Criminology: Murders, Murderers and Murder Victims - Research Paper Example

Murders, Murderers and Murder Victims 0 Characteristics of Murders, Murderers and Murders Victims in England and Wales: 21st Century 1 Introduction The Home Office Statistics for crimes in England and Wales does not specify a separate statistics for murder but includes the topic in the general heading of ‘homicide.’ This is not surprising considering that homicide can only be classified as murder upon a finding of ‘malice,’ which in turn can only be established by the court after trial, has been had. Murder, which is a common law crime because no statute has so far defined it, is defined by Sir Edward Coke in the following manner: “When a man of sound memory, and of age of discretion, unlawfully killeth within any country of the realm any reasonable creature in rerum natura under the kings peace, with malice aforethought, either expressed by the party or implied by law, so as the party wounded or hurt, etc. die of the wound or hurt, etc. within a year and a day after the same…”1 Albeit the period does not apply anymore, the crime of murder remains essentially the same as Coke had defined it. The most recent Home Office statistics on homicide for the year 2008-2009 includes, in fact, the offences of murder, manslaughter and infanticide. This statistics refer only to homicide as reported to the police, subject to the determination by the courts whether or not lesser crimes in fact occurred or no offence at all took place. In the aforesaid year, there were 670 homicide cases that were recorded, which represents a decrease of 14% for the same offence from the previous year. As of the end of 2009, it was determined that only 651 remained as bona fide homicide cases, making it the lowest incidence of homicide since 1998-1999, which recorded a case of 642 homicides. 2 Table 1 shows a comparative statistics of homicide from year 1967 to year 2008-2009, which shows an increasing homicide incidence over the years topping off in 2004-2005 but dwindling slightly from 2006 onwards. Table 1 Offences recorded by the Police in England and Wales 3 Of the homicide cases reported, most victims were male with the latter accounting for 71% and the remaining 29% female victims, although the male victims had the larger statistical decrease from the previous year than the female victims. A caveat emptor was also made by the Home Office in looking at the statistics: first, the statistics refer to the year the homicide was reported to the police and not to the actual year they were committed, and; the statistics refer to the total number of persons victimised, in the case of single perpetrators, and not to the number of incidents. Moreover, of the 651 cases reported 271 were finally determined for positive homicide with convictions handed down whilst 253 cases are still pending. In 21 cases, the suspects either committed suicide or died and all were eventually acquitted, according to the Home Office report, whilst there no suspects identified in 82 other cases and the remaining three cases were either stopped or never began in the first place. 4 The method of killing is most commonly done using sharp objects such as knives for both male and female. For males, the second most used method is hitting or kicking and for females, either strangulation or asphyxiation. Shooting is only the third most common method used for both males and females. 5 Fifty-three percent of the homicide cases were allegedly due to a quarrel, revenge or loss of temper, 7% occurred as incidents to burglaries or robberies and 4% were ascribed to irrational acts. Most of the female victims either knew or were acquainted with their perpetrators, who could either be their partners, ex-partners or lovers, whilst only half of the male victims knew their assailants and only 14% were killed by partners, ex-partners or lovers. In the present statistics being cited, only 37% of the males and 12% of the females were killed by strangers, a term that refers, for purposes of the Home Office statistics, to victim-perpetrator relationship that is not established or known. Moreover, 7.7% of the victims were under 16 years, 56% of which were killed by one of their parents, 26% of which had no suspect, 14% of which has acquaintances as suspects and the rest had strangers as suspects. Of all age groups, those one year old and below who are males were the group were the most vulnerable to homicide attack whilst those within the 16-29 age groups were the second most at risk. As of November 2009, there were 819 suspects for homicide and out of this number, 93% were male and only 7% were female. Forty-eight percent of the males indicted for homicide were eventually convicted of murder whilst 34% of the females had a parallel conviction. 6 The Institute of Race Relations or IRR also came out with a report that an average of five racial murders occur every year in the UK. This racial killing statistics was observed to have been occurring since the 1993 race murder of Stephen Lawrence. 7 1.2 Actual Murder News Accounts in the 21st Century A. The Tia Riggs Murder On October 5, 2010, the Manchester Court sentenced John Maden, 38 year old, to a minimum of 40 years in prison for the torture, rape and killing of his own niece, Tia Rigg. Maden lured the 12-year old to his home by pretending that he needed her for a babysitting job. When she arrived at his place, he then drugged her, tortured her slowly, abused her sexually and finally, strangled her to death with a guitar chord. 8 Authorities had found an abundance of materials on violent pornography, including violent child pornography in his possession, which were stored in his computer and cell phone. He had materials called ‘snuff’ films downloaded from the internet that showed how to torture victims slowly while inflicting them the maximum pain. Maden was taking anti-depressants and anti-psychotic drugs since a year before the rape of Riggs happened after he lost his job as a warehouseman and became depressed. It was Maden himself who called 999 45 minutes after Riggs arrived in house and reported her murder, identifying himself as the assailant. 