The following analysis follows the guidelines of the course “Violence and society” by professor Navaco at University of California, Irvine.
The low rates of a person going to medical school to learn skills to become an expert at killing are really rare. This is one of the factor that makes Holmes a very unique criminal; as he was hidden behind the standards of what society defined as civilized, successful and normal.
Violence has a biological basis, but its acquisition and engagement are determinate by psycho-social, developmental and environmental context factors (Navaco, 2014). Holmes developed curiosity on death since he was a kid, and he did not come from a violent family, suggesting that his curiosity is biological. He engaged in the behavior through medical school, which expanded his knowledge and in several ways facilitated his way to crime. It would be very inconclusive the root cause of his behavior because there is always the probability of Multifactorial risk. These are the reasons: First, he was bullied when he was a kid, it would be difficult to tell if he developed his curiosity on harming people, because he was harmed by his classmates. Second, he mentioned on his writing that he discovered his interest in death after confronting the skeleton that his classmates would torment him with. Third, he went to medical school, he was expose to death and incredible amount of knowledge about it. There is also the possibility that he developed his true desires in medical school and not in his childhood. The multi factorial risk is very possible in the case of Holmes because there are three potential root causes that could have contributed to his criminal development.
Violence has core survival Functions (N...
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...”, 2013). The interesting thing about psychopathy is that is not equivalent to violence, serial Killing, psychosis, mental Illness or antisocial Personality Disorder, not a danger personality depending on the individual (“The society for”, 2013). Holmes is classify as a primary Psychopath a he wanted to be in dominance and control and he would be very egocentric. Hen di not fail at inhibiting punished behavior as he was never caught and when he was caught he was sentenced to death.
The criminal profiler Thomas Cronin identifies Holmes as a very unique criminal as he states that criminals are smart, but they are not discipline enough to finish college and the fact that he finished medical school, makes him even more unique. Holmes was able to hide his dark nature as he had an important facilitator which was his career and charm that brought him plenty of victims.
Erick Larson wrote in Devil in the White City, “I was born with the devil in me. I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing – I was born with the Evil One standing as my sponsor beside the bed where I was ushered in the world, and he has been with me since” (Troy, Taylor). This statement was a quoted confession from Dr. H. H. Holmes himself in 1896. Holmes was the first major serial killer in America, even though he came after many others in his time. Thomas Neil Cream, the Austin Axe Murderer, the Bloody Benders, and Jack the Ripper came before him. His name was originally Herman Webster Mudgett. He was born on May 16th, 1860 in Gilman, New Hampshire. He was raised by his mother and father, who was a wealthy and respected citizen for 25 years. As a boy, Mudgett was always in trouble and was well known in his community for his rather sociopathic behavior. He would show cruelty to both animals and other children. The only thing keeping hope to society was the fact that he was an excellent student. He later changed his last name to Holmes in order to pursue both his medical and criminal careers. He had many other aliases in which he would hide under and try to derail the cops from finding him (Juan, Blanco). Holmes was medically trained to be a doctor and received his degree from the University of Michigan. He was not just into insurance fraud scams. His evil doings included forgery, claiming to find the cure for alcoholism, real estate scams, and pretending to have a machine that turned natural gas into water. He was quite the ladies man, had many wives, whom often had become his victims. Many of his medical partners became subject to him, also. He once even had three wiv...
Kennedy, Leslie and Stephen Baron, Routine Activities And A Subculture Of Violence: A Study Of Violence On The Street, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Vol. 30 No. 1, Febuary 1993, pp. 88-112 (Journal)
Herman Webster Mudgett, best known as H. H. Holmes, was a serial killer who resided in Chicago from 1886 until 1893. While there, Holmes murdered countless victims without so much as a question from Chicago Police. One question that plagues people today is how he managed to evade police for those seven years. That question has a variety of answers. Holmes was able to avoid capture by being clever, choosing victims near him, and because the police were occupied by the World’s Fair.
They were also concerned with the fact that Holmes and Holmes did not offer a multiple typology killer. They offer a new category in the typology they named a multiple-typology killer (Greeting & Culhane, n.d.). They define this category as not a distinct type of killer, but instead as a way of thinking to keep law enforcement investigators from being biased to profiling the offender in one category of the typology (Greeting & Culhane,
The case of whether serial killers are born with the lust to kill or if they are truly victims of their environment has been a hot debated question by both psychologists and the FBI today. A serial killer is traditionally defined as one that kills 3 or more people at different times with “cooling off” periods in between kills. Both psychological abuse as a child and psychological disorders are to blame for the making of a killer. The nature vs. nurture debate is best applied to the mysterious behaviors and cases of serial killers and their upbringing and environment. Nature is the genetic and biological connections a person has, personality traits, and how genetic make-up all relates to a killer. Nurture is examining the upbringing and environment that a person is around that affects what a person becomes. In some cases however, the effects of only upbringing or only biological problems were the reasons certain serial killers committed crimes. Although there is no definitive answer to what plays the bigger role: nature or nurture, they both are contributing factors that make a serial killer. These deviants of society are afflicted with problems in either their upbringing or have psychological disorders, and are able to blend into our everyday lives with no apparent differences, yet they wreck havoc through their unremorseful killings.
