homicide Flashcards
defining homicide in canada:
Culpable, non-culpable
Non-culpable
–> Justified force
–> Self defense
Culpable
Murder
–> First degree
-Planned and deliberate
-Killing a peace officer
-During the commission of certain crimes
–> Second degree
-Manslaughter
-Infanticide
National inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women and girls
Non-reliable reports on numbers
Incomplete RCMP reports
No info on causes
Indigenous men are not responsible for these numbers
Indigenous communities are underpointed and under-resources
Police investigators are indifferent to these missing and murdered women cases
Personality typologies for reactive aggression
Overcontrolled offender
–> Rigid behavioural inhibition system
–> Suppress emotions until they explode
Undercontrolled offender
–> Quick to temper, low frustration tolerance, uninhibited aggressive behaviour
–> Long history of violent assaultive behaviour
Excitation transfer theory
Preexisting arousal
Angered by initial event
Can’t respond to initial event
Secondary event irritation
Respond to secondary event
Increases likelihood of aggression
Anger from first event transferred to secondary event
Response to secondary event disproportionate
Displaced aggression
Initial aggravating event → inability to respond → rumination → secondary event or target → anger from initial event displaced to secondary target
Frustration-aggression hypothesis
Component of Berkowitz’s Cognitive Neoassociation Model
Frustration: aversive internal state of arousal that occurs when someone is blocked from attaining an expected goal
Frustration and modeling required for criminal behaviour
Berkowitz’s neoassociation model
Frustration + aversive events = aggression
phase 1: automatic associative process
Negative affect triggers flight or fight response
Flight response associated w/ aggression
Phase 2: deeper cognitive processing occurs
Can explain reactive violence
General aggression model
Combination of social information processing, cognitive neoassociation excitation transfer, and elements of learning theories
Violence is a product of distal and proximate factors
Person and situation factors affect arousal, affect, and cognition
Factors immediately appraised and possibly reappraised
Distal causes and processes
Biological modifiers + environmental modifiers → personality
Multiple murder
Serial murder: 2+ victims → different times → location may or may not be the same
Mass murder: 4+ victims → same time → same location
Spree murder: 3+ victims → same time → different location
Victim selection
Availability
Victim lifestyle
transient/marginalized lifestyle preferred
Vulnerability
Victim susceptibility to attack
Viewed as easy prey
Desirability
Appeal of victim to the offender
Sexual motivations common
Offending characteristics
Planned offense
Often sexually predatory
Kill strangers
Hands-on killing
Planned body disposal
Preferred geographic location
Modus operandi typology
Hunter → geographically stable
Poacher → transient
Troller → random encounters
Trapper → creates situations
Serial killer Motivation typology
Visionary serial killer
-Psychotic disorder
-Believe killing can prevent tragedies
mission -oriented serial killer
-Targets victims based on nan agenda
-Believe they are responsible for improving society
Hedonic serial killer
-Thrill and enjoyment from killing
-Lust killers sexually aroused by sadistic violence
-Creature-of-comfort commits murder for financial gain
Power-oriented serial killer
-Derive power and enjoyment from life-or-death control
Female serial killers
More likely to kill smo they are acquainted with
Husbands, suitors
Elderly, children
Patients
Active longer than males
Primarily murder for material or monetary gain
Common method of killing is poison or pills
Half has male accomplice
Etiology of serial killing
Macdonald triad: fire-setting, cruelty to animals, enuresis (bed-wetting)
Family dysfunction, abuse deprivations
Serial killing careers begin between ages of 24-40
No juvenile record
Criminal record not violent
Likely have ASPD or psychopathy
Likes crimes that attract media attention
Hickey’s trauma-control model
Predispositional factors: bio, socio, psycho, or a combo
Traumatics events:
-Adversely affect maturation and personality
-Unstable home, abuse
-Compromised social skills
Trauma reinforcement
-Inability to cope with problematic but routine life events
-Retreats into internal fantasy world
Low self-esteem/ fantasies
-Trauma events foster feelings of inadequacy, self doubt, low self-esteem
-Fantasy and daydreaming substitute for social relationships
Increasingly violent fantasies
-Developed through trauma, fantasy, dissociation, trauma reinforces, and facilitators
Dissociation
-Unable to confront trauma
-Distorted perception of self
-Constructs alter-ego
-Splitting off/blocking out - inability to receive details of traumatic events
Facilitators
-Include alcohol, drugs, pornography
-Addiction to facilitators desensitizes offender to graphic content
Homicidal behav
-Act of violence is an attempt to satisfy offenders degrading fantasies
Mass murder profile (public shooters)
Young white men
Lone wolves
Grandiose aspirations of fame
No criminal record of psychiatric treatment
Believe their personal lives are a failure
Active interest in guns
Active on social media
Public mass murder
Carefully planned
Carried out calmly and systematically (determined to accomplish mission)
Targets are symbolic or blamed for shooter’s misfortune
Plan to die during the offense or suicide by cop
Mass murder typology
Revenge
Get even with certain groups
Murder by proxy
Power
Enjoy the fear they cause
goes with revenge
Loyalty
Save loved ones from hardship
Family massacres
Profit
Eliminate victims or witnesses
Drug wars and organized crime
Terror
Send a message
Profile of a school shooter
Peer rejection
Ongoing pattern of bullying and ostracism
Social rejection
Poor social and coping skills
Psychological problems
-Low impulse control
-Lack of empathy
-Depression, aggression, antisocial behaviour
-Thoughts of suicide
Interest in guns or explosives
Morbid fascination with death
-Not bothered by brutality or sadism
-Cruelty to animals in 50% of school shooters
Traumatized
-Developmental risk factors
Psychotic
-Serious mental health problems
Psychopathic
-Symptoms akin to psychopathy
Leakage
(saying out loud of intending to shoot up the school)
Violent intentions of assailants almost always made known beforehand to peers
Peers rarely reported these threats
Cults
Self appointed, charismatic, and dominating leader who claims to have special knowledge or powers
Leader exerts authoritarian control over followers to shift their behav, thoughts, and ideologies
Coordinated program of persuasion designed to control others
Uses techniques including coercive persuasion, isolation and love bombing
Disciple mass killer
Mass murderer who kills as a result of their relationship to a person ordering those murders
Foot-in-the-door technique convinces someone to fulfill an extreme request by starting small
Requirement of effort and sacrifice may trigger cognitive dissonance (change beliefs to minimize inconsistency
