Sociology of Murder

Leaders and followers

°Leaders are often able to convince others that they have supreme, sometimes supernatural wisdom. -Religious doctrines sometimes employed. -Even the leader themselves can be convinced of talents.

Strain Theory

-"People feel strain when they are exposed to cultural goals that they are unable to obtain because they do not have access to culturally approved means of achieving these goals." Four important Sources of Strain 1. Presence negative stimuli 2. Removal of positive stimuli 3. Relative depravation 4. Failure to achieved desired goals

Why do people join a cult?

--Fullfill certain needs --Vulnerable position --Life stressors -During temporary periods of high stress, loss or vulnerability. -Someone who point out how to deal with problems can have strong influences. -Once an individual joins a group, there are strong pressures to conform.

Medical Murder Esitmates

-500-1,000 deaths per year. Often choosing vulnerable populations. -54% of health care killers are female. Poison

Discovering Medical Murder

-Can take years before crimes are discovered. -Why? -Hard to tell just how many actually occur each year. -Occurring in multiple settings

Hero ::)

-Crave attention -Create life or death emergencies -Love praise and admiration they receive from coworkers and families. -May not intend to kill victims -Genene Jones

Mass Suicide / Homicide?

-Fine line between mass suicide as mass homicide. -Should individuals under control or duress be held to the same responsibility as the leaders? -Are they capable of making decisions about their own lives. -Manson Women.

Social Disorganization Theory

-Focus on factors that weaken communities. -Mobility -Heterogeneity -Poverty --Doesn't explain murders committed by middle and upperclassmen offenders. -Relatives deprivation vs. absolute deprivation. --Downward mobility.

Medical Murder

-Includes nurses, doctors, nurses aides, emergency medical technicians, nursing home aides, and other medical professionals who intentionally kill their patients to satisfy a variety of personal desires and psycholgical needs. -Can also include individuals using their position to earn money or because they believe they are stopping someone from their pain and suffering. -Often Serial in nature. -Not a new phenomenon.

Recruit or Perish

-New religious organizations are usually not established enough to pass on beliefs from one generation to the next. -Forced to recruit from non-believers or one group altogether. -Pressure for deception and brainwashing. -Force extreme dependency and abandonment of outside.

Satonic cult

-Often suffer from mood disorders, -Vampire Clan -Cults often recruit college students. -Powers of the internet.

Dangerous Cults

-Some recruit in deceptive ways. -Methods of mind control or thought reform. -Often require members of become totally dependent on the group leader. -Often require members to become dependent on the go up leader. -Claims to have special gift or talent.

Appeal of Cults

-Usually comes more attractive to society at large during periods of rapid social change. -Credibility of traditional institutions diminished. -Many appear at the end of the century -Y2k

VICAP

-Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. -Database for the collection of information pertaining to unsolved homicides. -Helps flag similarities between cases. Problems -Requires cooperation from law enforcement. -Only three states (Alaska, NY and New Jersey) mandate it. - Killers who vary their targets or methods go unnoticed.

Social Learning Theory

-We learn to be violent through rewards and punishments, as well as through role models. -People learn attitudes and techniques in both social and non-social situations through positive and negative reinforcement. -Behavior is learned through imitation. -Using violence to gain respect and frighten others as well as bond with others.

Why do they kill?

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School is an extremely safe place for kids.

1 in 2-million chance that a school-aged child will be murdered at school. Reprecussions I feel it happening just once.

National Youth Gang Survey in 2012.

30,700 gang members

Gangs provide

An alternative socializing mechanism. Source of excitement. Source of economic resources. Access to advancement.

