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Mental illness and crime case study
Mental illnesses with crime
Mental illnesses with crime
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What makes a person wake up and decide to kill someone? What would possibly be a great enough reason to take a human being life? James Eagan Holmes was born December 13, 1987. He had a pretty decent child hood his father was a mathematician and his mother was a registered nurse. He ran cross country in high school had a nice amount of friends he was a very outgoing person. For the most part he had his head on straight after graduating from high school he went to the University of California. He graduated with an undergraduate degree for neuroscience. James was a very suicidal individual although he grew up with a good family background he wasn’t happy with himself. People around him including his teachers and friend was worried that he would hurt his self or others. All of his violent actions was leading up to this terrible day that would change not only his life, but his victims as well.
James was a part of many groups he was in a fraternity and an honor society called the Golden Key. He was very sheltered and a quiet person because he was in so many groups’ people thought he w...
Unknown, to James at this point he did not realize that he was having a problem with a psychological theory called behaviorism. Now this theory is one that is saying human behavior is developed through learning experiences which in this case would apply to James. His behavior as an adult was reflected by the way he was treated as a kid by his father and mother because they fought all the time. They never truly paid any attention to him, which in terms taught him how to stay out of their way and learn how to steal and burglarize places without getting caught. Therefore, within the psychological theory of behaviorism Behaviorists saw crime as something that is a learned response to life’s situations such as James situation which led him to a life of crime because of his parents. Although, he was never truly mistreated, he did not receive his father attention due to the fact of the way his father was treated as a child growing up an abusive household. Therefore, he did not want to place his son in the same situation. There is also the fact that James could be suffering from the psychodynamic theory which says that a person’s personality can be controlled by their unconscious mental process and that is grounded in them in early childhood. These entire things such as the id, ego, and superego
In this memoir, James gives the reader a view into his and his mother's past, and how truly similar they were. Throughout his life, he showed the reader that there were monumental events that impacted his life forever, even if he
James’s childhood was full of narrow escapes and secret dwellings. He, unlike his brother, Charles II, was dour and serious, in ad...
During his school years, he was often sent home because of inappropriate clothing. To solve this problem he would often steal in order to look good enough to attend school. By the time James reached 16 years old, he was arrested, and served 3 years in prison. While in prison he started a gospel group an earned the title “Music Box” (Brenchley, 2003, DVD).
I was coming home from work, stepping inside I noticed everything was silent. I noticed my family downstairs solemly waiting for me. A strange feeling overcame, while my Dad told me to sit down. He gave each of us a stern look and somberly announced that my brother tried to get his rifle and commit sucide. Overcome by the news, I found myself speechless this similar situation has happened before. My brother is suffering from schizophrenia and has attempted many times to commit sucide. This mental illnesss is genetic in my family, it has not been easy to deal with. I chose this topic for reasons why one will commit sucide in his or her youth. I find if one has trouble with family, living in a poor neighborhood or inherits a genetic mental illness it can influence youth sucidality.
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.
Born to Rocco and Angela Valvano, James Thomas Anthony Valvano was not your typical child. Growing up James was a character. He had crazy aspirations that ultimately shaped who he would become in later decades. When James Valvano was around the age of seventeen he pondered what he wanted to be when he grew up, just like many of his peers at that age. James took a small index card and wrote down everything he wanted to accomplish in his life. On that single index card, James wrote he ...
A majority of these individuals are linked through commonalities of their childhood as well as their personality traits and behaviors. The serial murderer’s personality is an intricate recipe of biological, environmental and social circumstances. Though early abuse can cause feelings of aggression and delinquency, childhood experiences alone cannot be to blame. Many people are abused early on as children, and never become killers. Similarly, biological issues, such as brain abnormalities, as we as certain personality disorders would not individually create a murderer. Rather, a distinctive combination of psychological issues, impairments in the brain, and personality disorders help mold a brutal serial killer. Killers cannot be simply born into this world, but under the right circumstances, they will be created.
Emotions get the best of everyone in stressful situations, but what about those without any emotions to spare? The media glamorizes murders and serial killers by making them the spotlight of movies, shows and novels. What readers and viewers often forget is that these people are real and have resided on the same street that their kids ride bikes on. The people that commit these horrendous crimes are often known as sociopaths. Not all sociopaths become serial killers, but the combination of abusive childhood, environment and genetic influences pushes them to repeatedly kill and take innocent lives.
Smith, Scott. "Psychology: Mental Illness Reason Behind Most Mass Murders." Capital-Gazette Newspapers [Annapolis] 3 Oct. 2013: n. pag. NewsBank Special Reports. Web. 24 Mar. 2014.
Many different facets compose the makeup of a prison community. One of the main components of the prison culture is the correctional officer. The individuals that are responsible for the security at correctional facilities such as a prison are better known as CO’s or correctional officers. Typically, the higher the security levels of the prison, the lower the ratio of inmates to correctional officers. “State averages of inmates to COs range from about 3.5 to 1 up to 8 to 1 (with national averages of 5.4 to 1 in 2000), but these numbers have to be taken with a grain of salt” (Foster, 2006, p.164). With the aforementioned disparity with the number of COs to inmates naturally safety concerns arise when it comes to keeping both COs and inmates working and living in a safe environment.
We can all agree that serial killers are unpredictable scary people but when it comes to why they kill, everyone has a different view. In my research paper I will get into the mind of a serial killer and try to figure out what exactly sets them into uncontrollable rage.
Mass Murderers and Serial Killers are nothing new to today’s society. These vicious killers are all violent, brutal monsters and have an abnormal urge to kill. What gives people these urges to kill? What motivates them to keep killing? Do these killers get satisfaction from killing? Is there a difference between mass murderers and serial killers or are they the same. How do they choose their victims and what are some of their characteristics? These questions and many more are reasons why I was eager to write my paper on mass murderers and serial killers. However, the most interesting and sought after questions are the ones that have always been controversial. One example is; what goes on inside the mind of a killer? In this paper I will try to develop a better understanding of these driven killers and their motives.
James was an authoritarian parent. He was controlling, in-charge and no one questioned him. He would play the role of the doting father. When his children made mistakes, he made a point to criticize them. He often compared them to other kids that he felt were “more perfect.” When his often unspoken expectations were not met he would yell and scream striking fear into his entire family. “He’s not a warm, fuzzy kind of guy, and he’s not going to inspire feelings of intimacy. But when his system works, he can boast about one thing: His recruits tend to obey” (Dewar).
“The history of correctional thought and practice has been marked by enthusiasm for new approaches, disillusionment with these approaches, and then substitution of yet other tactics”(Clear 59). During the mid 1900s, many changes came about for the system of corrections in America. Once a new idea goes sour, a new one replaces it. Prisons shifted their focus from the punishment of offenders to the rehabilitation of offenders, then to the reentry into society, and back to incarceration. As times and the needs of the criminal justice system changed, new prison models were organized in hopes of lowering the crime rates in America. The three major models of prisons that were developed were the medical, model, the community model, and the crime control model.