Criminological Psychology Assignment Resubmission

Running head: CRIMINOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY ASSIGNMENT RESUBMISSION
CRIMINOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY ASSIGNMENT RESUBMISSION
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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CRIMINOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY ASSIGNMENT RESUBMISSION
Introduction
Crime is taken to imply any form of behaviour that violates the formal laws meant to
govern the social, economic and political conduct of a society. Several theories attempting to
explain reasons behind people committing crimes have been developed over the years. These
theories describe a person’s psychological, sociological and biological state while he or she
commits a crime. The biological explanation to criminal behaviour, in this case, includes theories
such as Y chromosome, William Sheldon, and Caserta Lombroso. According to Caserta
Lombroso theory, an individual body structure defines if one is a criminal or not (Bretherick
2015, p. 1). In this case, a criminal will possess some features such as asymmetry of the head,
have large lips and ears resembling that of a monkey. The Y chromosome theory, on the other
hand, states that criminals possess extra Y chromosomes, that is, have an XYY chromosome
structure hence the name “super male” (Akers 2013, p. 41). On the other hand, the psychological
approach entails that idea that crime originates from dysfunctional and abnormal mental state
motivating the personality of an individual. Apart from that, the crime could also be intentional
as it means a way of expressing specific needs and feelings of the criminal.
Who is a Serial Killer?
In criminology, homicides fall into three categories. They include mass, spree, and serial
killings. When a murder consists of the death of several people, three or more than three, all at
the same instance, the case becomes a mass homicide. However, when the killing of three or
more victims occurs at more than one location or at different times, the murder is a spree killing.
Shanafelt and Pino (2014, p. 60) add that the execution in the case of a spree homicide is not
intervened at any instance and takes place without any cooling off stage. Lastly, serial killing

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CRIMINOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY ASSIGNMENT RESUBMISSION
refers to a killing performed in a broken sequence that lasts within intervals of 24 hours or more.
Shanafelt and Pino (2014) further explain that each killing performed by the serial killer provides
a temporal satisfaction of “whatever motivates the killer’s actions”. Therefore, serial killers are
identified as those who take significant cooling-off periods between each killing.
Ted Bundy is the exact definition of a Heartless devil. According to his perspective of his
self, he stated that he was the most cold-hearted men ever lived on the planet. Bundy was
charged with more than 30 homicides during 1974 to 1980; however, the count could be more.
As pointed out by Dekle (2011, p. 21), Bundy committed his first murder in Vermont, a town
located across the Pacific Northwest, a place where he was born. There are no records of his
father. However, the mother was Eleanor Louise Cowell. They were both raised by Cowell
parents, and his grandfather was reported to be highly abusive. There are several instances that
his grandfather severely beat him, and occasionally, he did the same to his mother and wife.
Later the mother was forced to run away, and Bundy was forced to live with his cousin Wash in
Tacoma at the age of five. His college life includes his schooling in the University of Puget
Sound before moving to the University of Washington where he took Chinese. Bundy later
dropped out in 1968 and registered as a psychology major. Dekle (2011 p. 40) states that it was
during one of his visit to East Coast that he discovered the woman that ran away from home was
not his sister but his mother. In 1973, he enrolled in University of Puget Sound Law School.
However, he stopped attending classes a few months later and ventured into his killing spree. His
full name surfaced at the station, and they managed to get the confirmation from Bundy's ex-
girlfriend, his former psychology lecturer, a close friend and co-worker that indeed the person
described was Ted Bundy. However, the police were unable to quickly categories him as a serial
killer and instead searched for a suspect in the disappearance of several women within the