...Background The existence of serial killers – a single individual or a pair of accomplices who have committed three or more killings in between emotional cooling-off periods (Miller, 2014) – can be traced back to the beginning of human history. Nevertheless, many scholars of today have argued that social and cultural circumstances have led to a specific modern conceptualization and representation of serial killers in the Western world. One of the primary influencers shaping the notion of the serial killer is the mass media. The modern stereotyped depiction of serial killers is that they range between the ages of 20 to 40 and are typically white, single, heterosexual males (Haggerty, 2009). These common depictions of serial killers are presented...
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...People say many different things create serial killers, some believe society breaks them down, but others argue that mental illness is the only reason that these monsters turn to cruelty and insanity. Psychologists, criminologists, and scientists searched to answer the question of why serial killers commit these mass killings and how they became such violent humans. What is left are two ideas, are serial killers born with predetermined genes/mental illness that plays an integral part in creating their homicidal tendencies or do psycho killers become murderous through their surroundings and society as children? It is important to understand how killers become such vicious individuals in order to help stop the influences that cause these monster....
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...Abstract Many serial killers and mass murderers have been interviewed and tested to reveal why they killed and raped large groups of people. There are several factors as to why they perform such acts. My findings in this paper show that there is a logically explanation as to why they do what they do. In no way is killing or violence justified, but people have been through things we couldn’t imagine being put through. Many of these killers were put through harsh abuse physically, mentally, and emotionally which haunted them in their futures. This caused them to resolve their issues through inhumane ways. One who was put through sexual abuse became lust serial killers by wanting to rape the victims or sexually punish them. They want their victims to go through what they went through. Also, this paper shows that there are factors that deal with genes and the chromosomal make up that affects a person’s attitude causing them to be more aggressive than the average person. These killers have neurodevelopmental problems, troubled pasts, and mutations which lead to their motives to kill. “Young girls and mass murderers are tender hearted creatures”. This quote was stated by the author Pierre Lemaitre in his novel “Alex”. This line extracted from one of his crime based novels opens a lot of questions to an open mind with the focus on “tender hearted creatures”. One would assume any person can find a motive to kill. We watch television shows such as CSI or Criminal Minds thinking people...
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...WR-123 Research Paper NOT ALL MONSTERS ARE MAKE BELIEVE - A CASE STUDY ON THEODORE R. BUNDY What causes someone to become a serial killer? Is there something inherently evil about them that emerge as they age, or are they born that way? Do they become that way because of their upbringing? Most Psychologists feel that it is a combination of all these things that determine the psychosis exhibited by serial killers. (www.psychology.org/links) Psychologists have looked into the darkest recesses of human behavior, to try to figure out how and why people commit such gruesome and brutal atrocities against their fellow human beings. One of the best cases of documented psychopathic behavior is that of Theodore R. Bundy. On November 24, 1946 Theodore Robert Cowell (aka Ted Bundy) was born. His mother was a single young woman who decided the best course of action was to move back home to have her parents help her raise her son; as in the 40’s it was not acceptable for a young single woman to have a child out of wedlock. Until the age of four, Ted believed that his mother was his older sister, and grandparents were his mother and father. (Rule, A: The Stranger Beside Me) The signs that something was dreadfully wrong with Ted began to show themselves very early in his childhood. When Ted was barely three years old, one of his Aunt’s stayed the night with the family. The Aunt woke up in the early morning hours to find her young nephew Ted, lifting her blankets...
