The Psychological Explanations for all Lees Dastard Acts - Term Paper Example

1 Topic: With Reference to the Baton Rouge Serial Killer, Critically Evaluate Offender/Crime Scene ification and Geographic Profiling Theories of Offender Profiling. 2 Introduction On May 27, 2003, Derrick Todd Lee was arrested for murdering Carrie Lynn Yoder after the DNA taken from the victim matched that of Lee as forensic evidence proved him to be the main suspect in the case. The evidence also implicated Lee in the murder of forty-one-year-old Connie Warner in 1992, and the disappearance of twenty-year-old Randi Mebruer in 1998. A scrutiny of Lee’s background revealed a series of criminal offences he had committed, which ranged from peeping into women’s rooms to stalking and infidelity. It was believed that Lee would have been prevented if the residents of Baton Rouge had put an eye on him (Bell, 2010). This paper investigates the psychological explanations for all Lee’s dastard acts by applying two significant profiling theories: (i) FBI dichotomy theory and (ii) The Circle Theory for geographical profiling. These theories shed more light on the behavioral patterns of Derrick Todd Lee which may have prompted him to continue its killing spree until the murder of Carrie Lynn Yoder (Canter, 2004; Turvey, 2008). FBI Dichotomy FBI dichotomy is a process of profiling criminal suspect based on a number of criteria. This system is simple, and is one of the widely methods used in identifying suspects when a crime has been committed. The procedures for carrying out FBI dichotomy are as follows: (i) assimilating all relevant information regarding the crime, these may 3 include evidence like crime-scene photos, witnesses, information about the victim, and reports (including that of police, autopsy and witnesses’ statements); (ii) classification of the suspect as whether “organized” or “disorganized” based on the information gathered—organized criminals are expected to possess some level of social composure, living with a partner, sexually competent, show a composed mood during the crime, while disorganized criminals are unstable in their behaviors, socially inadequate and sexually incompetent; (iii) reconstruction of the criminal’s behavioral sequence using the collected and analyzed information—this stage will reveal the method of committing crime favored by the criminal; (iv) examination of the criminal signature is conducted--the signature is what the suspect usually does to satisfy his or her psychological needs before committing the crime—like raping the victim first; (v) and finally, the profile of the suspect is generated using all the information processed above (Canter, 2004; Turvey, 2008). Applying the procedures outlined above, it is possible to generate the profile of Derrick Todd Lee. According to the case study, the following pieces of information are probably available to the crime investigator: Lee’s DNA, crime-scene photos, victim’s pictures, police reports, autopsy report and witnesses’ statements. Derrick Todd Lee is an organized suspect in the sense that he maintains a traditional home with a partner and daughter. He is composed and demonstrates some level of responsibility by working to support his family. He does not look suspicious in his neighborhood and he is definitely 4 socially adequate and sexually competent—these may have been the reasons he could keep his wife and daughter with him. As an organized suspect, the crime investigator could look at the manner with which he had committed the crime. That is, was the victim left in a nice place or not? Did the suspect show some respect to the corpse of the victim? (Hess and Orthmann, 2009). The next stage will reveal how Derrick Todd Lee often commits his crime: the case study reveals that he often peeps through the door-holes, break into his victims’ homes through the window and try to take advantage of them sexually (Bell, 2010). Identifying the suspect’s signature may be hard since the case study does not say anything about that; but it is possible to think that he may, first of all, molest his victims sexually or even rape them before killing them. And as a person who had had experience about murdering someone before, Lee may have tried to hide all its signatures that would have helped the crime investigators to quickly unearth his crime. From the information presented in the foregoing, Derrick Todd Lee’s profile can be summarized as follows: He is an organized criminal with a family and demonstrates social civility to some extent. Lee has a sexual problem by peeping through door-holes to peer at naked women. If he could not get enough view, he may contemplate breaking into the houses to have closer view of his victims. And Lee may turn violent if his victims resist his advances, which may eventually lead to their death at his hands. Derrick Todd Lee did not show any remorse for his actions (this is not indicated in the case study). 5 Therefore, with this profile, the police may have been helped to identify Lee and link him with the other murders they suspected he had committed. This profiling would have shown in details Lee’s psychological problems, which include overt sexual desire, weakness to control himself and the uncontrollable urge to keep himself checked whenever overcame with sexual feelings (Ussher, 1993). This sexual problem could be seen as the driving force for his crime-committing habit: if the residents of Baton Rouge have been alerted about this problem, they would have done something to protect Lee’s victim of 2003. FBI dichotomy helps to profile Derrick Todd Lee in a way that it is easy to identify his psychological problem and works to protect the rest members of Baton Rouge society from falling prey to his antics and wicked act (Ussher, 1993). The Circle Theory of Geographical Profiling This is another theory for profiling suspects geographically. The Circle Theory is initially developed from an environmental psychology study. This theory perceives the possibility of committing a crime as a factor of the two distinct behavioral models. These models are described based on the manner of behaviors of the suspects: first, marauder model indicates that suspects will be highly interested in committing crimes at their home bases. A home base means the location or nearness to the location where they are permanently residing. A home base may also mean any place that the suspects are psychologically or physically attracted to: Second, the commuter model explains that suspects can travel a long distance from their home bases to