From an outlook reflecting the classical view of criminology, or
rational choice conception, the following is from research entitled, Murder Mind Matrix, or why people kill other people. Briefly, a person kills because it serves their selfish carnal interests. In the long run, it's up to the criminal to alter his or her lifestyle and change the choices he or she makes. Criminal behavior has more to do with the willfulness of personal deception than what many might think society does to the criminal. Most often, like so many of the rest of us, criminals prefer to indulge in the justification of their own self-righteousness. Murder mindset is willful.
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| The Best of C-Murder (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Once again, if you pay close attention, you find a similar pattern of characteristics, regardless of their background, neighborhood or parental dynamics. Typically, like the immature juvenile who sees themselves as the center of the universe, the criminal enjoys lying, evading, and otherwise skimming over any facts that disagrees with his or hers. Often, we forget that the criminal is very calculating and in control of the pursuit of an illicit objective. Instead, there's a tendency to focus on the outcome of a particular incident and not the totality of the criminal personality involved. By doing this in a very narrow sense, people find it easier to explain why someone committed a crime as "impulsive" and "irrational". This of course is false.
Additionally, in similar fashion find excuses, there continue to be attempts with varied methods of social engineering, collectivist
thinking, medical intervention or human eugenics and "
social hygiene". Some would have us believe that to deal with
criminal behavior, we need a purely biological approach to provide answers. And yet, people are not entirely their physical nature alone. They also possess a complex psycho-dynamic ability to make choices, think freely and transform themselves.
Whatever the cover story or flirtation with
subjective validation, there's seems a regression into post-modern obsessions with reinventing the gross physicality of "atavistic" theories. What devolves is a foolishly self-indulgent endeavor. That is, it tends to proclaim criminality as predetermined by either the externality of hostile forces, or the rigidity of inherited traits. As in
behavioral "profiling", templates of "
serial killer" simplicity reek with sweeping generalizations, scarily close to racial prejudice.
As to another issue, there is no substantiation for any certainty in an ability to predict criminal behavior, or reveal the unknown killer by getting "inside the mind". Neither is it highly reliable to think one can interdict criminality based on statistical "profiles". Or, for that matter, supposed
theoretical constructs supported by limited interviews with murderers. Genetically prone criminality has yet to be substantiated by provable scientific evidence. And, what are you likely to get when you base your conjecture on input from criminals? Exactly, you confirm bias based on deception.
From the "
medical model" approach, or sometimes referred to as trait theories, there is a bio-social schematic that suggests there is an inheritance of predispositions toward deviance. Oh please, who believes that? Come on, there's no basis for that. As such, the extension of that perspective connects allegations of defect in one's genetic makeup. As precursors to criminal behavior, multitudes will mystically conjure all types of excusable justifications. In particular, the supposition is often proposed that this also means "anti-social" behavior as well and there might be a medical "cure". You could be born with it, the product of a "bad seed". Such specious notions begin to sound like old theories of "social hygiene". Or, worse yet, "eugenics" practiced in
Nazism.
Some researchers look for maladaptive psychological factors in the organic structure of the brain. To identify anti-social neurological explanations, a few point to the "neuro-science" of criminality, in order to "why" people do bad things. If so, then what do you do next, euthanasia? All too easily we jump to hasty conclusions about the provability of human motivations to be found within the secrets of DNA. Without much question, some theory laden ivory tower "practitioners" rush to embrace the killing inclinations of multi-murderers in the mystical instigations of some mysterious "crime gene".
A number of theoreticians in the expanse of pseudoscience desperately want to find a one-dimensional explanation, or "single factor" ingredient. And yet, humans remain a curious complexity of selfish proclivities. Antisocial intentions to violate the freedoms of other people remain layered within the depths of the perpetrator's privately premeditated self-interests. Egoistic manifestations are unique to the individual and apply to all of us. The idea of a criminal "predisposition" locked within the genetic code defies reliable verifiability and common sense. There are no definitive research findings to support scientifically any claim of precursor molecular explanations.