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...VOLUME EDITOR S. WALLER is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Montana State University Bozeman. Her areas of research are philosophy of neurology, philosophy of cognitive ethology (especially dolphins, wolves, and coyotes), and philosophy of mind, specifically the parts of the mind we disavow. SERIES EDITOR FRITZ ALLHOFF is an Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Department at Western Michigan University, as well as a Senior Research Fellow at the Australian National University’s Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics. In addition to editing the Philosophy for Everyone series, Allhoff is the volume editor or co-editor for several titles, including Wine & Philosophy (Wiley-Blackwell, 2007), Whiskey & Philosophy (with Marcus P. Adams, Wiley, 2009), and Food & Philosophy (with Dave Monroe,Wiley-Blackwell, 2007). P H I L O S O P H Y F O R E V E RYO N E Series editor: Fritz Allhoff Not so much a subject matter, philosophy is a way of thinking.Thinking not just about the Big Questions, but about little ones too.This series invites everyone to ponder things they care about, big or small, significant, serious … or just curious. Running & Philosophy: A Marathon for the Mind Edited by Michael W. Austin Wine & Philosophy: A Symposium on Thinking and Drinking Edited by Fritz Allhoff Food & Philosophy: Eat,Think and Be Merry Edited by Fritz Allhoff and Dave Monroe Beer & Philosophy: The Unexamined Beer Isn’t Worth Drinking Edited by Steven D. Hales Whiskey & Philosophy:...
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...Gary Leon Ridgeway Michel Marquez Keiser University 08/13/2013 Gary Leon Ridgeway Gary was a ruthless serial killer that targeted prostitutes in King County, Washington. In 1982 women stared disappearing around King County because of Gary Ridgeway but at the time the police had no idea who he was. The first young lady that Gary Ridgeway kidnapped and killed was 16 year old Wendy Lee Coffield. The police found her in a river called The Green River, since the police obviously did not know the name of the killer they began calling him The Green River Killer after finding the next four bodies in the same river. Gary Ridgeway would kidnap these females mostly prostitutes strangle them and then would drop them off in a variation of places but mostly in The Green River thus dubbed The Green River Killer. The King County police department had no way of knowing that Coffield (Gary’s first victim) represented the beginning of a savage killing spree that would last for years, with the majority of the murders occurring from 1982 through 1984. Gary was not very smart in school and witnessed his parents fighting occasionally. His childhood life was full of reasons that would point to why he ended up doing the things he did. Gary was born on February 18, 1949, in Salt Lake City, Utah, Gary he was the middle son of Mary Rita Steinman and Thomas Newton Ridgway. During his childhood he was a very poor student but did not appear to be out of the normal...
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...the word “serial killer” comes to mind, usually for me the name Ted Bundy is the one that dominates. Before Bundy was executed in 1989, he confessed to killing more that thirty women in almost a dozen states across the U.S. during his four year long string of murders in the 70s. “The thing that set Ted Bundy away from the serial killer’s stereo typical analysis is that he was such a mainstream All-American man that the Washington State Republican Party hired him, so cunning that he escaped from jail, twice, and so dashing that a woman friend used to send marriage proposals to him on death row.” (www.crimemageyine.com) If this man was such a moral citizen, what could have brought him to the torturous murders of those young women? What psychological explanation is given on his behalf? I feel that a child’s upbringing and their exposure to different things can also trigger certain urges. Usually, the profile of a serial killer tends to be white heterosexual males in their twenties or thirties. While it is impossible to predict who will become a serial killer, there are traits that appear to be similar in all killers. These behaviors include cruelty to animals, bedwetting, lying, stealing, cheating, alcohol and drug abuse, and a very high fascination for pornography. A lot of these traits are prominent in Ted Bundy’s character. An obvious one was he was white, he had a history of torturing animals and was often found reading his grandfather’s porn magazines. The biggest...
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...& Zimbardo, 2010). When you take psychology in college, it is to teach you how to understand how people are different and allow you to be non-judgmental. Being in the Navy, I feel that I developed the ability to be open-minded very early on in my career. This is because the military recruits people from all over the country, from the ghetto to the country club. I deal with all walks of life (race, religion, gender) on a daily basis. What I do not get to see in the Navy is people with mental disabilities and disorders. This course has taught me that approximately half of the populations of the United States have experienced or are experiencing some type of psychiatric disorder (Gerrig & Zimbardo, 2010). The average person looks down on someone with any type of disability. They usually label them as deviant when their disorder allows them to commit a crime. What people don’t understand is that some of these people cannot control what they are doing. The only way for them to satisfy an urge is to do what they are thinking about. An example of this would be a serial killer. Serial killers usually have an internal motive for killing repeatedly, whereas a murderer usually commits one crime for a very specific reason. Serial killers need to satisfy some urge, and they do that through killing. However, not all people that have unquenchable urges resort to killing. Even serial killers may stop killing by turning to some other form of “entertainment” as a substitute...
