Once living the high life, Kwame Kilpatrick is going to be living a hard-knock life, as the disgraced former Mayor of Detroit starts reporting to the Wayne County jail this Tuesday, where he’ll be serving 120 days after pleading two counts of obstruction of justice.
His cell is to be Room 14J-4 of the Andrew C. Baird Detention Facility, where he’ll be assigned to the same cell that he spent the night on August 7 for a bond violation, according to jail officials. The unit Kwame will be residing is the “Capias Unit” (archaic for “arrest”), where notorious guests such as Jack “Dr. Death” Kevorkian stayed. “Kwame is going to get a lot of privileges” said former inmate Donald Gist. “But it won’t matter; he’ll still be in jail.”
The Detroit News spoke to three psychologists in profiling Kwame’s personality, which according to Pauline Ferrman, is based of being conceited and self-involved. “He exaggerates his own importance and needs constant attention and positive reinforcement from others” she states, who’s also a marital therapist in Southfield. “He overracts to criticism, becoming angry or humiliated. He’s extremely self-absorbed, intolerant of others’ perspectives. He uses others to reach his personal goals and takes advantage of others. He’s arrogant and behaves in a haughty manner.”
Veteran forensic psycharist Patricia Wallace said that Kwame has shown signs of depression, but also signs of being self-centered as well – comparing his behavior to several film characters:
“(Kilpatrick’s) narcissistic/histrionic, like James Cagney in ‘White Heat’, like Nino Brown (Wesley Snipes) in “New Jack City,” like Denzel Washington in ‘Training Day’.”
Even Michelle Leno of Birmingham calls Kwame “a prime narcassist” but all three of them agree that treating someone with this kind of personality disorder isn’t exactly a walk in the park. “Working with a narcissistic personality is a challenge,” Leno said, “because they think, ‘You’re not good enough to treat me. They view treatment as unnecessary and personality traits are difficult to change.
“People like that either survive and make it – they push through or they end up down and out.” Kwame isn’t “an in-between person” she continue. “He’s all or nothing.”
When announcing his resignation as Mayor, Kwame told the people of Detroit that they set him up for a comeback when he gets out. According to Wallace, he may return as either a motivational speaker or a minister. “They all require an audience – money and audience” she says.
