As societal crime rate continues to escalate, the epidemic of homicides and mass murders remains a prevalent social problem. Thus, the emergence of serial killers has caused alarm among many criminologists and psychologists. Serial killers usually have an impulsive desire to kill for no particular reason, which makes it difficult for law enforcement and criminal professionals to understand their motives. Thus, the motives of serial killers have led to heated debates and challenged the nature vs. nurture theory. Many scientists believe that serial killers are genetically incline to commit murders, while criminologists associate violent crimes to childhood and surroundings.
At the same time I believe some are just lying about feeling bad because they just want people to see they changed and to be released from prison. Most serial killers are manipulative so they would be able to use that to their advantage to make people believe that they have changed for the better. From some articles that I have read it explains how most killers that are released because of their so called change of heart go back to killing again after. It is possible for people to change and become a better person but a majority of killers are evil for the rest of their lives. Its not that people can’t change but it will be harder for society to accept them as a different person from evil to good
A year later, the children witnessed the aftermath of a very brutal beating of their mother by their father (subjects brother, personal communication, 2009).” Author Cassandra Simmons states in in the 2001 article "Antisocial Personality Disorder in Serial Killers" on page seven in the journal Justice Professional, “The uncaring relationship with the mother was often accompanied by lack of a male role model or, if one was present, he was usually a physically, sexually, and/or emotionally abusive father figure (Lester, 1995). For example, John Wayne Gacy’s father was a drunkard who was described as having a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personality (Egger, 1998). Which translated into abuse on young Gacy.” This information is significant because it gives real life stories of serial killers and how they were abused as children. Some serial killers were neglected as children and it changed their personality. Using a report from a criminal case, T.D.
A serial killer can be defined as a person who murders 3 or more people with a significant cooling off period (a break) in between each one (FBI). Credit for coining the phrase “serial killer” is commonly given to former FBI Special Agent Robert Ressler, one of the founding members of the Bureau’s elite Behavioral Science Unit, now called the Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU). Serial murder is a relatively rare event, estimated to compromise less than one percent of all murders in any given year. Though uncommon, serial killers do not limit public fascination; much like a car accident on the side of the road. On the one hand, serial killing seems like a uniquely and exclusively present-day phenomenon, a result of the various ills afflicting late-twentieth-century
It can be difficult to understand why anyone would choose to murder another human being. However, not all serial killers have the same motivation behind their crimes. There are many different categories, and each tend to have different reason for why they choose to take the lives of others. The two main types of serial killers are organized and disorganized. From there, they can be broken down into even more specific categories, however, each category will usually fall under organized or disorganized.
The term “serial killer” strikes fear and curiosity into the minds of people; therefore, scientist and medical researchers should look more in depth into the psychology and illnesses of a serial killer rather than their actions alone. A serial killer is an individual who murders three or more people over a period of time typically to fulfill a motive. These motives typically come from past experiences that caused some sort of trauma. Since 1980 there has been an estimated amount of one hundred fifty four serial killers world wide with eighty seven in the United States. There is also an estimated thirty five active serial killers in the United States today.
These killers tend to blame everyone but themselves. Their actions affect their family members, causing them emotional pain throughout their life. There are many notorious serial killers that date back to the 1800s. Most of these serial killers tend to follow a particular pattern when choosing their victims. People have been trying to understand why serial killers would cause so much damage to their families and victims, or why they feel the need to kill.
A serial killer is defined as a person who commits at least 3 murders over a period of more than a month, typically following a characteristic, predictable behaviour pattern (Fbigov, 2018). This essay will critically evaluate the different explanations for why someone would commit serial murders, with reference to reductionism. Reductionism is the belief that human behaviour can be easily explained by breaking it down into its constituent components. It is based on the scientific assumption of parsimony which is the idea that complex phenomena such as mental processes should be explained within the framework of basic sciences e.g. physiology, chemistry (Simplypsychologyorg, 2018).
For instance, of all the mass killers in the United States between 1900 and 2017, at least 59 percent have had been diagnosed with a mental disorder or displayed serious signs of mental illness[Duwe]. This may relate with the fact that the United States is among the lowest in mental health treatment in the first world, in addition to these findings, mass murderers are 20 times more likely to have a serious mental illness than the general population. one of the more common disorders that is shared among mass killers is known as “paranoid schizophrenia”, this mental illness gives the sufferer a feeling that large groups are out to get them, and are responsible for all of the misery in their life, they tend to be loners that do not trust easy, this leads to a extreme lack of a social life, which can create a dark hatred towards society as a whole. When a relationship between mental illness and mass killers are connected, an opposition voices that this could lead to a vast stigmatizing of all mentally ill people. This may very well be true, but society cannot ignore the connection, and should in fact put a positive spotlight to properly treat and contain these sadly ill
The FBI defines serial killing as "a series of three or more murders, committed as separate events, usually, but not always, by one offender acting alone". The “separate events” part is what makes serial killing different than spree killing and mass killing. Another thing that makes serial killers stand out is that they often demonstrate specific patterns that can be easily identified by police investigators. It was often debated that those patterns are products of either their genetics, or their environment. We now know that both are important to the development of all people, so now people argue which one is more important, especially when it comes to serial killers.