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... December 16, 2014 MKBA 101 T/F 9:00 – 10:30 Mr. Fajardo The Lovely Bones ALICE SEBOLD I. Element of Plot EXPOSITION Susie Salmon is just like every young girl. She goes to school, has a best friend, and a boy that she likes. George Harvey, a middle aged man, is her neighbor. George was always quite strange, but Susie and her family didn’t think of it much. He invites her into an underground den. The one he is going to kill her in. But Susie doesn’t know that. Susie thinks that Mr. Harvey is a nice man. She’s wrong. Jack Salmon is consumed with guilt after his daughter’s death, and will do anything to find the killer. Lindsey, Susie’s younger sister, helps him along the way. However, Len Fenerman, the detective, tries to work on the case by himself. Susie watches her family from up above, watching them experience grief, happiness, true love. She watches her friends grow up, become successful, and get married. She watches her first and only kiss, Ray Singh find another girl. Susie also watches George. She watches as he lies to the police, as he leaves town, and watches him as he slips off a mountain, plunging to his death. TIME The Lovely Bones begins on December 6, 1973, with Susie's brutal beating, rape, murder, and dismemberment by her Then novel ends in the spring or summer of 1984. Weaves backwards and forwards through time from the date of...
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...Criminals are born as such. Discuss: Five year old girl abducted, raped and murdered. It is headlines like this that often make newspaper headlines. When reading a headline such as this the question is often asked ‘How could a human being be capable of doing such a thing to another human being? Another headline may read ‘what led young people to riot?’ in reference to normal young people who took to the streets of London and broke into shops and set fire to pubs. There are many theories as to why people commit crimes. Are these crimes due to inherited predispositions? Are they a response to the strain of disjunction between goals and the means of achieving? Is this because they were written off as delinquents at school? Are these crimes a result of being labelled a murderer or a hooligan? Is the inequality in the capitalist world responsible for these people’s actions? This essay will look at biological, physiological and sociological perspectives to consider why people commit crimes. Deviance can be defined as behaviour that differs from the normal and is subjected to public disapproval. What is labelled as deviant is relative and will clearly differ between cultures. Similarly what is seen as deviant behaviour changes over time, it was once deviant to bear a child out of wed lock but over time it is now considered to be the norm. Lastly deviance is subjective depending on location for example it would be considered to be deviant to chant, shout and walk around topless at...
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...He wore a cotton button-down with the sleeves rolled neatly up over his biceps and had the cleanest cab I ever saw. He must seemed okay or I wouldn’t have gotten in the truck with him” (Veselka 38). Veselka’s detailed descriptions, proves how deceptive Rhoades can be. A man whose appearance masked his lack of credibility, purposely victimize women whose appearance lack credibility. Veselka’s raises awareness of the combined social neglect of the countless girls who vanished and gone unnoticed. She says, “This investigation of mine was a ghost story. The prism of Regina Walters, Shana Holts, and Lisa Pennal refracted into a set of icons-one with the shorn red-gold hair and an expression of resilience, and slightly crazy and ready to fight – each casting her own light, each hologram of girlhood” (53). By acknowledging them, Veselka also validates herself since they all share the same story....
