Over the years we have witnessed various crimes through mass media and the news. As we view the horrific events, we become heartbroken for the victim and their family members. Then we find ourselves wondering, what could have triggered someone to act in such a manner. How could someone enter a school, business, or night club to take the lives of innocent people? This paper will explore the risk factors of becoming an offender, theories of criminal behaviors, and three types of offenders based upon the case studies.
Case 1: Hot Burglar Ray is a 17 year old male who likes to burglaries, home of the wealthy. He mentioned he likes entering homes, which the owners are asleep because it gave him a sense of power. He reports his living environment is not the best. He mentioned his stepfather is verbally abusive to him in public and at home. Ray also mentioned witnessing his mother being
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A college football coach, who is known and respected by members of the community, founded a charity organization to help underprivileged youths. The coach has been grooming boys on the team for sexual encounters for over 30 years. He has been reported have sexual encounter in the school, his home, on college campus, his golf resort, in the locker and hotel rooms. His loves for the children in the community hinder people from coming forth, including his family. Miller (2012) mentions seductive molester (pedophile typologies) courts and grooms their victims giving gifts and attention, as the coach has been doing for the last 30 years to his victims. His behavior would be considered as instrumental and expressive. His crime would be considered expressive for the reason he may believe that he and the child has a special relationship (Miller, 2012). Brown, Esbensen, and Geis (2015) mention instrumental crime is to gain a goal. The goal was to assist to helping underprivileged students, as well as to lure his next
The nurturing of individuals plays a role in the making of killers, as 94% of serial killers had experienced some form of abuse as children and 42% have suffered severe physical abuse (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2010). A child abuse is a determining factor, in which supports the idea that serial killers and psychopath, are influenced significantly by nurture (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2011). In most cases social, cultural and physiological determinants all play a role in influencing serial killers to grow into a mass murderer. It is important that physiological and social determinants can be identified, so they could be altered for the purpose of preventing the number of crime.
In 2012, there were an estimated 14,827 murders and non-negligent manslaughter crimes reported by all agencies in the United States according to the Uniform Crime Report at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Murder and non-negligent manslaughter are defined “as the willful (nonnegligent) killing of one human being by another.” A 1.1 percent increase occurred from 2011 to 2012. But it should be noted, this is a 9.9 percent drop from the figure for 2008 and a 10.3 percent decrease from the number of murders recorded in 2003. Of the murders that occurred in 2012, it is estimated that 43.6 percent were reported in the south, 21.0 percent were from the Midwest, 21.0 percent were accounted from the west, and 14.2 percent were from the northeast of the United States. There were 4.7 murders for every 100,000 people in 2012. The murder rate went up 0.4 percent from 2011 to 2012. It went down in 2008 by 12.8 percent and dropped 16.9 percent from 2003. The majority of offenders were over the age of eighteen and they accounted for 9,096 of offenders in 2012. According to the Uniform Crime Report, the number of offenders who murdered in 2012 totaled 14,581. The majority of these offenders were male, totaling 9,425. Female offenders totaled 1,098, and 4,058 were unknown offenders. Black males topped the list as far as race was concerned with 5,531 committing murder. White males followed with 4,582 offenders. There were 4,228 classified as race unknown regarding offenders who murdered in 2012. The victim data reported was 9,917 male victims and 2,834 female victims. Of those victims, 11,549 were over the age of eighteen.
Wilson, David. “What Makes A Born Killer?” The Mirror. 3 Star Edition. The Mirror (2011). Print.
Lubaszka, C. K., & Shon, P. C. (2013). Reconceptualizing the notion of victim selection, risk, and offender behavior in healthcare serial murders. Journal of Criminal Psychology, 3(1), 65-78. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/20093821311307776
In the field of Criminology, our job is to attempt to explain and understand why some people commit crimes and others do not. Using the psychological, sociological, or psychiatric approach can help to conclude as to why an individual committed a crime can do this. However, in this paper, the psychological approach will be used to illustrate why Rie Fujii starved and killed her two kids in 2001. Psychological theories of crime focus on how mental processes impact individual’s propensities for violence. In further, the association between learning, intelligence, and personality and violence behavior is studied.
