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Biological and psychological theory of crime
Biological and psychological theory of crime
Biological and psychological theory of crime
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Over a three week period in October 2002 a series of random sniper attacks paralyzed the Washington D.C. area. The shootings happened in in various establishments such as super markets, gas stations, restaurants and near schools turning normal tranquil areas into chaotic murder fields. There were no age group, gender or ethnicity that was safe, Victims were randomly selected and everyone was targeted. After the murderous spree, ten people were declared dead and several others wounded. The perpetrators were finally apprehended while they were sleeping at a resting spot and later identified as forty-one-year-old John Allen Muhammad and his seventeen-year-old Jamaican-American protégé, Lee Boyd Malvo.
Many influences may push young people such as Lee Boyd Malvo to perform violent acts. Psychological, sociological and biological factors play a coexisting role in young adults life. Violence can be caused by disruptions, damage or undeveloped brain or can be brought on by something else such as economic difficulties or social or cultural difficulties. The nature vs. nurture question has been an ongoing debate. It can be argued that John lee Malvo born with predetermined genes or biological factors that played an integral part in creating his homicidal tendencies or that he become murderous through his surroundings partnered by the psychological influence that Mohammed had over him.
In this paper I will discuss the biological, psychological and social upbringing of John Lee Malvo and how these factors contributed to the making of a serial killer known as the DC Sniper.
Lee Boyd Malvo also referred to as John Lee Malvo or Boyd Malvo was born on Feb. 18, 1985 at Queen Victoria Jubilee Hospital in the poverty stricken area...
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...ring raids I had seen violence. There was no therapy there was nothing so those were things that were never dealt with never discussed so I mean I had seen a lot of sick things in Jamaica and lived through on a daily basis.” (J. Malvo, personal interview, August 2013)
Moreover, there were biological factors (nature) that contributed to his murderous spree. The underdeveloped prefrontal cortex of Malvo pushed him to perform violent acts since he was not using the part of the brain that sorts out consequences. Due to this Muhammad had a golden opportunity to slide in and brainwash, manipulate, and abuse him. It is difficult to label whether nature or nurture dictates the criminality of an individual but in Malvo’s case it did show that that the Bio-Psycho-Social factors worked simultaneously and contributed to the birth of a serial murderer known as the DC sniper.
October 2002 was the beginning of what seemed like the longest three weeks in the Washington Metropolitan Area. No one wanted to believe that what was happening would change the lives of thousands. What appeared to be a random killing spree by an enraged lunatic, turned out to be part of a massive plan that claimed the lives of ten innocent people in DC, Maryland, and Virginia. When these shootings first began, they were believed to be linked to a white van or truck. It was later discovered that these shootings were being carried out by a man named John Allen Muhammad, and his teenage accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo, in a blue 1990 Chevrolet Caprice sedan.
The life of Perry Smith was saturated with abuse, turmoil, and a lack of compassion. His father often took advantage of their mother and subjected her to violent outbursts of yelling and physical as well as verbal assault. Seeing this behavior every day, Smith recognized it as a normal way of life and developed a hardened attitude towards violence. These experiences consumed him in a deeply troubled psychological state of mind affecting his social behavior, essentially making him a recluse to the outside world. He had a hard time developing close relationships with other people, causing him to lack common empathy and making it easier for him to blindly rampage in a murderous spree. Seeing so much violence as a child, he lost a value for human life. This simple fact is a direct outcome of his upbringing which ultimately led to his decision to slaughter the Clutter family on that fateful night in Kansas. As an opposite viewpoint, nature would correspond to a psychological disorder or mental illness. In some cases, nature can be the driving force behind a person’s lack of control over their actions. However, these factors are not often present in people who are convicted of murder. It is more reasonable that the experiences a person undergoes throughout their lifetime shapes their personality and behavior while
In Washington D. C. 2002, the city was terrorized by a serial killer. His name was John Allen Muhammad with his accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo. This disturbance went on for three weeks in September to October. Why did these two serial killers decide to kill people? That has been the question people have been asking for years now.