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...stuff: • co-founder + CEO Buyosphere.com • been raising $$ for >1yr • raised $200k F&F • believed the hype • lived in SF for 4yrs • made a crapload of mistakes already • serial entrepreneur (but first startup) 1. focused on the ‘big picture’ too much the original* pitch deck *since 2008 when I put this deck together, I’ve done 75+ versions... “The hard part is to figure out the fewest possible features that could possibly accomplish your company’s goals.” Eric Ries The advantages of Minimum Viable Product (MVP) 1.test your assumptions 2.minimal wasted time/energy 3.iterative based on real customer needs The trouble with Minimum Viable Product (MVP) 1.it has to be viable 2.it has to be viable 3.it has to be viable key: build something your customers can use. what we did wrong: kept focusing on (our idea of) the final product and building minimum components of it rather than thinking about what our customers could really use. we were wandering lost in the sea of aimless builds with no data and no reason unfortunately, it took us a year and $200k to figure this out. fortunately, we’ve figured it out. 3 ways to figure out MVP 1. Think about the problem you want to solve and ask yourself: “Could I accomplish this on an email list?” Try it. On an email list. OR think about how people solve it currently. Can you hack that? 2. Talk to as many of your intended customers as possible and ask them for little things they really need. Build something...
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...Capella University September, 2013 Introduction There are always been violence in our world from ancient times when cavemen fought with tribes who came into their domain, the crusades in the 11-13 centuries, to the Iraq war in current days. At what point do we decide what violence is and is not, at what point do we decide what is better for our children to see, violence on television or video games and movies. We see in the news all the time reports about children shooting up schools, like Columbine, and Sandy Brook elementary. In both cases the media and video games were to blame for these tragedies, people have always been tied in their thoughts about why these things happen. At what point do we take responsibility for the way we raise our children? And at what point do we stop the media from depicting horrible images that may cause harm to our children? The Studies on Violence Several theoretical models describe the psychological mechanisms through which media violence can influence later behavior. Fundamentally, the psychological process all rely on learning. With repeated exposure to media violence, one can guess that one will be more aggressive. Many studies have been done the effects of media violence and videos games on the young human mind. Most of the studies done show that after time of playing violent video games many children’s aggressive side came out more. One study that was done showed that aggression could even arise 3-6 months later after...
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...give us potentials for example; two addicts will give birth to a potential addict. Our upbringings give us our values. Two thieves will probably raise another thief. Sometimes people want to make a change though, I strongly disagree with two thieves raising another thief, and because many people throughout history have risen out of the gutter they were born in, and even dedicated their lives to help others in the same situations. We certainly inherit traits from our parents, don’t get me wrong, but we have the possibility to choose the right way over the wrong as far as it is in our power. There is no such thing as people who are born badly. The monsters we hear about like serial killers, rapists, etc. are usually people with mental illnesses, or psychopaths. Have you ever thought about the fact that some highly respected people in our society are the biggest criminals of all? Agents of socialization Family is the most important agent of socialization in the U.S. Family is the part of the primary early years of socialization. Family had such a major impact on our families. It is from them that we get our ascribed status fit into gender roles, language, habits, beliefs, and values, and religion. School is another agent of socialization. In school we are treated as a group rather than an individual we learn many things there; how to...
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...Criticisms and Reforms – General Defences The current law regarding general defences is extremely unsatisfactory. There are numerous problems with both the definitions of the defences and their operations. The first defence I am going to discuss is insanity then followed by consent. * The definition of insanity is said to be “medically irrelevant” as the definition has not advanced since 1843, even though the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment received evidence from doctors that the definition regarding insanity was “obsolete and misleading” it is also particularly obscure as the rules do not distinguish between defendants who pose a danger to the public (the main purpose for the defence) and those who do not. Many would be shocked to see epilepsy and diabetes fall under insanity alongside with dangerous mental disorders. Lord Bramwell stated “the present lays down such a definition of madness that nobody is hardly ever mad enough to be within it.” The Law Commission recommended for diminished responsibility that a reform should be made and that the definition should be modernised to take into account advances in medicine and psychiatry. They proposed the term ‘recognised medical conditions’ should be used as it is more flexible and allows room for medical developments. I believe that both of these reforms for diminished responsibility should be used and also applied for insanity. I believe it will help improve the current law as it will be much more flexible allowing...
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