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Which are the factors that influence a minor to commit serial murders? Forensic Science Club

By 4 Mins Read
cropped view of killer washing knife in sink after murder

Friends of the Forensic Science Club, this week we present the paper “Youth Serial Killers: Psychological and Criminological Profiles”, by García-Baamonde, M. E.; Blázquez-Alonso, M.; Moreno-Manso, J. M.; Guerrero-Barona, E. and Guerrero-Molina, M. (2022), in which authors make a revision of previous literature on youth that has committed serial murders, to know some interesting data to elaborate their criminal profiles. 

The phenomenon of serial murders occupies a unique place in the field of criminology, but also in the criminal justice system, especially when the perpetrators of these and other types of violent crimes are minors.

In addition, there is a great lack of understanding of the phenomenon of serial murders. The issue is surrounded by great media sensationalism that always arises around the question of whether serial killers are born or made.

On the other hand, there are many media that classify those who commit these crimes as “monsters” or “demons”, this being one more part of the media circus that surrounds these cases both at the judicial and social levels. This contributes and feeds the collective mentality influenced by the media that does not skimp on giving details about the crimes and that, sometimes, can even turn the perpetrators into celebrities.

In order to gain a better understanding of the phenomenon of serial murders, their extent and seriousness, and focusing on those committed by young people, authors carried out a review of the literature on the topic. 

Authors consider that legal and social problems do not occur only in cases in which young people or minors commit serial murders, but since they commit violent crimes.

Despite the terminology often used by the media, young offenders are not monsters or beasts, and often have no criminal record.

Sometimes these first crimes take place because they cannot refuse peer pressure. Normally, there will usually be an explanation.

One thing that strikes the authors, and is of particular concern to them, is that since the mid-1980s and around the early 1990s, there has been an unprecedented growth in youth homicides. The data suggests that young people are currently involved in more crimes than previous generations.

The most common case is these young people belonging to street gangs, a very particular criminal phenomenon, since it has specific variables that make it different from the rest of juvenile delinquency.

Based on these data, the psychosocial and criminological profile of young people who commit homicides is not comparable to the criminal profile of common murderers. 

It should also be mentioned that cases of serial killers where the perpetrators are children or young people are, of course, much less frequent than cases of adults.

Some of these young people come from broken families where they are not able to acquire a stable personality. Thus, they continually seek to satisfy their desires through fantasies of domination and control.

Similarly, some may have experienced physical, sexual and emotional abuse, often simultaneously.

Research on the impact of child maltreatment on violent behavior has shown that maltreatment and exposure to violence, in any form, is an important predictor of criminal behavior.

On the other hand, psychopathy appears, which we all know, and which generates serious problems in the affective, interpersonal and behavioral dimension of humans, so much that psychopaths can victimize others without their ethical awareness being affected.

Many features of psychopathy begin to emerge in childhood and can be more or less easily identified, as well as in adolescence and young adulthood. For this reason, attention should be paid to minors who experience risk factors such as mental health problems, problems in their upbringing, a history of substance abuse, very intense impulsiveness, emotional instability, total absence of guilt, etc.

This article has some limitations. For example, there is a low prevalence of juvenile serial killers, which makes it difficult to study these specific cases, so the analysis should be taken with caution.

However, despite the limitations, the original article underlines the importance of some psychosocial factors for a better understanding of the process by minors who end up committing crimes as serious as serial murders.

If you want to know more about the criminal mind, criminal profiling, and forensic science, don’t miss our Certificate in Criminal Profiling, a 100% online program certified by Heritage University (USA), with special grants for the Forensic Science Club readers.

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In Criminology

Radicalization in adolescence: what kind of young people are the most vulnerable? Forensic Science Club

By 4 Mins Read

Friends of the Forensic Science Club, this week we present the paper “Radicalization in Adolescence: the Identification of Vulnerable Groups”, by Schröder, C. P.; Bruns, J.; Lehmann, L.; Goede, L. R.; Bliesener, T. and Tomczyk, S. (2022), in which authors carry out a study to identify the risk factors of radicalization in young people. 

One of the issues that has most concerned criminal experts in recent years has been that of violent radicalization.

This is understood as a process that begins early in life and that can lead to extremism, including terrorist acts. It is characterized by the complex interaction of many individual and social factors, and is manifested in different ideas, attitudes and behaviors.

Since the beginnings of radicalization are often observed at young ages, many experts have focused their analysis and work on adolescents. In addition, adolescents are the group that is most interesting to study, because they are at a special stage in their development, since it is in adolescence when people are more vulnerable.

From an evolutionary perspective, adolescence represents a particularly relevant period for the development of identity, as well as a series of norms and a value system.

Adolescents are, therefore, especially vulnerable because they also begin to seek to belong to a group, obtain recognition and thus strengthen their identity. All this happens when they are 14-16 years.

They also tend to seek adventures, emotions, provocations… And these years are also especially relevant for political socialization and the development of related attitudes that generally remain stable throughout life.

Therefore, there are many risk factors related to radicalization that play an important role in this stage of life.

Many theoretical models and empirical studies on radicalization have focused on extremist Islamism because jihadist terrorism has been the greatest terrorist threat to Europe in recent years. However, it is closely followed by far-right terrorism.

Right-wing extremism is therefore a very important social problem and represents a great threat to minorities as well as to democracy itself. Far-right ideologies are often behind hate crimes, which are highly problematic because they are a consequence of ideologies of inequality, exclusion and violence, representing anti-Semitic, xenophobic, homophobic or sexist attitudes, among others.