The author, Katherine Ramsland, is a forensic psychologist that teaches criminal justice. The purpose of this article is to answer the question of ‘how and why’ a human could have so much anger towards another person. Anthony Meoli holds a BS in criminal justice from Penn State University, a MA in forensic psychology from Argosy University, and a JD from John Marshall Law School. He was interviewed while I was reading this article and answered questions based off of why he was launching this project. His ultimate goal was to find a link between the creative side of their brain and the ability they have to naturally compartmentalize their live. He wants to find out why they are addicted to killing and what draws them towards that need. He
David Berkowitz, otherwise known as the “Son of Sam”, was notorious for his crimes committed between 1976 and 1977 that ended the lives of six innocent victims and wounded several others in New York (“David Berkowitz Biography”, n.d.). At first, police did not make a connection between the murders because there was nothing unusual about them; all the victims were shot with a 40 caliber gun, not fairly unusual during this time or place especially since the killings were over an extended period of time. Police finally made the connection when Berkowitz began to live behind notes that were meant to tantalize authorities since they had yet to catch him (“David Berkowitz| Son of Sam Killer,” 2015). Often times, the psychological structure of a human
This criminal behavior psychological analysis paper is taking a look into the life of a serial killer, who is known as, John Wayne Gacy, Jr. He is best known for dressing up as a clown and committing violent killings of specific targets; the nickname he is known for is the “Killer Clown”. Moreover, Gacy is an important individual to study or analyze due to the many merciless anguish murders he committed and the factors that took place throughout his childhood to adulthood, which may have had influential elements of the actions he performed on his poor and vulnerable victims. Understanding Gacy’s actions and mindset can be quite complex to society as well as how he became one of the most prolific and notorious murders in the United States. The importance I find to be relevant, which played a major role in John Wayne Gacy’s numerous murders in Chicago, Illinois, are the social dysfunctional structures followed as: his father-son relationship, being antisocial in school, and environment. Future professionals in criminology can better understand and go into depth about the psychological theories found in most murderers in correlation to Gacy’s horrendous proceedings as some theorists have already been revealing theories of their own that relate to how Gacy grew up to be a murderer. For example, “Theorists consider moral behavior to be self-regulated through mechanisms of self-evaluation where one can approve or disapprove irresponsible or inhumane behavior. It is clear that Gacy showed a lack of moral behavior and hence, in the act was not able to disapprove his behavior adequately to avoid it completely” (“John Wayne Gacy Jr. | Criminology”, n.d.). The professionals can grasp the insight that there is value perhaps in keeping this...
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 Beltway Sniper attacks took place in October 2002 around the Washington D.C. area killing 10 people, injuring 3, and causing paranoia for weeks. All of the shootings took place in the Washington D.C. area and on Interstate 95 south. The shootings lasted for 3 weeks. John Allen Muhammad 41 and Lee Boyd Malvo 17 were arrested and proven guilty with the attacks.
When it comes to the topics of violence, murder, and mayhem among children, most will readily agree that children who committed these acts did so because their environmental situation inspired it. However, like me, some are convinced that biological factors are the main reasons children commit violent acts.
Serial killers are defined to “be driven by instinct and desire to kill.” In a study done in 2000, Dr, Richard Davidson says, “people with a large amount of aggression – in particular people who have committed aggressive murders or have a social disorder – have almost no brain activity in the orbital frontal cortex or the anterior cingulated cortex while activity in the amyglade continued perfectly. The orbital frontal cortex and the anterior congulated cortex control emotional impulses while the amyglade controls reactions to fear.” Davidson concludes his research claiming that although environment can and will affect a serial killer’s thoughts, it is a killer’s genetic makeup that inevitably creates murderous thoughts.
To begin with, numerous reasons for why a child acts in the manner he exhibits and why he continues to exert such dangerous and even fatal schemes. Recent research shows that factors ranging from inherited personality traits to chemical imbalances and damages suffered in the womb can increase the odds that a child will become violent (Johnson 234). Experts argue that no one is predestined to a life of crime. They believe that influences such as repeated abuse, extreme neglect, poverty, media violence, and easy access to guns play the major role in molding children into criminals. The father of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer wonders, "If potential for evil is in the blood that some of us pass on to our children" (Seifert 23).
Serial killers have many frightening facets. The most frightening thing about them is that experts still do not know what makes a human become a serial killer. Many experts believe serial killers become what they are because they have a genetic disposition or brain abnormality while other experts believe that a serial killer is created by childhood abuse; and some other experts believe that it is a combination of both brain abnormalities and abusive childhood experiences that creates a serial killer. A murderer is considered a serial killer when they “murder three or more persons in at least three separate events with a “cooling off period” between kills” (Mitchell and Aamodt 40). When defining a serial killer, their background, genes, and brain are not mentioned; perhaps one day those aspects of the serial killer can be included.
Biological crime theory describes that an individual is born with the desire to commit a certain crime. Evolutionary factors influence an individual’s involvement in criminal behavior. “Biological theories focus on aspects of the physical body, such as inherited genes, evolutionary factors, brain structures, or the role of hormones in influencing behavior” (Marsh, I, 2006, 3). Murderers that are innate to kill are born with factors such as mental illnesses that are the driving force as to why one may kill. Because of the biological crime theory, some individuals, though rare, are able to plead insanity. This is because the actions of the individual are said to be beyond their control (Ministry of Justice, 2006, 3).
In conclusion, there are many factors that can affect a person’s mind on the acceptability of homicide, as well as the capability to commit homicide. Religion, culture, and socio-economic status are just a few of the factors but play a major role. They are used as either a crutch or an ideal solution, depending upon their raising. Each of these factors changes how a person can perceive themselves and what they do. Basically, a person is controlled by past experiences and cultural, religious, and socio-economic status influences. Throughout this paper, evidence supports that a person does not just go out and kill someone, something in their life has influenced them to do such an atrocious act to another person.
The nurturing of individuals plays a role in the making of killers, as 94% of serial killers had experienced some form of abuse as children and 42% have suffered severe physical abuse (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2010). A child abuse is a determining factor, in which supports the idea that serial killers and psychopath, are influenced significantly by nurture (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2011). In most cases social, cultural and physiological determinants all play a role in influencing serial killers to grow into a mass murderer. It is important that physiological and social determinants can be identified, so they could be altered for the purpose of preventing the number of crime.