The aim of this essay is to discuss about the serial murder and precisely discuss about the causation of such crime. The theories behind those crimes are also to be discussed here. Crime is an offence that is done against the social norms and which is prohibited by law. One who breaks the law is called a criminal. It is obvious that one who can do anything against the law, have certain dissimilarities compared to others. There are numerous theories present to denote the crime. Serial murder is one of the most heinous crimes and it is of emerging nature. Through this essay, the various aspect of crime has to be revealed.
Serial murder:
Murder is a premeditated killing of a human being (Traver 2014). Serial murder is one of the part of murder (Hickey 2013). A person is charged with serial murder when he is convicted for the murder of more than three persons. The motive of such serial killer is controlled by some abnormal psychological indulgence (Miller 2014). One of the essential of serial killing is that it has a common pattern. The term serial murder is need to be distinguished from the mass murder or spree killing on the basis of its nature or mentality.
Motive:
There is a motive behind every crime, which provokes the wrongdoer to commit anti-social works. According to Hickey’s Trauma Control Model, there are certain motives that instigate a person to commit such crime (Williams 2016). The motive of such crime can be mission oriented or a spree to gain imaginary power by killing someone else. Some killers are suffering from the psychotic break and they imagine a fictitious world, where God or Evil governs them and they believed that they are compelled to kill someone because of the mandate of God or Evil (Compton et al. 2015).
Those serial killers, who have some mission to kill someone, are not of psychotic in nature. They have some irritation with those, whom they think undesirable such as prostitutes, or lesbian or people from different religions. One of the instances of such mentality can be zebra killing, where a certain kind of persons had targeted the whites in San Francisco (Lamberson 2016). There are certain serial killers who are hedonistic in nature. They seek thrills and pleasure by killing the persons. Lust plays an important part here. The lust killers are of sex addict. They performed physical torture upon the victims before kill them. The thrill killer has no sexual motivation (Abe 2017). They kill because they want to kill. However, they induce pain on the victims too. They follow a different kind of killing method and they have the ability to kill after a long lapse of time. The motive of the comfort killers are quite separate than other killers. They choose the family members as their victim and poison is their main weapon.
Causes of serial murder:
There are certain kinds of causes that help to constitute the crimes like serial killing. One of the most important causes is domestic violence or family dispute (Frith, Ekström and Naved 2016). The role of family in a child’s development is necessary. Parents help a child to teach how to communicate with others and they teach them how to behave with others. As per the views of Jose Sanchez, a prominent criminologist expressed his view that the young criminals become more furious to kill the victim now days. There is no word like born criminal. It is scientifically proved that the mentality or social attachment of a criminal is different from others. Their thinking capacity is quite different from the others.
Power is another cause for serial killing (Fox and Levin 2014). Often the killer has an imagination that they can be more powerful than others can by killing them or it can be said that they want to express their strength by killing others.
Manipulation is another cause for serial killing. The killers manipulate others and press them towards the false lights. Harold Shipman was a doctor who used to manipulate his patients and killed them (Patel 2015).
Often it is to be seen that a serial killer plays with the emotion of the victim. They tried to convince them and then mislead them to achieve their motto and kill them. The principle of superficial charmer is applied to them. They gain the trust of the woman and kill them with cold blood.
Childhood abuse is also a cause behind the killings. There are many killers who had a abusive child hood history or unstable history. They had lost their faith on society and they had no feelings about the effect of crime.
Theories behind the serial murder:
There are many theories present that define the serial killing and the cause and motive of committing those crimes. They are:
Biological positivists:
In the nineteenth century, Cesare Lombroso propounded a notion called atavistic criminal (McCaghy et al. 2016). This term applied to those who had not brought up properly. Lombroso emphasized upon the physical shape of a criminal. He found his idea from the concept of Darwinism. However, he was criticized for his theory as it was stated that no one is born as criminal. When the activity of a criminal goes outside the boundaries, which is acceptable by law. Criminals should not be stereotyped, as the basis of the theory of Lombroso is not correct. The serial killer, who is from the category of superficial charmer, is a big exemption of this theory.
Personality theories:
According to this theory, when a person become unable or fail to follow certain social norms or rules, became obsessed and to get rid of the same, he started to commit crime or antisocial activities (Clarkin, Cain and Livesley 2015). This theory is well explained by Eysenck. Eysenck believed that people commit offence like serial killing due to certain personality disorder and classified them as neurotic extrovert. As per this theory, the serial killers have no basic idea about social behavior and when they try to discover those, they often inclined towards the anti social behavior. However, this theory is not of universal in nature as there are many examples of serial murderer who had a strong personality, yet they was a notorious serial killer in their time. Ted Bundy is one of them, who was an American serial killer. He had no personality disorder.
Psychoanalytic theories:
This theory concentrates on the child like behavior of the killer (Elliott 2015). According to this theory, two types of mental state instigate a person to kill others. The first thing is seeking amusement and self-destructive intention. This theory is based on the parental relationship. If there is any distraction in it, a child’s maturity does not grow up properly. The child then unable to control their emotions and gravitating towards anti-social elements. Deviant behavior may cause from the contradicting relationship between a child and his/ her parent. This could lead to a less developed super ego that makes them criminal.
However, this theory also criticized as the female have less developed super ego than men do. If the theory is applied then woman should have killed more people. Nevertheless, the murder rate between the women is lesser than that of men.