9 During the sentencing, the judge refused to specify the minimum amount of time that Maden, who got a life sentence, should serve before being eligible for parole. Section 269(4) of the Criminal Justice Act gives the judge prerogative to refuse in specifying a tariff where the offender is 21 years old and above and his crime is so serious that he should not be released. The judge grounded his decision on the premeditation, the breach of the victim’s trust and the gravity of pain inflicted. 10 B. The July 7 London Bombings In the morning of July 7, 2005, four bombs went off almost simultaneously, three of them on underground trains near Liverpool Street and Edgware Road station and one in a traveling train between King’s Cross and Russell Square. An hour later, another bomb exploded inside a double-decker bus in Tavistock Square. Fifty-two people were killed whilst 770 other were injured. The bombs used were made of materials readily available and needed little expertise to construct. The bombers were identified as Hasib Hussain, Germaine Lindsay, Mohammad Sidique Khan, and Shehzad Tanweer, who, according to an investigation report, underwent a radicalisation training, were said to be motivated by “fierce antagonism to perceived injustices by the West against Muslims” in addition to desiring for martyrdom. 11 Although trial for the incident are still undergoing, the circumstances known so far point to a premeditated attack and were backed by the terrorist group Al Qaeda although all bombers were British Muslims. 12 C. Torso in the Thames Murder In September 2001, the body of a headless torso was found floating in Thames. A forensic analysis conducted on the boy showed that he was of Nigerian origin and that he had been a victim of a ritual murder. Investigation, so far, related to the incident led to the conviction of a man engaged in the trafficking of people from Nigeria into the UK and a woman, whose home yielded children’s clothes similar to those found on the headless torso and who happened to live in the same vicinity as the trafficker. 3.0 Capital Punishment as Punishment for Murderers Traditionally, there are four objectives of punishment, including capital punishment. First, society wants to use it as deterrence against persons who might be potential criminals or against criminals from reoffending. Second, punishment is used to incapacitate a criminal from re-offending and preclude the danger of any member of society from becoming a victim by such offender. Third, punishment is resorted to for the purpose of rehabilitating the offender in the hope that he can be reassimilated into society as a well-behaved and productive individual. A fourth justification of punishment is the retributive justification. The retributive justification is akin to the biblical ‘tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye’ metaphorical punishment.13 The theory of deterrence necessarily implies that the threat of imposing a higher penalty ‘deters’ the potential criminal and not the actual imposition of the punishment. This is because deterrence wants to scare a potential criminal from committing a crime. Deterrence will only work, however, if the criminal-to-be has notice of the punishment so that he or she will have the opportunity to balance between the pleasure of doing the crime and the pain of the punishment corresponding to it, which is termed “felicific calculus” by Jeremy Bentham under the utilitarianism theory. In addition, the offender-to-be must also believe that the threat of punishment, in this case capital punishment, is credible, meaning that his chances of capture are high and that if captured, he will be punished as threatened. Most criminologists believe that the threat of certainty of capture is more effective than the severity of the punishment. In the United States, research consistently showed that police authorities believe that the suspects they apprehended in murder cases were only 63% certain of being the guilty party, in rape cases only 44% and in smaller offenses only a small fraction thereof. 14 Indeed, if murderers are sentenced to capital punishment there is 100% guarantee that he or she will never had the chance to commit murder again, but this is not the intent of the deterrent proponents. As earlier discussed, deterrence refers to the ability of punishment to discourage an offender to reoffend or others from committing the same crime. However, it would seem that the threat of capital punishment is unnecessary as against murderers as shown in the report of the United Kingdom’s Royal Commission on Capital Punishment. According to the Commission, only 1 out of 129 murder convicts released after serving their sentence recommitted the same offence. In other countries included in the study, there were only three instances of recidivism for persons convicted for murder. The only risk entailed in releasing those sentenced for murder after service of their terms are those who are mentally ill persons. In Sweden, only 2% of recidivism for murder and manslaughter was observed for the year 1966-1983. Had all the 1,258 persons who were then convicted for murder and slaughter in Sweden were put to death under a capital punishment system, it would have prevented 25 new murders, a very disproportionate ratio between desired effect and punishment. 15 In addition, the deterrent theory of capital punishment takes for granted that the potential murderer is able to deliberate what Bentham called “felicific calculus,” which would imply a rational line of thinking. A Japanese prison psychiatrist delved into the minds of 145 persons convicted of murder in 1955 and 1957 and discovered that not one of those he studied ever thought of the possibility of being punished with the death penalty before and during the commission of the crime. Likewise, W.F. Roper, a British prison physician who had experienced with murder convicts for 35 years discovered that many criminals were nervous at the time they were committing the crime that they were rendered incapable of thinking lucidly into considering the consequences of their acts. On the other hand, those who retained lucidity during the act thought they were smart enough to evade detection. 