To describe a killer's motivational impetus to kill, as caused from a "genetic defect" or some other neural abnormality, is overly crude conjecture, lazy thinking and foolishly irresponsible to say the least. A criminal, particularly a killer, as all human beings, is rational, calculating and purposeful. It is investigative folly to think you can "profile" them or identify a medial justification for what they do to others. Curiously though, many continue to follow an atavistic conception of criminality but cloak the speculation with modern science. All too easily, mystery writers especially, fall prey to the myriad fallacies of inference about the so-called "serial killer".
Non-practitioners, who have never investigated violent criminality, promote myriad fallacies through inaccurate storytelling about murderers. Such mythology eventually gains a foothold in communal mysticism, because most people don't want to practice serious critical thinking. Like the arm chair "investigator" they want it simple, easy to understand, and woefully deficient in factuality. Once an opinion has made its way into a news article, talk show or publication, the inventive writer, or film maker, runs with the notion. Often, they're quick to accept questionable elucidations that sound good and proselytized by an alleged "expert" somewhere on the planet.
Many fiction writers, with no professional experience whatsoever in the criminal justice systems of the world, leap to hasty generalizations. They hurriedly embrace fanciful notions of one "silver bullet" theory or another. Unfortunately, silver bullets only work on werewolves in the movies. Meanwhile, wooden stakes through the heart kill vampires, and zombies have to be shot in the head. And yet, we like to think fiction thoroughly explains reality, which it doesn't, it's only entertainment. From a seasoned investigative perspective, steeped in the rationality of real-world experiences and learned maturity, one grows a cynical viewpoint of human beings.
With a healthy dose of skepticism built over time, some investigators accept a conception that people are devolving instead of evolving. That is, as opposed to ascension of humankind, with some notable exceptions, the opposite is taking place. Part of that means, as hope springs eternal; people will embrace the magical over the factual. A descent to a more primordial non-thinking uncritical existence appears to be willfully more acceptable. In terms of rationality, reasoning and logically deductive processes of thinking, many refute and avoid provability by factual scrutiny.
The human race is a curious artifact uniquely distinctive, separate and alone from any other species on the planet. What other life form enjoys killing for sport or entertainment purposes? What other species has a never ending hunger to consume more than it needs for basic survival necessities? It does not appear that another form of life, other than mankind, has a desire to accumulate for the sake of personal gain. Or, conduct oneself in diverse unscrupulous ways for the sake of personal amative satiation. For people, as far as what we know about animals, humans possess an infinite capacity for holding grudges, inflicting injuries out of anger, and building a passion for revenge.
Concepts of the indecent, the obscene and the immoral, along with the laws that define them, apply to people and not livestock. In fact, perhaps it ought to be a grave insult to the animal kingdom when we compare our behaviors to them. Who else in the name of religious extremism, superstition and mythology, would construct ghastly torture devices and techniques to kill off heresies? Captured, kidnapped and forcefully carried off, cruel killer's rape, skin alive and dismember their captives.
Some do their death experimentations in singular responses, with clever excuses and rationalizations, individually. Others maim and murder in the name of an ideology, state sanctioned cultic cause, or communal conformity. Through all our hypocrisy and arrogance, we have the gullible gall to claim we have found all the answers to what makes us tick. None the less, another question could be asked. What other living entity premeditates, cunningly plans and willfully executes with malice aforethought mass killings of genocidal proportions? Humans not only have a penchant for killing other humans, as well as animals and the environment, but also enjoy the taking of another's property. For selfish aggrandizement, people make their choices.
The means by which this is done runs the gambit from embezzlement, banking, the stock market, to robbery and the horrors of rape and murder. In the process of arrogantly bullying advancement of personal self-interests, some of the perpetrators nearly collapsed the global economy, and "murdered" a diversity of lifestyles. Yeah, killers come in many forms, with varied credentials, and divert their salacious excesses in divergent ways. But by contrast, from an investigative posture, many of us cling to some supernatural notion of deterministic fabrication. Fault, alibi and excuse comingle in the contrived mental copulation of excusatory communal complicities.
