The problem of murders became the most significant in the modern world. The reason for this is that people became more aggressive, cruel and jealous. Modern criminalistics provides the typology of the murders according to different factors which take place while murdering. Serial murderers, spree murderers, and mass murderers are all the types of murders which occur in modern life. Recent situation in the world shows that there is one more type of murder that is school shooting, which also may be classified. All these types of murders and the causes for them are going to be main point of consideration in the paper.
Any murder which involves four or more people is distinguished as mass murder. Mass murder may be of two types, classic mass murder and family mass murder. The example of classic mass murder may be Charles Whitman, who “armed himself with boxes of ammunition, weapons, ropes, a radio and food” (Douglas et al, 2006, p. 96), and in 1966, being in the University of Texas was shooting for 90 minutes. The example of family murder is John List, an insurance salesman, who killed all his family in 1972. Spree murders are murders which take place in two or more different places, but the emotional condition of the murder is the same. Person kills familiar or unknown people without any serious reason for that. The example of this murder is Howard Unruh of Camden, New Jersey, who in 1949 killed 13 people, while moving to different places. (Douglas, 2006) Serial murder is the murder which takes place on one and the same territory or near it, and the person kills three or more people “in more than 30 days with a notable period between the murders” (Holmes, 2000, p. 16). The technology of the serial murder is the same, what allows classifying this or that case as serial. The example of serial killer is Ted Bundy, who killed 30 people for many years in five states of the USA (Douglas, 2006).
Considering the types of school shooting cases it is impossible clearly distinguish them as the reasons for these murders are not purely investigated, as the problem is rather new to the psychologists. The investigations showed that children who take guns in their hands have serious health problems, such as personality disorders, schizophrenia, or clinical depression. What is more important, those children usually have free access to the guns. The idea that the shooting causes are grades is mistakes, as in most cases, children who take guns are not lacking behind the class. The examples of the school shooting cases may be as follows, Heritage High School, Rockdale County, Georgia or Thomas Jefferson High School, East New York, New York and many others. (Moore, 2003) One of the reasons for murders at schools and at workplaces may be people’s dissatisfaction with the conditions which are offered. People may be tired of constant routine actions and rules which they have to follow every day.
So, there are different types of murders which may be classified according to places they occur, to killers’ reasons for murder or the number of people who are killed. The examples are also numerous what say that the problem is not local and that police should try to prevent the murder before it has occurred. Mass murders, spree and serial murders, school shootings all have the same reason, anger which is aroused in people for different reasons.
Reference List
Douglas, J. E., Burgess, A. W., Burgess, A. G. & Ressler, R. K. (2006). Crime classification manual: a standard system for investigating and classifying violent crimes. John Wiley and Sons.
Holmes, S. T. (2000). Murder in America. SAGE.
Moore, M. H. (2003). Deadly Lessons: Understanding Lethal School Violence: Case Studies of School Violence Committee. National Academies Press.