16 As for those who are motivated politically such as the terrorists in the London July 27 attacks, there is little possibility of making the death penalty serves as deterrent. Terrorists are motivated by martyrdom in the eyes of their kith and kin. Most of these terrorists have undergone brainwashing and radicalisation training that have already made them accepted, if not embrace, the idea of death. Death penalty will not work with them but will only up the ante. On the other hand, heinous crimes committed by persons while under the influence of drugs, who are ruled by their habit rather than by reason, will not likely be deterred by the threat of death penalty either. This is likewise true of psychotic personalities, who are often at the root of child rapes and murders and other heinous crimes.17 In Malaysia, arriving passengers at the airport are welcomed by blaring loud speaker systems announcements that drug traffickers will be sentenced to death and yet, as in Indonesia, drug trafficking goes on unabated in this country. Moreover, the UN concluded in 1985 that death penalty is not deterrent to drug trafficking, but rather an obstacle to a guilty verdict because courts tend to require more solid proof to ensure less chance of error before they put any person to death.18 Death penalty does not serve as effective deterrent to the group of persons that matter most: murderers and political terrorists, since 25% of murderers commit suicide, 50% are crimes of passion, which means that the person has no ability to coolly deliberate the consequences of his crime, and the rest are either psychopaths, like Maden, who can neither think lucidly or are professional killers who have already accepted death as the hazard of the trade. 19 Imposing the death penalty against murderers is going back in time before the dawn of civilization. It is an ancient form of punishment as evidenced by cave paintings that represented executions. In the 18th century, however, the abolitionist movement toppled death penalty as a basic form of punishment and substituted it with deprivation of liberty instead. 20 Employing it again this time is like going through a cycle where civilised society returns to the dark ages and adopts anew its old ways already discarded along the way. The death penalty is at odds not only with Christian teachings but also with the concept of a civilised society. The ‘eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth’ dogma is that of the Old Testament whilst the new Christian teaching runs along the line of ‘love thy neighbour’ and offering a cheek when the other is slapped. These are hyperbole, of course, but they generally point to the direction of the new way of Christian thinking. Even without considering religion, it is impractical for society to promote the retributive line of approach because it would mean endless crimes engendered by vengeful hearts and minds. And in promoting peace and harmony, there must be consistency, and it is inconsistent to preach them whilst at the same time declare that it is alright to premeditatedly kill a convicted murderer because he or she murdered somebody. The fault in the retributive line of justification is that it is solely an act of revenge and no other. It has no utilitarian or practical underpinning. It cannot for example, explain how the act of taking the life of the offender can make up for the injury done to society, other than satisfying the call for blood and calm down public outrage. It is also ambiguous because a retributive justification should mean that what was done to another should be the same thing done to the doer, which is not the case. Death penalty would be proportional to the simple act of killing but not when the killing is attended by torture, rape and other heinous circumstances, and society will never go that far. The bottom line is that many of the present murder cases are perpetrated by people who are not in their right senses or by individuals who are motivated by political extremism. Employing the death penalty as deterrent against these persons is senseless. Neither it is useful against people who may be perfectly lucid but who are bent on pursuing a crime as in the case of the July 7, 2005 bombers. In addition, a purely retributive approach to punishment through the death penalty sends a wrong signal to the members of society because it gives more credence to anger and emotion than to rational thinking. It satisfies the call for blood and validates the hunger for revenge but does not convince logic and reasoning of its practicality and wisdom. Moreover, in executing the death penalty, it will deprive the authorities of its credibility as the neutral and cold arbitrator between the members of society and the criminals, and becomes a mere part of the posse. References: BBC (2010). 7/7 Bombs Acts of Merciless Savagery, Inquests Told. BBC News UK. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11511461. Falcon, M.J. & Falcon, F. (2006). Punishment and Culture: A Right to Punish? Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. Franck, H. & Nyman, K. & Schabas, W. (2003). The Barbaric Punishment: Abolishing the Death Penalty, Vol. 12. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. Head, M. & Mann, S. (2008). Law in Perspective: Ethics, Society and Critical Thinking, 2nd Edition. NSW: UNSW Press. Home Office (2010). Homicides, Firearm Offences and Intimate Violence 2008/09. Home Office website. http://rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs10/hosb0110.pdf. House of Commons (6 May 2006). Report of the Official Account of the Bombings in London on 7th July 2005. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/11_05_06_narrative.pdf. Singer, R.G. & La Fond, J. (2007). Criminal Law: Examples & Explanations. Aspen Publishers Online. Tozer, J. (2010). Ive finished killing her now: Uncle, 38, murdered niece, 12, while acting out a fantasy from his collection of violent porn. MailOnline. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1317626/John-Maden-raped-murdered-niece-Tia-Rigg-acting-internet-porn-fantasy.html. Watson, M. (22 April 2010). Five Racial Murders Per Year Says Race Institute, Minority Perspective. http://www.minorityperspective.co.uk/2010/04/22/five-racial-murders-per-year-says-race-institute/. Read More