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The human nature of a serial killer
Crime and socioeconomics
History of crime and criminal justice in america chapter 1 pdf
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Michael Arntfield on Serial Killers and Psychopaths In response to Michael Arntfield’s thesis, the Sociologist would support the comparison between Batman’s Gotham and Gomorrah to London. Simply, the comparison is justified since Arntfield uses many examples by naming different killers such as the “Bedroom Strangler” and the “Mad Slasher”. Also, Arntfield gives evidence to the amount of violence by including the amount of murders in London. He also adds how many laws weren’t even in place for most of the time in London such as pedophilia, which would only lead to a “slap on the wrist” type of situation from others. Psychologically, Arntfield explained some of the types of these criminals. Of those were: visionary, missionary, power-control,
and hedonistic; respectively the visionary believes it is their duty, missionary are killers that are making a conscious decision (or rather mission) to kill a person or set of people, the power-control kill for the enjoyment of watching those suffering, and the hedonistic are those who kill for sexual enjoyment. On the Anthropological side, does not give a cultural explanation as to why these events happened, at least not in a definite way. London was a place where some laws were not in place, a city that almost merged between a town and the city that it is, makes it seem clustered and messy. The town-like atmosphere some of London can have means a more racist, sexist state of mind for some which may lead to violent thoughts and actions, especially in such a diverse city. Additionally, the already dark downtown atmosphere means more violent and dangerous behavior.
In addition, Beaty also claims that a violent society was the cause of many people becoming serial killers. The reason that Beaty suggests that a violent society is a motive for people to become serial killers is because culture finds violence acceptable and tends to approve it in many circumstances. She also present statistical research done in 1970, which shows that one out of every four men and one out of every five women believed that it was appropriate for a husband to hit his wife under certain situations. Obviously, she appeals to pathos in this paragraph by bringing up the experts feeling about children ?The experts feel that children demonstrate increasingly aggressive behavior with each violent act they view? (pg317).
Alexander Hill, Just Business Christian Ethics for the Marketplace. Downers Grove, Ill: IVP Academic, 2008. Paperback. $14.95Jessica Burt
A society that presumes a norm of violence and celebrates aggression, whether in the subway, on the football field, or in the conduct of its business, cannot help making celebrities of the people who would destroy it. Unfortunately, such acts of rampage have become a prevalent factor in the Canadian culture. As a result of endless media coverage, Canadians now are constantly bombarded with numerous images of violence. Many of which often portray a victim avenging their opponent by means of force. Thus, indoctrinating a nation of individuals to believe that it is only through aggression that problems can be resolved. Rather than being punished for acts of violence, those who commit such offenses are often praised for their “heroism”. In addition, the success of films like The Godfather, Gladiator, and Troy further aid in reinstating the fact that we live in a society that praises violence. Furthermore, this ideology allows for individuals to partake in violent acts with little or no backlash from ones community. However, when an individual strays away from the “norm”, they are likely to then be viewed as a deviant. Such cases of rejection within a society, are often seen in the portrayal of serial killers. Although our society tends to condone violence when it is directed towards a specific individual(s), it does not allow the killing of innocent bystanders. Instead, crimes that are targeted against a number of people over a long period of time, entail the harshest forms punishments under the law. Sadly, in executing the law for said crimes, those in charge often face much public scrutiny. Such occurrences were apparent in the faulty murder investigations of Canada's most notorious serial killer Robert Pickton. This is due to the ...
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde features a setting based in various locations throughout Victorian London, including a variety of areas in different ends of the economic class spectrum. The primary characters, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, represent these opposite ends: Dr. Jekyll’s home is located in Soho, on a “dingy street” (Ste...
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
During the 1970’s to the early 1990’s there had emerged two new approaches to the study of crime and deviance. The discipline of criminology had expanded further introducing right and left realism, both believe in different areas and came together in order to try and get a better understanding on crime and prevention. There were many theorists that had influenced the realism approaches such as; Jock Young (Left Wing) and James Wilson (Right Wing).
Burrows, Edwin G., and Mike Wallace. Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898. New York: Oxford UP, 1999. Print.
