Understanding Criminal Behavior: Serial Killers and Domestic Abuse
Serial Killers and the Psychology of ‘Nothing to Lose’
When an author (perpetrator) feels they have nothing left to lose, the significance of a murder diminishes. Bank robbers, cornered during an escape after a prior killing, exemplify this. In the majority of killings and assassinations, police identify the perpetrator relatively easily; approximately 90% of these crimes are solved. The remaining 10% often involve mishandled judicial investigations, such as failing to properly seal the crime scene, leading to delays. Rarely, a person with sadistic or sexual motives kills a stranger and remains unidentified. Success in evading capture can lead to delusions of grandeur, prompting the perpetrator to repeat the act.
These individuals often possess above-average intelligence, a disturbed personality, meticulously plan their murders, and understand how to evade police investigation.
Victimization Surveys and Domestic Abuse Incidence
Victimization surveys gather information from representative citizen samples regarding potential victimization. This approach aims to reach domestic violence victims who haven’t sought help, suffer in silence, or haven’t dared to report the abuse.
Reasons why women don’t report domestic violence, as revealed in victim surveys, include:
- The incident wasn’t considered serious.
- It was viewed as a family matter.
- The abuser apologized and promised it wouldn’t happen again.
- Belief that the police can’t do anything.
- Shame.
- Fear of not resolving anything.
- Fear of the abuser.
Challenges in Conceptualizing Violence
A primary challenge in these studies is defining violence. Operational definitions of domestic violence vary significantly, lacking standardization across studies. The Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS II) is a popular instrument that measures the extent to which members of a couple in various types of relationships use different tactics, violent and nonviolent, to resolve conflicts or respond to feelings of anger towards their partner.
The CTS II asks subjects to recall times when they “disagreed with their partner, became angry with another person, or simply had arguments or fights because they were tired, grumpy, or any other reason.” Respondents then indicate how often they engaged in each act listed on the scale over the past twelve months.
Difficulties in Conducting Representative Surveys
Another challenge is conducting representative population surveys. Large samples are needed to find enough cases of maltreatment for sophisticated statistical analysis. Domestic violence, particularly severe cases, is statistically rare, requiring very large samples to avoid problems associated with large relative standard errors in estimations. Only with sufficiently large samples can risk factors be identified with validity and reliability, and theoretical perspectives examined. However, even then, many battered individuals may not be located due to their social isolation.
Methodological Considerations: Personal vs. Telephone Interviews
The method of administering surveys has also generated debate. Personal interviews are expensive, leading to the adoption of telephone interviews. However, this method has drawbacks. Some problems are general to telephone surveys, while others are specific to the subject matter. In telephone interviews, the location of the phone is unknown, it’s difficult to know if someone else is present, and assessing the interviewee’s willingness to answer questions is more challenging.