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Crime

Learning to Kill: Contract, Serial, and Terroristic Homicide (From Shocking Violence II: Violent Disaster, War, and Terrorism Affecting Our Youth

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The majority of homicides are spontaneous acts with a smaller number of homicides not of the spontaneous or unplanned type. These are planned and sometimes highly planned. In this chapter, three different types of homicide, where the offender not only plans the crimes, but frequently studies methods to kill in order to perfect the technique are reviewed: the contract murder, serial murder, and terroristic murder. The contract murderer is an individual who is hired to take the life of another person, with the majority of contract murders carried out by amateurs acting for a specific gainful purpose. Serial murder is viewed as sexually motivated and basically a subtype sexual homicide. Sexual homicide becomes serial when multiple victims are involved, usually in multiple locations. The terroristic murderer is not seeking sexual gratification or money, but rather the killings are motivated by political philosophy or extreme religious doctrine. All three of these types of homicide have been present...

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Framing Homicide Narratives in Newspapers: Mediated Witness and the Construction of Virtual Victimhood

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This article identifies ways in which newspapers invite readers to identify with victims and victimhood as a route to engaging them in ‘human interest’ stories. Within this framing of homicide for readers as ‘mediated witness’, some of the authorial techniques are explored whereby newspapers engage readers in a stylized dialogue that contributes to the construction of public narratives about homicide. It is argued that researchers, as well as working at a macro level, need to research at the micro level of textual analysis when researching media (including visual media) in order to understand the framing that contributes to public narratives; hence there is analysis of techniques of (a) defamiliarization and (b) objectification of homicide victims. These are some of the means by which the reader is placed as witness, both apparently ‘experiencing’ crime for personal consumption yet, publicly, allowed to recover (unlike real victims of major crime). The recognition of a need for...

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Confidential Informant

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There are basically two types of police investigation, reactive and proactive. In the former, a crime is reported to the police and an investigation is initiated; in the latter, police uncover or seek out the criminal activity. Each is concerned with identifying and arresting the perpetrator of a criminal act. In order to identify and obtain evidence against persons involved in criminal activity, the police often use confidential informants. Both types of investigation require the securing of information that comes from within a criminal esubculture. Within this criminal subculture, deals are made, plans for the future as well as past and present crimes are openly discussed, and a general wealth of criminal intelligence is exchanged. The confidential informant, therefore, becomes the ideal tool for penetrating their criminal subculture. Detectives have their own personal cultivated sources as well as registered confidential informants. Informants have various motives for giving information...

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Informants & Whistleblowers

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Criminals are sometimes the best people to use to catch other criminals. However, CFEs should follow the important rules when using and managing informants, whistleblowers and cooperating defendants to avoid sabotaging their cases.

This article is excerpted and adapted from “Faces of Fraud: Cases and Lessons from a Life Fighting Fraudsters,” by Martin T. Biegelman, published by John Wiley & Sons Inc. © 2013 used with permission.

No one knows the faces of fraud better than those people intimately involved in misconduct, whether as willing participants or eyewitnesses to wrongdoing. Experience teaches us that fraud is often uncovered and reported by people with inside knowledge, including employees, vendors and customers. The longtime administrative assistant or bookkeeper who has been with the company for ages may know where all the “bodies are buried,” and if given the opportunity will provide valuable information to an all-too-willing-to-listen federal agent, prosecutor or news reporter....

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Crime and Demography: Multiple Linkages, Reciprocal Relations

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Individual demographic characteristics and aggregate population processes are central to many theoretical perspectives and empirical models of criminal behavior. Recent research underscores the importance of criminal and deviant behavior for understanding the demography of the life course and macrolevel population processes. We review research that explores the multiple linkages and reciprocal relations between criminal and demographic behavior at both microsocial and macrosocial levels. In reviewing research on how demography affects crime, we describe current debates over the impact of age, sex, and race on criminal behavior, and we distinguish between compositional and contextual effects of demographic structure on aggregate crime rates. Our review of how crime affects demography focuses on the intersection of criminal and demographic events in the life course, and the influence of criminal victimization and aggregate crime rates on residential mobility, migration, and population redistribution. Directions for future research on the many linkages between criminal and demographic behavior are discussed....

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The Influence Of Social And Political Violence On The Risk Of Pregnancy Complications.

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Abstract

BACKGROUND. Events in Chile provided an opportunity to evaluate health effects associated with exposure to high levels of social and political violence.

METHODS. Neighborhoods in Santiago, Chile, were mapped for occurrences of sociopolitical violence during 1985-86, such as bomb threats, military presence, undercover surveillance, and political demonstrations. Six health centers providing prenatal care were then chosen at random: three from "high-violence" and three from "low-violence" neighborhoods. The 161 healthy, pregnant women due to deliver between August 1 and September 7, 1986, who attended these health centers were interviewed twice about their living conditions. Pregnancy complications and labor/delivery information were subsequently obtained from clinic and hospital records.

RESULTS. Women living in the high-violence neighborhoods were significantly more likely to experience pregnancy complications than women living in lower violence neighborhoods (OR = 5.0; 95% CI = 1.9-12.6; p less than 0.01). Residence in a high-violence neighborhood was the strongest risk factor observed; results persisted after controlling...

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Longitudinal Examination of the Relation Between Co-Offending With Violent Accomplices and Violent Crime

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The study tested whether violence "spreads" from violent offenders to those inexperienced in violence. Data for the study were originally collected from "Delinquent Networks in Philadelphia: Co-Offending and Gangs." The random sample of offenders was identified through random selection from all official records of arrest (n=60,821) for offenders under age 18 in Philadelphia during 1987. A random number generator was used to pull names of arrested people until 200 offenders who committed a crime alone and 200 offenders who committed a crime with an accomplice had been identified. All crimes committed by offenders between January 1976 to December 1994 were reviewed. The sample for the current study included 235 subjects from the original sample of 400. Members of the accomplice sample included only those 510 co-offenders involved in the target offenders' first co-offense. Crime data for the target offenders and the identifiable accomplices were collected from Philadelphia court records...