Cultural Deviance

Criminal are obeying the norms they are taught. -Violent behavior, including murder, is appropriate and oftentimes, rewarded. -Homicide offenders have learned values and beliefs that promote use of violence. -Doesn't take into account other cultural aspects. -Poverty -Income inequality -Racial Segregation -Gun ownership

Death Penalty and Race

Currently more whites sentenced to death. -The Innocence Project

Margaret Singer (Cult specialist)

Defines dangerous cults based on characteristics of leader, relationships, and persuasion methods. 1.Authoritarian leaders who claim a special message or knowledge. 2.Charismatic, dominant leadership style. 3. Leaders claim to total allegiance 4.Claims to an innovative and exclusive answered individual and societal problems. 5.An "ends justifies he means" logic that justifies manipulation of outsiders. 6.Totalistic ideological and behavioral control over members. 7.Major transformation of lifestyle.

Degrees of Murder

Degrees of Murder 1st - killing must be contemplated ahead of the act itself. Not spontaneous. --Extreme and brutal homicides. --Scott Peterson °2nd - Contains Malice beforehand, but there is not premeditation. -Expressed malice: One person kills without provocation. -Implied Malice: Negligence on the part lot the killer. -Phil Spector °Manslaughter -Killing of another without Malice or intent to do harm. -Voluntary: When someone kills without Malice, but with the intention to. Involuntary -Kills without Malice, but with an element of Negligence, or negligent behavior. (Driving drunk) -Conrad Murray

Code of the Streets

Elijah Anderson and DeShawn Davis.

Routine Activities Theory

In order for a crime to occur you need 3 things to converge in time and space. 1. A motivated offender 2.A suitable target 3. Lack of capable guardianship.

Crack Cocaine

In the mid 1980s crack cocaine became a popular street drug. Crack presented a lot of problems both pharmaceutically and socially. Very high demand. Youth were targeted because they were less likely to be given a heavy sentence.

Co Op of Youth Homicide.

Individuals tend to act differently in groups than they do on their own. Peer pressure can encourage youth to act violently. Can result from a group leader feeling good about others following their lead. Followers can feel good about the praise might receive. Teenagers murderers are more likely to commit homicide with no accomplice. Percentage of juvenile murders involving 2+ people is grown over the last 30 years. Mob mentality. Shared misunderstandings.

NSSC

It occurs on the property of a public or private k-12 school. While a student is on the way to or from a school sponsored event. As the obvious direct result of a school incident, function, or activity. Problems with this data. Include a lot of incidents people people might not consider school homicide. Leaves out colleges and shootings that don't result in death.

School day presents risk factors?

Large groups to congregating can create hostility. Feelings of inadequacy, anxiety, fear, rejection, and boredom. Less than 1 victim per 100,000 students is a victim of school homicide.

Cult

Loosely structured and unconventional form or religious group, whose members are held together by a charismatic leader who mobilizes their loyalty around some new religious cause. -Usually at odds with more conventional religious institutions. -Can be benign or dangous

Age

Majority of crime occurs between the ages of 16-25.

James Fooger

Media makes it seem like it happens more often it actually does

School Violence

Murder rates over time homicide rates have gone down.

Jim Jones

Religious leader of People's Church. -Born in Indiana and shadowed religious leader. -Adopted Children. -Moved around and eventually settled in California. -Jonestown was being created in Guyana. -Convicted of sexual abuse and fled with 1,000 members to Guyana. -Congressmen Leo Ryan went with some concerned relatives was attacked by being shot down inside the airplane. -White night and mass suicide by flavor-aid with cyanide and sedatives. -Children forced to drink with syringes. -909 1/3 children died. -Jim Jones killed himself by gun. -Father ignored him. -Stephen Jones (Son) survived.

Single Victim Incidents

Single victim incidents typically do not make national news.

Theories with Youth Homicide

Social Learning Theory

Risk of School Violence

The number of school homicide incidents were much lower in the 2000s than in the 1990s. Despite the falling homicide rate in the rate in the late 1990s, with wide media coverage of school shootings changed Americans perspective. Most school homicides incidents are single-victim/non-mainstream murder events., James Lamount Bagley.

Power Killer

Works the night shift. -Able to kill over long periods of time. -Opportunity to decide who lives and dies. -Typically obscure and quiet crimes. -Charles Cullin