Adam Lanza Research Paper

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The Traits of Adam Lanza Connor Corrigan Professor Walton-Nealy CCJ2000 March 8, 2015 Tallahassee Community College Introduction In 2012 a man named Adam Lanza went into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut and took the lives of 26 people. The massacre began at his mother’s house where he shot and killed her before heading down to the school. Lanza was dressed in full black, armed with three guns, and had a bulletproof vest on when he shot his way into the elementary school. While in the school he took just a few minutes to take the lives of twenty school children and six adult faculty members. The 20 school children that were killed were mostly between the ages of 5 and 10, which angered people because …show more content…

If he suffered from any experiences while he attended the school, if he was depressed throughout his life, or if family issues could have led to this because his mother worked at the school. According to David Shortell, who reported for CNN on the background of Lanza, he “had not left his room in his mother’s Newtown home for three months before the massacre.” Shortell also discusses the way that Lanza’s windows were covered with trash bags and that talking with his mother only occurred using emails. Another issue Shortell brought up was that Lanza had be anorexic and the he “weighed only 112 pounds the day he died, despite being 6 feet tall” (Shortell, 2014). The biggest question of finding out all of this information is why none of it was ever reported to police, and why he was never sent to a mental health facility. Knowing all this now it is possible that Cesare Lombroso’s trait theory could explain why the incident took place in the …show more content…

Lombroso’s believed that things such as jaws and teeth could determine if you were a criminal or not. Biosocial theory looks at the idea that Lombroso has when he discusses criminals having distinct features such as jaw lines and teeth but instead looks at more practical traits that might come into effect. According to the Larry Siegel, the author of the textbook, one of these traits is Minimal Brain Dysfunction, which classifies one of its traits as maladaptive behavior. Throughout his life Lanza probably had trouble adapting to social situation and became very lonely and depressed so he secluded himself to make him feel better. Siegel also discusses that people who suffer from Minimal Brain Dysfunction have episodes of “explosive rage.” This especially describes Lanza’s actions because he decided to finally come out of his room and start this massive rampage. One biological trait that is linked to Minimal Brain Dysfunction is that of brain abnormality, meaning that those who suffer from it have something different in the structure and shape of their brains. This would go along with Lombroso’s idea of criminals all having a shared trait, and if a large number of criminals do share this trait it proves Lombroso’s theory to be correct (Siegel,

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