Officer to Killer

807 Words2 Pages

Criminology is the scientific study of the causes and prevention of crimes. Criminology also uses a vast amount of theories to explain peoples’ actions, mental state, and their drive for committing crimes. Some crimes have monetary benefits, while other crime are committed in revenge or in spite of another, which would be called crimes of passion. Because it can be sometime difficult to understand why certain crime are committed, the only thing we can do is use theories to better decipher thoughts, morals, and reasons behind committing crimes.
Everyone is unique in his or her own way. Therefore, to ask the question, “ why someone committed that crime?” is a difficult question to answer. Biological, genetics, and learned behaviors are all factors that contribute to one’s state of mind. So, what would cause a ex-police officer, United States Navy veteran, and college graduate to become so mentally distraught, that he would become a mass murder against is former collogues and their families? When first hearing about Christopher Dorner you almost began to feel empathy for his actions. Dorner stated in his manifesto, that he was unfairly fired, which sparked his rage against the LAPD. Dorners killing spree led to the death of three incent victims.
Because of Dorner’s past history of being a law-abiding citizen, it can be assumed that the reasons for this outrage was based upon some psychological problem. As stress and anger began to build up Dorner leading to bad choices. One theory to explain Dorner’s decisions is genera strain theory (Agnew, 1994). General strain theory states that as certain goals are blocked we begin to feel stressed, resulting in crime. Therefore, as Dorner’s goals in his career became repeatedly blocked, Dorner...

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...violent way.
While we will never know the true reasons behind Christopher Dorner’s plot and plans, we can use different theories to better understand why he committed such a terrible crime. Maybe the LAPD is a corrupt agency and maybe prior to the killings Dorner was innocent. We will honestly never know the truth, but one thing that we do know is Christopher Dorner was a stressed individual who had blocked goals. Because of the attributes that Dorner possessed he was more dangerous and keen than the average person. Christopher Dorner was also an individual who possessed very low self-control. During stressful situations most individuals can handle their stress in civil ways such as crying, slight irritation, or depressions. Dorner, instead could not control himself in a civil manner, and because of that went from being a law-abiding police officer to a killer.

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