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Essays on the psychology of serial killers
Essays on the psychology of serial killers
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Whether it is Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, and person of the like, you may have a bad feeling about them due to their ill past. This is not due to an inner judgment of the person on your part, more than likely it is the media that has skewed your views of a serial killer. The news media is just playing their role in society and that is to inform people but they do so in a way that frightens people into coming back to view the media that they produce. The other types of media such as movies, television shows, radio stations, and books also portray serial killers as monsters to entertain people. Although it may be a great way to entertain and inform people, it is not the least bit true and gives serial killers a worse image by labeling them as monsters. Watching movies is a fun activity that is suitable for one person, large groups, or anywhere in between. Unfortunately, a vast majority of these …show more content…
That being said, serial killers are simply human like the rest of us – they may suffer from everyday mental illnesses just like many people that function well in society in society today. “Serial killers are often misrepresented and misunderstood” but are able to blend in with society even to the point where people will not know that they are a serial killer. I believe this is because serial killers want to be normal so they try to fit in and not get caught. Once a serial killer is caught, their name is forever tainted and people will never be able to look at them as they once did. Serial killers may have malicious thoughts and actions, but does not everybody have thoughts like such at least once in their lifetime? Does that make you a monster? The answer is simple – no it does not make you a monster. In most cases, a serial killer does not kill every person they see. Only some kind of monster would kill everything it set its eyes
Each serial killer can be classified as a specific type. The four main types of serial killers are thrill seekers, mission-oriented, visionary, and power and control. Thrill seekers kill for the sole purpose to entertain themselves. They also want attention from the media. Thrill seekers send messages and keep a record of their killings. Mission-orientated serial killers have a reason to be killing the type of person they are. They think that by getting rid of a certain group; for example, prostitutes, then they are doing a favor for the society. Their crime scenes are organized. Visionary serial killers have another personality, this is known as dissociative identity disorder. They tend to think that God or the demon has told them to do this. Power and control serial killers kill because it gives them power. They like to watch their victims suffer and scream. The tend to be abused when they are
The idea of getting into the mind of a serial killer can either be frightening or fascinating, or both. Everyone is affected by the senseless killings of these serial killers. I can’t imagine a person that was not affected in some way or another by the Charles Manson murders or the Timothy McVeigh bombing. Although you may not know somebody that was killed by a serial killer, you have been affected.
The sentencing of underage criminals has remained a logistical and moral issue in the world for a very long time. The issue is brought to our perspective in the documentary Making a Murderer and the audio podcast Serial. When trying to overcome this issue, we ask ourselves, “When should juveniles receive life sentences?” or “Should young inmates be housed with adults?” or “Was the Supreme Court right to make it illegal to sentence a minor to death?”. There are multiple answers to these questions, and it’s necessary to either take a moral or logical approach to the problem.
A serial killer is a person who murders three or more people over a period of more than 30 days, with a "cooling off" period between each murder, and whose motivation for killing is largely based on psychological gratification. Most people do not understand what can make a person want to kill multiple people for no reason other than their own satisfaction gain. In actuality, serial killers have been studied for over hundreds of years, and the information that has been documented continues to grow. The research that I have gathered about serial killers focuses on their childhood development, the differences and similarities between male and female serial killers, and finally general information on how their brains operate and their motives for committing such harmful acts. There have been many theories over the years about how a person becomes a serial killer, and how having an unstable childhood affects a person.
A serial killer is defined in Webster's Dictionary as someone who murders more than three victims one at a time in a relatively short period of time. There is no one generic profile to identify a serial killer. They usually are people seeking for a sensation, a lack of guilt or remorse, a need for control, impulsivity, and predatory behavior. These traits make up a psychopathic personality disorder. Psychopathy is a disorder manifested in people who use a mixture of charm, manipulation, manipulation, and occasional violence to control others, in order to satisfy their own wants and needs. There are four main types of serial killers; thrill seekers, mission-oriented, visionary serial killers, and power and control killers. There may be other
Taking the life of another person is one of the worst infractions of the law to commit. The Bureau of Justice defines serial killing as “[involving] the killing of several victims in three or more separate events” (“Michigan” 1). Serial killers often commit extremely violent crimes; they usually become infamous for these crimes. The first recorded serial killers are probably Jack the Ripper in 1888 and Fritz Haarmann in 1924 (“Michigan” 1). Jack the Ripper is also one of the most well-known criminals, almost everyone knows who he is or has at least heard of him. Most people know what he is famous for and associate him with being a bad person. Serial killers are typically sadistic and sociopathic, meaning that they are unable to feel empathy for people who are suffering (“Michigan” 1). Whimsical sociopaths who have sadistic tendencies are very dangerous. They inflict pain because they do not care that someone else is suffering, they only care that it makes t...