Most likely from closely held belief systems, on "faith" alone and typically of a religious nature, many prefer to believe conspiracies in the externality of the paranormal. That's what you get when you agree with the "devil made me do it" mentality. It's not your fault, it's always someone else to blame. Most often, that is the impetus behind asking "why" instead of "what", so you can blame the gods or demons.
From the basis of a logical and well-thought out inquiry, the skilled inquisitor goes beyond the status quo to deeper recesses of meaning. However, for so called average person, he or she does not easily accept more challenged thinking, as regards the nature of criminality. A majority take shortcuts to project the level of believability preferred. They do this, rather than pursue, with wisdom and understanding, experience and knowledge, testing and objective, the validation for a mature analysis.
Fictions replace facts with fantasies that become the means to self-gratification. Most desire wishful thinking for irrationality of emotional security, instead of the relentless pursuit of evidentiary necessity, and sufficiency of provability. A number of people relish in the collusive collectivism of slothful superficiality and hypocrisy. In the process, there is an acceptance of meager, naïve and unsophisticated explanations for the ruse of murderous mindsets, satisfied with quick "answers".
In general people freely choose to do what they do, whether in criminal complicities, tribal prejudices or social trickeries. While vast numbers of people resist change, especially in themselves, we can always count on our own degrees of deception. When one decides to contravene illicitly community sanctions, he or she makes a selfish choice to benefit him or her. The essence of criminality is in the mental faculties of the individual, self-invented and self-proclaimed, and not a reflection of society's shortcomings or its social diversities. We are accountable for all we say and do.
Yet, many of us labor foolishly in holding to the "divinity" for deterministic societal psychobabble, fused by the nebulous notions of one-dimensional estimations. Something or someone is always the scapegoat. What would be helpful in the exploration and description of the criminal nature, and particularly the murdering mind spectrum, is to avoid assuming the narrowness of personal perception. Those in the field of practitioner oriented criminology, who ought to know better, should focus on clarifying the internalities of bias for desired subjective validations.
Outside the criminological realm, the non-practitioner needs to do his or her research in very serious analytic ways. No one should take anything at face value and endeavor rigorously to investigate all the facts. Prove all alleged things claimed to be true, to really be the truth, or debunk them as not credible at all. And, we should control our own deception. We have to be cautious about the immediate salivation for confirming preconceived notions. Like the wannabe fiction writer, or movie maker, who's seduced by "serial killers", careful examination of reality is crucial.
Story tellers can be dangerous, like much of the news media, or the vast infotainment industry. Or, the "couch potato" theorist who should study the subject matter more inquisitively, before he or she opens his or her uninformed mouth. In lieu of relying on movies, news media, hearsay and novels for their information, people should apply rigorous reasoning processes supported by credible research.
We fool ourselves by pretending we know the unknowable, absolutely and without question. And yet, human behavior is more convoluted than a one hour murder mystery on television. Basically, we strive to comprehend what do you mean, how do you know, and where is the evidence? These are more significant than guessing about the "why" of any unusual event, like murder or multi-murders. Yes, murder is an unusual occurrence in that it represents less than one percent of the total crime index. In fact, the murder rate has been dropping for years, but we appear fixated on the more extreme forms.
The causative factors are not cosmically predetermined, instigated by the devil, or genetically triggered. On the contrary, murderous behaviors are extreme expressions of the complexity human selfishness. In the basic rubric of investigative fundamentals, the "who" begins the process of analyzing who had what to gain from the killing experience.
Along with who and what, where and when, with why and how, are the pathways to a rudimentary level of understanding the consciousness of choosing bad behaviors.
Regardless of all the "experts", you may never know the ultimate answers as to why one kills another. The killer will tell you what you want to know, and you'll believe what you need to believe. He or she keeps the rest buried deep inside. Overly credulous, mainstream criminality "explanations" remain reflective of primeval superstitions. Instead of demons, we now have the "crime gene" as excusatory predispositions for "biological" rationalizations in murderous mitigations.