Social learning theory:
Albert Bandura is the founder of social learning theory. According to this theory, the criminal behavior grows within a person due to failure of socialization (Bandura 2016). Criminal behaviors are not different from other behaviors. Society plays a big issue to inherit behaviors. The forms of behavior arise from societal association. Person with ulterior motive forms association and give birth of criminal behavior. Like others, criminal behavior is also a matter of learning. However, the learning experience is varied. According to this theory, the person who commits the heinous crime has influential force that creates a bad impression on their attitude and way of life. Often it is seen that the child absorb the things very soon with whom they are related or they are born and brought up. The circumstances play an important role here. If the society standard is bad or not appropriate for the well being of a child, criminal behavior will automatically comes into existence. The absorbing procedure will be very easy then due to social dysfunction. Social learning theory also creates effect on the arena of punishment.
This theory has also been criticized on the point that it stated the reason for the crime, but ignores the conniving nature of the heinous crime like this. There is a discussion on the transmission of the crime, but it is not mentioned how to deal with the crime. There is a lack of preventive measure in this theory.
Biochemistry and Neurological theories:
Modern criminologists have applied efforts on scientific method to read the mind of the killers (Lajtha and Ford 2014). According to their view, there are certain kinds of neurological factors present that create impact on the mind of the killer and instigate him or her to constitute such offences. One of such factor can be hypoglycemia. This is a kind of disease that affects the human brain and can be lead a person towards the anti-social behavior.
Biological determinism: the best explanatory theory:
This is the most relevant theory applicable against serial murder. It is a theory that emphasizes upon the behavior of the criminals. Biological determinism was first coined by August Weismann, who was an Austrian biologist. In the last half of eighteenth century, he reported that the human behaviors are instinctive and the genes and other biological characteristics determine them (Greene 2016). According to him, the organisms are of two kinds, namely somatic cells and germ cells. Human behaviors are related with the cultural and social forces. Biological determinism makes an obstacle and denies having control over the activities and disposition. The person, who have suffered from the biological determinism, are quite irresponsible for their actions. Biological determinism has its base on social and cultural points and according to the follower of this theory; these two issues drive people mainly. These issues create impression upon the genes and determine the qualities of human behavior. Lack of responsibility for the social life and lack of care for the other people make someone criminal.
The biological determinism theory is better than the psychoanalytic theory or social learning theories. Biological determinism reported that every human beings are different in nature. This difference takes place for biological composition. The differences are not only limited to the fingerprints or skin tone, but also genetic differences. Genes are the most important part of a killer and it is necessary to observe the genetic of a killer to understand his mind. This theory has expressed certain preventive measures that could be helpful to curb this social ill. According to the biological determinism theory, if the genetic defects can be controlled or detected as early as possible, then the criminal mentality of the killer can be cured. This theory has created a link between the nature and nurture. If there is a continuous interaction with the atmosphere and organism, the behavioral changes take place. Whereas, the concept of psychoanalytic theories or social learning theories get minimum support regarding the proper explanation of serial killer.
However, the domestic violence or pleasure could not be the reason behind the commission of such horrific illegal act. It is necessary to say that those persons, who had a worst childhood, became serial killer. On that point, the modern scientists raise their voice in favor of the theory of biological determinism. It has been scientifically proved that genes play as the key role to read the mind of the serial killer. This is true that many serial killers have bad childhood history, but different genetic makeup is necessary to become a serial killer. The intention of murder cannot be come into existence unless a mechanism that instigates an individual to commit such heinous crime.
Conclusion:
Thus, from the above discussion, it can be concluded that the motive behind the serial murder is based on the psychological gratification of the killer and genetic disorder of the killer. Thus, if it can be possible to detect these motives as early as possible, it can be cured. All those possibilities that can instigate a person to kill someone or commit such a crime should be eradicated from the society. A helping hand towards those lost child or killers is necessary. Moral support as well as psychological support is also important here to combat against this crime.
Reference:
Abe, K., 2017. What is a Serial Killer? What is a Mass Murderer? How do they Differ?. European Journal of Academic Essays, 4(4), pp.187-198.
Bandura, A., 2016. On Structural Evil: Disengaging From Our Moral Selves.
Clarkin, J.F., Cain, N.M. and Livesley, W.J., 2015. The link between personality theory and psychological treatment: A shifting terrain.
Compton, M.T., Fantes, F., Wan, C.R., Johnson, S. and Walker, E.F., 2015. Abnormal movements in first-episode, nonaffective psychosis: dyskinesias, stereotypies, and catatonic-like signs. Psychiatry research, 226(1), pp.192-197.
Elliott, A., 2015. Psychoanalytic theory: An introduction. Palgrave MacMillan.
Fox, J.A. and Levin, J., 2014. Extreme killing: Understanding serial and mass murder. Sage Publications.
Frith, A.L., Ekström, E.C. and Naved, R.T., 2016. Experiencing lifetime domestic violence: associations with mental health and stress among pregnant women in rural Bangladesh: The MINIMat randomized trial.
Greene, S., 2016. Biological determinism. The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies.
Hickey, E.W., 2013. Serial murderers and their victims. Cengage Learning.
Lajtha, A. and Ford, D.H., 2014. Brain barrier systems (Vol. 29). Elsevier.
Lamberson, C., 2016. The Zebra Murders: Race, Civil Liberties, and Radical Politics in San Francisco. Journal of Urban History, 42(1), pp.201-225.
McCaghy, C.H., Capron, T.A., Jamieson, J.D. and Carey, S.H.H., 2016. Deviant behavior: Crime, conflict, and interest groups. Routledge.
Miller, L., 2014. Serial killers: I. Subtypes, patterns, and motives. Aggression and violent behavior, 19(1), pp.1-11.
Patel, M., 2015. Serial Killer: Elderly Victims of Serial Killers. International Journal of Criminology and Sociological Theory, 8(1), pp.1-11.
Traver, R., 2014. Anatomy of a Murder. Macmillan.
Williams, D.J., 2016. Entering the Minds of Serial Murderers: The Application of Forensic Leisure Science to Homicide Research. Leisure Sciences, pp.1-8.
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