The most common characteristics that many serial killers share are killing and abusing of animals during childhood, fetishism, anti-socialism, high I.Q.’s (while also doing poorly in school), and alcohol and/or substance abuse. Fictional character, Dexter Morgan, exhibited serial killing tendencies from a young age. He would kill neighborhood animals and was forced by his father to fake emotion and normality to fit in. It appears that Showtime hit the nail on the head with this one. One of the most well known serial killers, Ted Bundy, was infamously known for being cold and merciless. During interviews, he responded to questions about his victims by calling himself cold and explaining that he could not care less about his victims. Cannibalistic serial killer, Jeffrey Dahmer, started out by killing dogs and leaving their heads out on a stick for others to see before moving on to killing and eating people. These are just a few examples of many that prove that commonality is what makes a serial killer, a serial
A majority of these individuals are linked through commonalities of their childhood as well as their personality traits and behaviors. The serial murderer’s personality is an intricate recipe of biological, environmental and social circumstances. Though early abuse can cause feelings of aggression and delinquency, childhood experiences alone cannot be to blame. Many people are abused early on as children, and never become killers. Similarly, biological issues, such as brain abnormalities, as we as certain personality disorders would not individually create a murderer. Rather, a distinctive combination of psychological issues, impairments in the brain, and personality disorders help mold a brutal serial killer. Killers cannot be simply born into this world, but under the right circumstances, they will be created.
Countless serial killers have had an abnormal childhood; many people believe this is where the catalyst of events starts. It is proven, that more often than not, serial killers have either lived in an inhabitable home, had lackadaisical parents, or could have a different frame of mind. This being said, when one hears about mass murderers or serial killers, the first question that pops into a person’s head is, “What were they thinking?” For all a person knows, this could be the killer’s normalcy.
Despite popular belief, serial killers are not always people that have that stereotypical “serial killer” look to them. Yes, most do not usually look happy and cheerful, but most of the time they just look like normal people. They are not always skinny, or have a long scraggly beard. There are some common myths about serial killers that many people believe to be true. For starters, most think that serial killers are male. The common belief is that the men are the aggressors, and women are always the victim; although that is found to mostly be the case, it is not one hundred percent true. “Approximately 17 percent of all serial homicides in the U.S. are committed by women”(Bonn). Another myth about serial killers is that they are always lonely,
You’d be hard pressed to find one in a crowd. The average serial killer generally blends in with everyone else (Directory Journal, 2010). In fact, most are soft-spoken and even polite. Their monstrous nature only comes through when you dig deeper into their personalities, actions, and habits. Most seem to have come from dysfunctional family settings and were emotionally, sexually, or even verbally abused as children (Directory Journal, 2010). It is almost as if this background activates some psychological trigger that increases their feelings of inadequacy or worthlessness that led them to seek out their own heinous form of release.
Serial killers are usually young, white males who are quite intelligent and often come from broken homes. They may have been abused either physically or sexually during childhood and they have serious personality defects, such as low self-esteem and a lifelong sense of loneliness. Although no two serial killers are alike, they all fit this description somewhat. In the sixth edition of Crime and Criminality by Sue Titus Reid, a serial killer is defined as a person who commits more than one murder but at different times (Reid, p. 134).
In order to identify serial killers before they kill repeatedly, a person needs to study the characteristics that makes up this type of criminals. Most serial killers have been abandoned, by one or both parents, they are emotionally, physically, and even sexually abused by a family member, or relatives from unstable families who have criminal, psychiatric and alcoholic histories, or tend to have hate for their parents and people in general which makes them have antisocial personality disorder. They have conflicted pain or tortured animals at a young age and most are highly interested in gaining control over things. Even though not every serial killers posses these characteristics, but most share these characteristics the same way they share the psychological need to have complete control and power over people.
The media most often showcases psychopaths as individuals who are inherently evil and dangerous towards themselves and others. Yet, this concept of psychopathy goes far beyond this idea of pure evil and instead necessitates a needed psychological understanding. These individuals, psychopaths, are generally characterized by a lack of empathy and conscience. Indeed, psychopath’s indifference to the repercussions of their actions combined with other characteristics such as hostility and aggression make for a potentially dangerous personality (Lyken, 1996, p.30). In order to identify a psychopath’s recidivism, it is important to differentiate them from sociopaths who, instead of having a psychological impairment that makes it difficult for them to socialize, have been systematically under socialized (Lyken, 1996, p.30). In accordance. psychologists have developed the methods such as the Psychopathy Checklist- Revised (PCL-R) to help identify those with psychopathic tendencies (Walters, 2012, p.409). That is why predictions of recidivism among psychopaths is most efficient when done
Michael Sanders, a Professor at Harvard University, gave a lecture titled “Justice: What’s The Right Thing To Do? The Moral Side of Murder” to nearly a thousand student’s in attendance. The lecture touched on two contrasting philosophies of morality. The first philosophy of morality discussed in the lecture is called Consequentialism. This is the view that "the consequences of one 's conduct are the ultimate basis for any judgment about the rightness or wrongness of that conduct.” (Consequentialism) This type of moral thinking became known as utilitarianism and was formulated by Jeremy Bentham who basically argues that the most moral thing to do is to bring the greatest amount of happiness to the greatest number of people possible.