commit a crime (Petherick, 2009). This theory is a common 6 example of geographical profiling which helps crime investigators to track down offenders. However, it has been discovered that 91% of crime suspects are marauders (Turvey, 2008). But this procedure is not perfect in itself because investigators sometimes find it difficult to identify the actual base of a criminal suspect. Even though there are more marauders than commuters, crime investigators do sometimes rely on their skill and guess to identify which is appropriate for a particular case (Turvey, 2008). One may question the impact of psychology in geographical profiling, but experts have proved that the area a suspect lives has an environmental psychological impact on his or her behavior. In other words, those who live in the ghettos are likely going to show more uncouth manner and be dangerous than suspects that have been refined a bit by city life (Canter, 2004). As a result of this, crime investigators can utilize the information provided about a location to detect how the criminals grow up or have been negatively or positively affected by environments where they had spent some years of their formative lives (Ussher, 1993). Using these models, it is possible to typify what can of suspect Derrick Todd Lee is: From the information highlighted in the case study, Derrick Todd Lee lived in Baton Rouge with his family. And in 2003, he murdered Carrie Lynn Yoder for reasons that are not stated in the case study (Bell, 2010). It is clear that Lee was a marauder, because he had committed the crime at his base area. To understand why this incident could occur, it will be helpful to do a little of Baton Rouge. Baton Rouge is located in Louisiana, and it is the second-largest city in the state. It has an estimated population of 230,000 people, and it is a 7 major industrial, petrochemical, medical, and research center of the Southern Part of the United States. The population of African-American in this area has increased lately due to the mobility of labor and families of workers serving the industries in this area and in Louisiana. The information about Baton Rouge above reveals a business city with major industrial activities that could divert people from paying closer attention to a potential criminal suspect among them. Todd Lee may have acted upon this slackness to commit the heinous crime within his base. Summary This paper has revealed the possibility of applying both FBI Dichotomy and The Circle Theories to prove that a criminal suspect like Derrick Todd Lee could be arrested after committing a murder. However, the knowledge learnt here is that the police would have prevented Lee from becoming a serial killer if they have profiled him earlier on and alerted the Baton Rouge residents to his criminal nature (Bell, 2010). Lee is a man who has no respect for women, and who has a psychological sexual problem. This problem has prompted his many undignified actions to peep at women from windows or door-holes. And when not satisfied, he would break into such homes uninvited to have better views of the women. There is no doubt that he had committed these murders because of resistance from the women he broke into their homes. Although, Lee’s main crime is not stealing or burglary, he was only obsessed with sexual pleasures by looking or touching women. This 8 development reveals that he has a psychological problem he could not suppress or change, and this had led him to committing crime to satisfy his inner desire. The FBI dichotomy offers rare hope of seeing why criminal suspects could be classified—organized suspects tend to show some socially acceptable behavior like raising kids and having their own families. They could also be hardworking individuals, thereby confusing the entire community from identifying them as dangerous human beings. Though, disorganized suspects are likely to be visible in the society and track down by the law enforcement agencies, but someone like Derrick Todd Lee may be difficult to speculate that he could actually be a serial killer. More so, as a busy industrial city, Baton Rouge do not help protect the other residents from dangerous criminals living in the city as everyone seems to be absorbed in their daily job. Psychologically, Lee did not possess enough social competence to control his sexual urges. His mind had become warped based on the need to satisfy his sexual psychological desire. And this serious problem has been his sole self-destructive habit that drove him into criminal activities. In conclusion, this paper proffers the relationship between psychological slavery, tendency to commit crimes and the usefulness of two theories in resolving the criminal issues. It is important to state that a criminal suspect psychology is instrumental to their mental wellbeing. In other words, if someone has psychological problems, he or she may be 9 unable to control his actions. Hence, one can conclude that such a suspect is suffering from a mental problem because of the uncontrollable urge to satisfy his or her desire. If the law enforcement agencies can work harder on helping people become psychological competent, such people would be able to contribute to their societies meaningfully and stay away from any acts that could break the laws of their communities. Incidentally, the governments must work hard in making sure that people are mentally all right, and that they do not demonstrate a scary desire to fulfill their psychological needs or desires irrespective of the outcomes of their actions. There could be little or no criminal incidents if the government can pay attention to the issues raised in this paper. And the innocent people in our communities would not be exposed to danger or criminals that would take away their lives. 10 References Bell, R. (2010). Derrick Todd Lee—the Baton Rouge serial killer. Trutv.com. Retrieved from http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/predators/baton_rouge/5.html Canter, D. (2004). Offender profiling and investigative psychology. Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, 1: 1-15. Hess, K.M., and Orthmann, C.H. (2009). Crimnal investigation. Florence, KY: Cengage Learning. Petherick, W. (2009). Serial killer: theoretical and practical issues in behavioral profiling. 2nd ed. San Diego: Academic Press. Turvey, B.E. (2008). Criminal profiling: an introduction to behavioral evidence analysis. San Diego: Academic Press. Ussher, J.M. (1993). Psychological perspectives on sexual problems: new directions in theory and practice. New York: Routledge. Read More