Richard N. Kocsis (ed.): Serial murder and the psychology of violent crimes
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BOOK REVIEW
Richard N. Kocsis (ed.): Serial murder and the psychology of violent crimes Humana Press, 2008, 306 pp, hardback, ISBN 978-1-58829-685-6 Saskia S. Guddat
Published online: 31 March 2009 Ó Humana Press 2009
Serial violent crimes such as rape, arson, and murder exist not only in Western societies, but in cultures all over the world. Serial crime and murder have always led to a desire for explanation. Looking back to history and to myths, violent crime and murder is not a phenomenon of modern cultures. Since serial crime and murder often lack typical psychiatric, psychological, and criminological factors that are recognized for non-serial crimes and murder, such as a relationship between the victim and the offender, the scientific examination of serial crime and murder is difficult. In this book, an international group of authors explain the psychiatric, psychological, and criminological factors that may account for the perpetration of serial violent crime and murder. The book is divided into three parts. The first part deals with psychology and consists of six different chapters that were written by specialists from all over the globe. Chapter 1 is about the normalcy in behavioral characteristics of the sadistic serial killer. Chapter 2 deals with the behavioral patterns and motivational dynamics of compulsive-repetitive offenders with a focus on individuals who commit serial crimes for sexual reasons. Sexual motivation, terminology, and historical contexts are reviewed and the roles of fantasy, planning, personality traits and the usefulness of treatment are discussed. Chapter 3 is about serial juvenile sex offenders and their offenses. Different types of offenders are described and compared: juvenile offenders who involve younger children, offenders who seek victims of a similar age or older, offenders who assault in a group, those who assault alone, and offenders who assault strangers. In chapter S. S. Guddat (&) Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences, Charite´–Universita¨tsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany e-mail: [email protected]
4 a study of offense patterns and psychopathological characteristics among recidivistic Finnish homicide offenders is introduced. The study is based on research data from the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation and analyses offense and offender characteristics in cases of homicidal recidivism in Finland. Chapter 5 is about the sensational and extreme interest of adolescents. In chapter 6 the case of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer is presented. The author of the chapter was the court-appointed forensic psychiatric expert. The second part of the book deals with new dimensions to violent crime and is divided into 5 more Chapters (Chapters 7–11). Chapter 7 is about sexual homicide and provides an overview of research studies on sexual homicide and its perpetrators over the past 25 years. Chapter 8 deals with serial killers and serial rapists and gives a preliminary comparison of violence typologies. The authors consider where and how the typologies could be
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