to their surroundings.

Hare added such psychopaths were behind last year's global economic downturn.

"They engage in all sorts of illegal behavior. Half of the financial crisis we had throughout the world in the last few years, who's behind it all? Warm, loving people? No, people who want all they can get, they don't care about millions of people who lost their life savings," he said.

Living in an urban area in a developing country might enforce psychopathic tendencies in those born with the traits, Hare went on.

"*Psychopaths* feel very entitled, even if they manipulate by stealing and cheating, and they're not going to do this in the middle of nowhere.

"They'll go where the opportunities are, often in the big cities."

Urban areas with high crime rates, a common trait of low-income neighborhoods, might reinforce psychopathic tendencies, he added.

"If *the area is* densely populated, they can function very well, especially if the neighborhood has criminal elements," Hare said.

"The psychopath can do what he wants to do, and that's normal. He may be better at it than others."

Psychopaths, he went on, despite the possibility of their brain structure being different from that of other people, could still be held responsible for their wrongdoings.

"They may be different in the way they process their information, but they're still responsible for their behavior," he said, brushing off arguments that psychopaths cannot be held to account for their actions because they are considered "disturbed" or "damaged".

Farouk Muhammad, former governor of the Indonesian Institute of Police Science (PTIK), said existing laws labeled criminals as either sane or insane, thus providing an easy out for those with a mental disorder.

However, the current thinking on mental disorders discards the binary theory and proposes a gradated scale, Farouk added, which could also influence criminal laws by as early as next year.

He said this meant the legal system would need more psychologists involved in the future.

Hare said social control was very important to rein in psychopathic tendencies.

"*Psychopaths* need control and management," he pointed out.

"If churches and schools don't work, then it has to be the law, but before that you have to actually get society to understand *psychopathy*." (dis)

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