Mass Murder Criminological Theory

What drives a person to kill as many people as possible before they meet their fate; either by the police, another person, or their own hand? Is it innate? Is it environmental? Is it a combination? In order to prevent crime and create more effective criminal justice policies, these are just a small baseline of the questions researchers have been vigorously seeking answers to throughout human history. There are many variables to consider as humans and the world we have created are extremely complex, and it is unlikely there is one ultimate root cause. There are also many, many different types of crimes that are rated on different levels of seriousness. While the combination of several criminological theories are needed to truly understand

Classic mass murder typically involves an individual entering a location and randomly killing as many people as possible, whereas familial homicide usually involves a family member murdering three or more relatives which often ends with the killer committing suicide (Bartol & Bartol, 2008, p. 343). These crimes are tragedies as they are often unpredictable in that they can occur anywhere, at any time, and typically with little warning of which the end results in a massive loss of life. According to Bartol, mass murderers are usually characterized by anger and frustration stemming from the failure of their life to meet their expectations and often have suffered a serious loss (2008, p. 350). Social psychologists have stated that chronic frustration and strain resulting from an individual’s failure to obtain their goals over a long period of time increases the likelihood of aggressive and delinquent behavior (Levin & Madfis, 2009, p. 1229). Barton describes classic mass murderers as usually lacking interpersonal and social skills, and are often withdrawn leaving them with little to no social support structure (2008, p. 351). An example of classic mass murder is one occurring in the workplace. Many perpetrators of these workplace mass murders are often withdrawn,

GST is much broader in the sense that it does not focus on just societal goals and expectations as does Merton’s theory, but more so on the strain induced by failure to meet positive goals (whether societal or individual) with a discrepancy between a person’s expectation and their actual achievements (Polizzi, 2011, p. 1054). He argues that there are many sources of strain produced by any variety of difficult experiences and/or events in an individual’s life that can create a range of negative emotions which, with enough strain applied, can cause these individuals to act out in a criminal fashion (Wilcox & Cullen, 2010, p. 121). For example, an adolescent who, after months or years of being bullied or feeling rejected, commits mass murder at his/her school after having broken under the strain. This breaking point could have been a serious event, or it could have been something small but was exaggerated in the perpetrator’s mind after spending copious amounts of time under cumulative strain. Agnew states that strain does not cause a person to commit criminal acts, but that strain is a significant factor because of what it means to the individual as not all persons under even severe strain commit crimes (Polizzi, 2011, p.