Cultural criminology is a relatively new perspective and approach to understanding crime and deviance. Cultural criminology first began to develop in the 1990s and rapidly progressed in to a new field of criminology that is both influential and informative. The core concept of cultural criminology is built upon by using traditional approaches from different disciplines such as sociological studies, cultural studies, symbolic interactionism and many other disciplines, theories and methods. (Oxford bibliography Keith Hayward) Although it would seem that cultural criminology is nothing more than an interdisciplinary field, using only the studies and theories of some of the disciplines mentioned above - it actually does offer a new line of thought and individuality that other fields of criminology in the past did not. This is because instead of viewing crime objectively, it instead looks at crime subjectively by analysing the idiosyncrasies of the modern sociocultural environment. It offers an explanation of crime and deviance as a constructed result from either political, social or cultural actors and groups who commit crime, because of a shared sense of meaning, emotions, symbols, styles and even fashion within different subcultures. (Oxford bibliography Keith Hayward) Cultural Criminologists hope to explain and examine how the meaning of certain aspects of a subculture can play an active role in society and the construction of crime, not only by explaining why crime is committed, but also how crime is controlled. This essay will explain what cultural criminology is by using The 1989 Hillsborough disaster as an example in illustrating some of the research findings by cultural criminologists. There have been many different topic area...
These crime-ridden communities (or ghettos) are springing up all through the country, mainly in and around major metropolitan areas. These areas are the most populated, so that means that within these areas are the most people there to be influenced by the crimes committed by fellow people. In Male's reading he shows statistics that prove the fact that once the poverty factor is taken away then teen violence disappears. He later adds, “That if America wants to rid of juvenile violence than serious consideration needs to be given to the societally inflicted violence of raising three to 10 times more youth in poverty than other Western nations.” (Males p386)
In order to find out what caused crime rates to rise; one must first determine whether or not crime actually rose during the time period. Manuel Eisner in his Long-Term Historical Trends in Violent Crime claims that by using homicides as an indicator one can opt that crime actually showed a downward trend during the second industrial revolution (Eisner 85). But Eisner fault lies in the fact that his work only looks at violent crime. David Philips claims this may appear to be because of lack of “full-time paid uniformed police forces” thus the inaccurate, “uncoordinated” system, “contained apparent contradictions” (O'Brien and Quinault 156). Philips goes on to plot an upward trend in crime using committals and not just violent crime like Eisner; Philips plot shows a “very clear and rapid increase” in crime, one that was larger that could be accounted for by population increase alone (O'Brien and Quinault 158). Phi...
During the 1880s, the British Empire was its peak it was also the national capital and can arguably have the nickname at this period of time as the capital of the world due to its massive empire. Any crime and event that occurred in London mattered within both Britain and the world.They were regarded as a national importance. In Shropshire, at the same time that the murders were occurring, a young girl was murdered then beheaded by her parents. The mother wrapped the little girl's head in brown paper and threw it in the local pond whilst the father burnt her body on the family's’ hearth. Shropshire’s local newspapers reported on the murder in graphic detail whilst the Times Newspaper wrote a small piece on the matter in an inside page. Again in Shropshire around this time and elderly couple were brutally slain in their own home, also a mother and child was kicked to death so brutally that their faces were unrecognisable. Neither one of these two cases were reported in any national newspaper. However, other violent crimes did occur in and around London during this period but did not again the same national coverage as the prostitute murderer, so why did “Jack” gain the media and society's attention? Jack gained the media as murderers like this had never occurred; these were different
It was then that I first started to consider what causes man to become so enraged as to commit atrocities of the mind, body and soul. Violence - pure and simple, is intrinsic to humanity. It almost goes unnoticed as a way of life in many communities. Drive through North Philadelphia on a spring afternoon and witness what appears to be life disappearing, receding under the concrete and graffiti. Look closer and witness the bullet holes in the walls of homes and cars. Still, there are other communities, such as North Brooklyn, where the rate of crime has been diminishing for the past twenty-five years. It seems, in fact, that violent crime does not behave as predicted. Social scientists have begun to suggest that, in fact, violent crime needs to be viewed much like an infectious disease. Simultaneously, neurobiologists have developed intricate research models and techniques to examine whether or not there are biological triggers that cause individuals to act violently.
This theory was based on multiple factors such as social class, age, race, and location, and how these factors influenced the amount of crime within a geographical location. In her Chancellor 's Scholars Council of Pembroke State University thesis, LEARNING TO BE DEVIANT: A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF DIFFERENTIAL ASSOCIATION, scholar Sandra K. Holland states,