The objective of this article is, therefore, to analyze this type of extremism by examining the conditions of origin and other associated risk factors.

What happens is that, to capture the complexity of attitude patterns, statistical analyzes are not enough. Experts support the idea of using people-centered methods, which would be more helpful. For example, latent class analyzes can examine the different “constellations” of xenophobic or anti-Semitic attitudes within a population.

The authors’ study focuses, therefore, on the far-right attitudes of a sample of adolescents, using a latent class analysis.

A total of 6,335 young people aged between 13 and 19 participated in it, although the vast majority were between 14 and 15.

The basis of the study was a quantitative online questionnaire that lasted approximately 90 minutes, which included questions about various topics; for example, political attitudes, religion, social environment, leisure activities, online activities, etc.

More than half of the adolescents in the sample belonged to a class (or group) characterized by strong disagreement with all attitudes related to the extreme right.

However, the group labeled as “the extremists” (that is, the people who did show extreme right-wing attitudes) showed some characteristics: the vast majority were predominantly male and had very high feelings of social deprivation. This would be consistent with some previous research. Strong feelings of political deprivation and a tendency toward violent crime also appeared for this class.

The “anti-authoritarian” group was characterized by very low levels of political deprivation and very little propensity for violent crime.

These ideas lead us to understand that prevention approaches that target all groups are not effective, since each one has its own special needs.

It seems necessary, therefore, to have different prevention objectives for specific groups, in addition to taking into account the gender problematic, since it has been seen that young men are at greater risk.

If you want to know more about the criminal mind, criminal profiling, and forensic science, don’t miss our Certificate in Criminal Profiling, a 100% online program certified by Heritage University (USA), with special grants for the Forensic Science Club readers.

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In Psychology

Mental health and criminality: how do anxiety and depression affect teenagers’ lives? Forensic Sciences Club

By 4 Mins Read

Friends of the Forensic Sciences Club, this week we present the paper “Characterizing trajectories of anxiety, depression, and criminal offending in male adolescents over the 5 year following their first arrest”, by Baker, A. E.; Padgaonkar, N. T.; Galván, A.; Frick, P. J.; Steinberg, L. and Cauffman, E. (2022), in which authors carry out a study to know how anxiety, depression and other factors related to mental health affect young offenders’ lives, starting from their first arrest.

The possibility of entering prison and being tried for a crime is not pleasant for anyone. Therefore, it is not surprising that youth who are in contact with the justice system experience higher levels of internalizing symptoms such as anxiety and depression, compared to youth who do not offend.

The rates of anxiety and depression in this population are especially worrying. Almost half of the young people involved in justice meet clinical criteria for internalizing psychological problems.

And about half of adult men in the same situation experience mental health disorders while serving time, and even once they are free.

In addition, mental health problems go hand in hand with criminological problems: people who continue offending after adolescence are almost three times more likely to experience health problems.

Another important fact is that young people in the justice system rarely receive treatment, which is related to an increased risk of substance abuse, academic failure and emotional disorders that will last into adulthood, including an increased risk of suicide.

It is a very important topic and needs to be addressed, because most psychiatric disorders appear during adolescence or early adulthood, a period in which risky behaviors also reach their peak.

But what does the existing literature say about it? The results of a 2019 study suggest a temporal cascade in which behavioral problems in childhood translate into negative social outcomes, contributing to depression in adolescence, which in turn may contribute to adolescent or adult delinquency later.

In a sample that was followed for six years until 2012, youth showing high levels of depression were at risk of increasing their disruptive behavior, and youth showing high levels of disruptive behavior were at risk of developing much higher depression symptoms.

What this work proposes is to find out if the trajectory of the symptoms and the offensive trajectory change with the entry of young people into the justice system and how they do so.

First, the authors wanted to characterize the average trajectory of the internalization of criminal symptoms and behaviors of young people after their first contact with the justice system. Given that the prevalence of mental health disorders tends to increase after first contact with the justice system, authors hypothesized that the group would show a progressive increase in them.

In addition, due to the increase of criminal behavior during adolescence and young adulthood, the continuation of delinquency into adulthood was also hypothesized.

The second objective was to examine whether the change in mental health is related to the change in delinquency, or vice versa, and to describe this relationship if it exists.

For all of this, 1,216 male adolescents were evaluated during the five years that followed their first arrest. These arrests were made for minor, medium-range crimes, such as thefts, simple assaults, or vandalism. They were evaluated every six months for the first three years, after which the interviews were given annually.

The results of the study indicated that anxiety and depression change along with criminal behaviors in male adolescents after their first arrest, so the greater improvement in mental health, the higher level of decrease in delinquency, and vice versa. These findings highlight the intertwined nature of internalizing symptoms and externalizing behaviors, and underscore the importance of considering mental health in studies of juvenile recidivism.

When the youth met the justice system, an initial decrease in anxiety and depression was seen, followed by an increase in symptoms a few years later.

The latter suggests that involvement in the justice system influences the trajectory of symptoms and worsens them as youth develop.

In addition, when young people had grown up in poor and problematic neighborhoods, they presented a greater severity in the anxiety and depression suffered, which is in line with previous studies that highlight that the disorganization of the neighborhood and exposure to violence can increase the risk of mental health problems in adolescents.

Despite the usefulness of this study, one limitation is that it was carried out only with young men, so perhaps the results cannot be applied to the female sex, therefore, authors recommend exploring this dimension.

If you want to know more about the criminal mind, criminal profiling, and forensic science, don’t miss our Certificate in Criminal Profiling, a 100% online program certified by Heritage University (USA), with special grants for the Forensic Science Club readers.

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Forensic Science Club