You or someone in your family may have children who perform actions that can be indications of a potential serial killer. Most parents will ignore these signs but they are no joke. Does your child like to harm small animals? Does your child live in an unstable family; is your child socially awkward and isolated from everyone else? If you said yes to these questions, you may want to get more involved in your child’s life. According to many experts harming small animals, an unstable family, isolation from others, and bad mental health are the four main causes of murder but those are not the only causes. To the surprise of some people, violent videogames are not one of the leading reasons of why someone decides to kill. From early childhood actions to current activities, close family members can observe how their children will function as members of society, and help to ensure a normal life for their loved ones by making sure his/her actions are socially and morally correct to.
Violent crimes have been perceived by many to be an action that can causes physical damage to others. Law enforcement officials say that a violent crime is composed of four different types of actions: rape, murder, robbery, and assault. Violent crimes such as murder have been around for the longest time. Human beings have always killed another person for a specific reason and even sometimes for no reason at all. Over the years experts have recorded many different crimes performed by different men. One example occurred in 1913, when Peter Kurten who went on a killing spree. On May 25, 1913, Kurten harmed many people, mostly women and little girls because they were defenseless towards him. When interviewed after his capture, he said he committed his murder sp...
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...rnal, Volume IX, Number 1 - Causes and Correlates: Findings and Implications." Juvenile Justice Journal, Volume IX, Number 1 - Causes and Correlates: Findings and Implications Web. 19 Sept. 2013.
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Dylan Klebold, Eric Harris, Adam Lanza, Steven Phillip Kazmierczak, and Seung-Hui Cho all have a few things in common, they are all school shooters that have killed and injured a combined total of 149 human beings and are or were believed to be avid violent video game players, who also committed suicide immediately after carrying out their attacks. To the public, school shooters seem to share a direct connection to playing violent video games and that playing them leads to violent behavior. Violent videogames have become a highlight in the media and national debate for this very reason but, there is no scientific evidence to support the existence of a causative connection between participants of violent videogames manifesting violent behaviors. The media provides biased information that misleads citizens into believing that said link is well established and accepted. I argue that parents should make responsible and well informed decisions in regards to their child’s videogame activities in spite of the lack of scientific research.
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The allegation that videogames cause violent behavior in children has been present as long as videogames themselves. Some researchers said that the Sandy Hook shooter, Adam Lanza, was one intense gamer. “Seung-Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech Shooter was seen by his roomates as odd because he never joined them in video games.”(Beresin) This debate will continue to go on in this country as long as there are horrific crimes that occur. There is much written in the research regarding this issue, and many differing views. The research that is presented in the next few paragraphs supports the theory that it is not the graphic video games that produce aggressive behavior, but other factors in a child’s life that create violent actions.
For many years, many people have linked the increased violent and aggressive behavior in teenagers and children to violent video games for two main reasons. Video games are very addictive and gamers can become very violent and aggressive when someone tells them to stop playing and can spark the violence in people who already have aggressive behavior. Such examples of violence addictions were in the cases of Daniel Petric and a thirteen-year old that were very addictive to video games and had already aggressive behavior. Seventeen year old Daniel murdered his mother, Susan Petric, “after she being denied him access to Halo 3” (Massoud). If that didn’t sound horrifying, a “13-year-old boy murdered an 81-year-old for money to fund his online gaming addiction” (Massoud). We can’t deny the fact that these two cases of game addiction prove the argument, but everyone should ask themselves these questions. If parents did know about the viole...
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Serial killers commonly attack a single target at a time one on one. There also tends to be no or very little relation between the person being killed and the killer (murder 1). “The nature of this drive has been heavily debated, but there is a consensus on some points (Anderson 1).” Many researchers have noted sexual behavior in the murder.
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Today’s society thrives on violence. Young children made pretend guns and shot at siblings, teenagers enjoyed video games which praised the player for kills, and adults flocked to see the latest horror movie, few people asked what effect this has on people and society. Some psychologists have started researching this effect. A study by Dr. Ferguson;...
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The term “serial killer” was created in the mid-1970s by a man named Robert Ressler, a former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. “He chose "serial" because the police in England called these types of murders "crimes in a series" and because of the serial films that he grew up watching.”(Freeman). Before this term was created these murders were known as mass murders crimes. Serial killers can be act-focused, who kill quickly or process-focused, who kill slowly and torture their victims.
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