Salter, Anna C. (2004). Predators: pedophiles, rapists, & other sex offenders: Who they are and how they operate, and how we can protect ourselves and our children. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Zakireh, B., Ronis, S. T., & Knight, R. A. (2008, September 3). Individual beliefs, attitudes, and victimization histories of male juvenile sexual offenders. Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment, 20(3), 323-351.
In one case of sexual assault, a New Jersey man named Jesse Timmendequas lured seven year old Megan Kanka into his home on July 29, 1994 with promises that she could see his puppy (Dealing with Sex Offenders, August 1994). Unknown to Megan, the man would not be letting her see his puppy. Jesse Timmendequas had some very different plans. Once she was inside, he strangled her to death, and then he raped her. Before this incident, Jesse Timmendequas had already been convicted of sexual assaulting young girls. He had already served six years in a facility for sex offenders. Obviously, being in a facility did not do him any good at all.
Meadows, R. J. (2010). Understanding Violence and Victimization, 5th edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ.: Pearson Education, Inc.
Arndt, W., Hietpas, T., & Kim, J (2004). Critical characteristics of male serial murderers. American Journal of Criminal Justice, 29(1).
There are instances when high-risk crime victims tend to resemble profiles of crime perpetrators. Some of the factors that contribute to the criminal becoming the victim are due to geographical location, social networks and deviant lifestyles.
Wilson, James and Herrnstein, Richard. "Crime & Human Nature: The Definitive Study of the Causes of Crime" New York: Free Press, 1998.
The study of criminal justices has a wide range of explanations and forms of investigation. Upon receiving this assignment I immediately took an interest in the investigation and process of home invasion robbery. When individuals are un ware of the law they group burglary and robbery as the same thing, when in fact burglary involves going to a place or having the intent to commit a crime and not actually taking something, while a robbery is defined as having the intent to commit a crime and actually following through with stealing or taking someone else’s property. Though it might be complicated to understand it is actually quite simple when you begin to see it in action. For the purpose of this assignment we were asked to interview someone in the field of criminal
Throughout society, the emergence of technology as well as the dominant mass media influence creates a masked perception of youth. It is difficult to maintain an objective standpoint because of the persistent biases amongst society. While some youth in actuality do participate in criminal behaviors the prevalence becomes inflated because of the use of the media. As a result, the social construction of youth becomes tainted due to harsh headline eliciting fear into the general public. The news article titled “Hamilton Teen gangs: “ Little men playing big men games” elaborates on the killing of a fourteen year old male by the name of Jesse Clarke, taking place in August 2012 in the city of Hamilton. Jesse lived in an Eastern neighborhood where he was attacked by a group of young men, who approached the victim’s house “ Brandishing pipes and bats just before he was stabbed”(Carter, 2014). Throughout this paper I will elaborate on the negative construction of youth as a
“Researchers have suggested that the effect of pleasant arousal followed by violence desensitizes viewers toward violence. It not only makes violence more acceptable and exciting, but also, one could argue, more pleasing” ( Sgarzi, 2003). News outlets source the mass media as one of the driving forces behind violence in our youth. They reference the shooting in Columbine, Sandy Hook, Colorado movie theatre shooting, and Virginia Tech massacre to show how the mass media has influenced our juveniles to become more aggressive. Even though a majority of these shootings were done after the shooter was an adult, it is though that a majority of the anger stemmed from their influence as a juvenile. The history channel stated, in regards of the Columbine shooting, “There was speculation that the two committed the killings because they had been bullied, were members of a group of social outcasts that was fascinated by Goth culture, or had been influenced by violent video games and music” (History, 2014).These real life situations have only strengthened the fact that media violence has a direct link to violence in the juvenile population. Even though there is evidence that shows the connection between media and juvenile violence, others argue that violence in the media is not connected to the violence in the juvenile