The media generally portrays the prototypical serial killer through the lens of two extremes. They can either have an incapacitating mental illness or be brilliant, but severely troubled, geniuses. Yet, neither of these two stereotypes are accurate, as serial killers generally display signs of psychopathy, which is not considered a mental illness by the American Psychiatric Association. Despite the erroneousness of Hollywood’s movies and television shows, many psychologists and lawmakers are still considering the degree to which psychopaths can be considered responsible for their actions. In “Psychopathy and Culpability: How Responsible Is the Psychopath for Criminal Wrongdoing?” researchers Adam R. Fox, Trevor H. Kvaran, and Reid Griffith Fontaine attempt to draw conclusions from evidence on whether or not psychopaths meet the criteria for full criminal responsibility. Other researchers, such as Scott E. Culhane, Sage M. Hilstad, Adrienne Greng, and Matt J. Gray, use a case study to demonstrate that psychopathy is not synonymous with serial killers and that mental illness cannot necessarily be used in criminal cases to justify murder in their research paper titled “Self-Reported Psychopathology in a Convicted Serial Killer.” In the remaining two articles
Harold Shipman is known as one of Britain’s worst serial killers. Over twenty-five years it is suspected he killed 251 individuals while working as a medical doctor (“Harold Shipman”, n.d., para 1). Shipman had been injecting fatal amounts of poison into their bodies (para. 1). Shipman’s actions and why he acted in this manner can be explained from the sociological perspective and psychological perspective. The sociological perspective examines factors including social setting, level of education and positive or negative role models in a person’s life (Pozzulo, Bennell & Forth, 2015, p.338-341). The psychological perspective examines colorations between an individual’s mental process, their behaviour, their learning process and traits an individual
...mes’ lifestyle. Holmes, throughout his life was a criminal. Holmes desire to murder people was believed to come from from his desensitized feeling about dead bodies. This was due to his medical career. As mentioned earlier, when Holmes was in medical school, he had many dealings with cadavers and was very familiar with them. Later, when he began killing he did not look at the bodies as human beings, but as material or later, cash money. This relationship between crime and deviance is mainly why I choose this book. I feel that H. H. Holmes, although Holmes was a strange and demented man, was very successful. This success questions what makes people successful: is it your status, education, or was it his determination?
Holmes claimed the lives of hundreds, though officially under the law they were only able to charge him with 9 counts of murder, many died at his hands. In a day with better technology, a bigger population, and a changed society, we need to try and end serial killers for once and for all because who knows the impact they can
Charlotte Holmes is an eccentric, vibrant, and young detective all while being practically a mirror image of her great-great-great grandfather, Sherlock Holmes. Her brilliant, sharp mind allows her to sleuth even better than the official detectives assigned to her case. Charlotte also has an unspoken authority in her friendship with Jamie Watson, who is, coincidentally, the great-great-great grandson of Dr. Watson. In many ways, Charlotte fulfills, revamps, and modernizes the detective role that her great-great-great grandfather took on all those years ago. Charlotte goes above and beyond fulfilling Sherlock’s legacy because, firstly, while Sherlock chose sleuthing on his own, Charlotte was pushed into the career by her family. It is very admirable
Serial killers are everywhere! Well, perhaps not in our neighborhood, but on our television screens, at the movie theaters, and in rows and rows of books at our local Borders or Barnes and Nobles Booksellers” (Brown). When people think of serial killers, names such as Dahmer, Gacy, Bundy, and Gein are cited. During the time Jack the Ripper was executing his victims in London, Holmes began his gruesome career in Chicago (America’s Serial Killers). “Despite being America’s first serial killer, Holmes is hardly a familiar name and until now we haven’t had any popular visual record of his crimes: (Spikol). Why is it that people only think of the more popular killers with higher known profiles? They are all very similar to one another because they share characteristics. H.H. Holmes was a successful serial killer because he was well educated, cunning and charming. Those are just a few traits Holmes ...
The definition of a social problem, such as violence, has an impact on the measurements of that problem. Measurement issues are discussed in Damn Lies and Statistics and The Social Reality of Violence. A common and mutually agreed definition must be established and the actions, decision, and interpretations of those who measure the problem can impact the measurem...
Scientists consider nature as a reason for psychopathy because the way their brains are set up. One theory suggests that the one region located in the brain that is less active in psychopaths is the amygdala which is normally linked with fear. In “The Wisdom of Psychopaths” Dutton explains that studies have been done and have proven that the brain has a dysfunction. Dutton also explains a case study that he has done with the thought of killing one person over killing five. Psychopaths have no problem killing that one person. There is no dilemma in their brain; the thought of someone dying does not affect them emotionally. Other brain studies measuring different aspects of the integration of emotions with other human experiences have shown the same abnormalities when it come...
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle writes a short story about how innocence gets victimized by a royal subject. When a royal figure clashes with someone who is not equal in social class, he will do anything to hide his mistake. This is when the King hires Sherlock Holmes. Arthur Conan Doyle based Holmes off of a man named Dr. Joseph Bell, who was a friend of his in medical school. When Doyle saw that medical practice was not a success, he began writing Holmes stories for money. The public became infatuated with not only the stories, but mainly Sherlock Holmes. When Doyle wanted to write in more respectable genres (Duncan 3), he made one enormous mistake.
Sherlock Holmes is probably the most well-known and loved fictional detective in literature. Sherlock Holmes is a London based “consulting detective’ whose abilities border on the fantastic. Sherlock Holmes is known for his astute logical reasoning. His abilities can adopt to any disguise, and his use of forensic science to solve difficult cases. He lives at 221b Baker Street in London. He notices things that others simply don't and then he draws accurate conclusions about what he sees. He experiences strong mood swings. He also plays the violin. But most of all, he is a master of deductive reasoning.