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Crime Reduction Through Simulation: An Agent-Based Model Of Burglary

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Traditionally, researchers have employed statistical methods to model crime. However, these approaches are limited by being unable to model individual actions and behaviour. Brantingham and Brantingham (1993) described that in their opinion a useful and productive model for simulating crime would have the ability to model the occurrence of crime and the motivations behind it both temporally and spatially. This paper presents the construction and application of an agent-based model (ABM) for simulating occurrences of residential burglary at an individual level. It presents a novel framework that allows both human and environmental factors to be simulated. Although other agent-based models of crime do exist, this research represents the first working example of integrating a behavioural framework into an ABM for the simulation of crime. An artificial city, loosely based on the real city of Leeds, UK, and an artificial population were constructed, and experiments were run to...

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Association Of Criminal Convictions Between Family Members: Effects Of Siblings, Fathers And Mothers

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Crime runs in families. Previous research has shown the existence of intergenerational transmission of criminal behaviour. The aim of the present study was to investigate the extent to which variation in criminal convictions may be explained by the criminality of siblings and by the intergenerational transmission of criminal behaviour. Data from the Dutch Criminal Career and Life-course Study (CCLS) were used to analyse cross-tabulations and to conduct multi-level logistic regression analyses. The results indicate that criminal convictions of other family members are indeed correlated with individual conviction risk. The criminal history of siblings is most strongly correlated with the convictions of focal respondents. Results furthermore show that parental convictions only account modestly for the association of criminal convictions between siblings. These findings indicate that a direct influence between siblings is plausible, providing support for learning or imitation theories...

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The Seven-Stage Hate Model: The Psychopathology of Hate

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Hate masks personal insecurities. Not all insecure people are haters, but all haters are insecure people. Hate elevates the hater above the hated. Haters cannot stop hating without exposing their personal insecurities. Haters can only stop hating when they face their insecurities.

Stage 1: The Haters Gather

Haters rarely hate alone. They feel compelled, almost driven, to entreat others to hate as they do. Peer validation bolsters a sense of self-worth and, at the same time, prevents introspection, which reveals personal insecurities. Individuals who are otherwise ineffective become empowered when they join groups, which also provide anonymity and diminished accountability.

Stage 2: The Hate Group Defines Itself

Hate groups form identities through symbols, rituals, and mythologies, which enhance the members' status and, at the same time, degrade the object of their hate. For example, skinhead groups may adopt the swastika, the iron cross, the Confederate flag, and other supremacist symbols...

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Sadism and Masochism: The Psychology of Hatred and Cruelty

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These are among the most recent volumes in a series now being issued in English by Horace Liveright. Stekel is generally recognized as a disciple of Freud who has gone far beyond Freud himself, as well as other followers of the great psychologist, in his methods and in the extent of his practice. He is recognized as perhaps more romantic than scientific. In these two volumes he is largely concerned with the relationships of hatred and cruelty to psychologic reactions. It has been known since these subjects were popularized by Havelock Ellis that there is a clear relationship between the sex element and both the infliction and the enjoyment of cruelty. Dr. Stekel makes this clear by the recital of numerous cases from his practice and from psychosexual literature. His manner of presentation is such as to make almost anything he writes most interesting....

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Super Controllers And Crime Prevention: A Routine Activity Explanation Of Crime Prevention Success And Failure

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Why does crime prevention fail? And under what conditions does it succeed? Routine Activity Theory provides the foundation for understanding crime and its patterns by focusing on variations in the convergence of offenders, targets and controllers in space and time. But Routine Activity Theory does not provide a full understanding of why the controllers may be absent or ineffective. This article expands Routine Activity Theory to explain controllers. It claims that the behaviors of controllers can be understood in the context of their relationship with super controllers – those who regulate controllers’ incentives to prevent crime. The article lists and describes types of super controllers. Drawing on a rational choice perspective and Situational Crime Prevention, the article examines the methods super controllers use to regulate the conduct of controllers. Examples are used throughout to illustrate specific points and to show the...

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Racial Composition Of Neighborhood And Fear Of Crime

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A relationship between fear of crime and the racial composition of place has been widely assumed but seldom tested. Interviews conducted with a random sample of adults residing in a major state capital in the early months of 1994-at the height of a media-driven panic about violent crime-are used to test the proposition that as the percentage of blacks in one's neighborhood increases, so too will the fear of crime. We use objective and perceptual measures of racial composition, and we examine the effects of racial composition and minority status on fear of crime for black and white respondents. We distinguish between perceived safety or risk of victimization and fear, with the former used as an intervening variable in path models of fear of crime. Results show that actual racial composition has no consequence for the fear of crime when other relevant factors are controlled...

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Extreme Hatred: Revisiting the Hate Crime and Terrorism Relationship to Determine Whether They Are “Close Cousins” or “Distant Relatives”

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Existing literature demonstrates disagreement over the relationship between hate crime and terrorism with some calling them “close cousins,” whereas others declare them “distant relatives.” We extend previous research by capturing a middle ground between hate crime and terrorism: extremist hate crime. We conduct negative binomial regressions to examine hate crime by non-extremists, fatal hate crime by far-rightists, and terrorism in U.S. counties (1992-2012). Results show that counties experiencing increases in general hate crime, far-right hate crime, and non-right-wing terrorism see associated increases in far-right hate crime, far-right terrorism, and far-right hate crime, . We conclude that hate crime and terrorism may be more akin to close cousins than distant relatives.

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