What Makes a Criminal?

What Makes a Criminal?

CRJ305 – Criminology

Colorado State University Global

What makes a criminal? It is a question that makes us all stop and ponder “how could someone do that, what happened in their lives to make them that way?” Serial killers are probably considered the most interesting criminals of our day and age because we cannot truly figure them out. We can use theories to come close and answer some questions, but we will truly never know all the answers about how and why they tick the way that they do. The two serial killers that will be analyzed in this project are Jeffery Lionel Dahmer and Dennis Andrew Nilsen. Both of these individuals become well known for similar reasons around the same time, just in different parts of the world. For these two individuals there are two criminological theories that can be utilized to explain their crimes: Social Control Theory and Psychological Theory.

Before analyzing the theories that relate to their crimes it is important to understand who they are and what their crimes were.

JEFFREY LIONEL DAHMER

Born May 21st, 1960 to Lionel and Joyce Dahmer, Jeffrey Dahmer was just like any other child. Both of his parents loved him, he was their first child, but both of his parents worked and their schedules made it difficult for Jeffrey to build a strong relationship with either of them (Miller, Vandome, & McBrewster, 2009). The small family lived with Lionel’s parents which caused strain on the marriage, which eventually lead them to moving to East Milwaukee. From there Jeffrey experienced many events that no young child should have to endure. With the birth of his younger brother, Jeffrey fell into the shadows and was often rejected by his parents and society (Miller, Vandome, & McBrewster, 2009). Finally, at the age of 17, Jeffrey’s parents divorced; Joyce took her younger son and abandoned Jeffrey with his father (Dahmer, 1994).

Dahmer was a loner as a child and as an adult. He took to heavy drinking, dropped out of college after two semesters, and began his career of killing in 1978 (Davis, 1995). From there he would join the military, get sent to Germany, fall deeper into alcoholism and eventually discharged from the military and sent home (Miller, Vandome, & McBrewster, 2009). He returned to the states where his alcoholism cost him jobs and got him started on his arrest record in 1981 for drunk and disorderly conduct (Dahmer, 1994). In 1982, he would be arrested for indecent exposure, and then again in 1986 on a similar charge (Dahmer, 1994).

THE MURDERS

As stated before, Jeffrey began his life as a serial killer in 1978, at the age of 18, when he murdered 18 year old Steven Mark Hicks, a hitchhiker Dahmer had lured back his home, by strangling him with the bar of a dumbbell (Masters, 1993). His next victim would be 28 year old Steven Tuomi, nearly 10 years later, in 1987 (Saborsky & Ramsland, 2013). From there, Saborsky and Ramsland (2013) continue, Dahmer strikes 15 more times, killing boys and men ranging in age from 14 to 33 years of age.

Most of Dahmer’s victims died by strangulation, typically after Dahmer had drugged them with sedatives. After killing them, Dahmer would sometimes take suggestive nude pictures of his victims, he would then dismember them and dispose of the bodies. In the book, The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer, author Brian Masters (1993) notes that during Dahmers confession he admitted to acts of necrophilia which including his addmission to performing sexual acts with the viscera of several of his victims. Norris (1992) states in his book, Jeffrey Dahmer, that during the confession, Dahmer also admitted to eating portions of the thighs, biceps, livers and even the hearts of several of his victims.

DENNIS ANDREW NILSEN

Dennis Andrew Nilsen was born on November 23rd, 1945 in Aberdeenshire, Scotland (Buchan, 2019). He was the second of 3 children from his mother’s first marriage which had ended in 1948 (Edison, 2003). His family resided with his mother’s parents, where Nilsen became very close with his maternal grandfather who suddenly passed away in 1951 (Masters, 1985, p. 45). After the death of his grandfather, Nilsen withdrew from the family, rejecting any attempt of affection from the adult members of his family. Several years later, Nilsen’s mother remarried and had four more children. He began to resent the amount of attention that Nilsen’s older brother and younger sister received from his mother and stepfather, causing him to reject his family that much more (Masters, 1985, p. 57).

Around the age of 12, Nilsen discovered that he was sexually attracted to men. This discovery, at first, filled him with shame and he kept it to himself (Coffey, 2013). Additionally, Nilsen was embarrassed that his family was much poorer than those of his peers and rarely invited friends to his home. Shamed by his sexuallity and poor financial standing, Nilsen continued to withdraw from his family and friends (Masters, 1985, p. 57).

Nilsen joined the British Army at the age of 14 as an attempt to escape his rural lifestyle and elevate his economic standing (Coffey, 2013, p. 47). By joining the military he got exactly what he wanted and thoroughly enjoyed being a military chef and the frequent traveling. Nilsen spent 11 years in the military stationed at various locations. He took up drinking as a way to loosen up around others and soon found that his sexual fantasies towards men was flourishing into something dark (Coffey, 2013, p. 72). He imagined his ideal partner as a slender, blonde haired younger male who was either unconscious or dead. Nilsen would stand in front of a mirror, reflecting his body from the shoulders down, and masterbate while envisioning his own body as that of his submissive partner (Coffey, 2013, p. 86).

Nilsen left the service in 1972 and in April of 1973 he had completed his training for the London Metropolitan Police. He enjoyed his new role but missed the comradery of the army and took up drinking heavily (Masters, 1985, p. 83). Nilsen would frequent gay pubs in search of a lasting relationship but this proved to be futile; he came to the conclusion that his personal and professional lives were at odds and in December of 1973 he ended his career as a police officer (Masters, 1985, p. 85).

In 1974, Nilsen became a civil servant working at an employment agency where he assisted unskilled laborers with finding employment (Waddell, 1993, p. 190). He worked his way through the ranks and eventually was promoted to executive officer. In 1982, he transferred to another location within his agency and continued to work until his arrest in 1983 (Waddell, 1993, p. 200).

THE MURDERS

Stephen Holmes, a 14 year old boy, was Dennis Nilsen’s first victim. The young boy was murdered in 1978 in Nilsen’s ground floor apartment; Nilsen hid the boys body under his floorboards for 8 months before disposing of him (Masters, 1985, p. 108). His second victim, as Masters (1985) continues to explain, came nearly a year later in 1979 when Nilsen lured a 23 year old Canadian student back to his flat. From there the killings became more frequent and between 1980 and 1983 Nilsen had killed 13 more boys and men (Masters, 1985, p. 122).

Nilsen would kill by strangling his victims with a cord or tie. His victims were usually intoxicated; he would often use the offer of a hot meal, alcohol and a warm place to sleep for many of his victims as they were usually homeless (Coffey, 2013, p. 190). After he would strangle them he would masterbate over their bodies, then wash them, wrap them in plastic and store them under the floorboards. He would occasionally bring one out and spend time with the body. After several months, he would take the bodies out, dismember/disembowel them and burn them in a large fire in his garden. His last two victims were killed in his new flat that he had moved to in 1981 (Waddell, 1993, p. 198). He didn’t have access to a garden, so he would dismember them and hide the parts around the flat or flush them down the toilet. Flushing the body parts ultimately lead to his arrest (Waddell, 1993, p. 202).

SOCIAL CONTROL THEORY
“Social control theories address the issue of how society maintains or elicits social control and the manner in which it obtains conformity or fails to obtain it in the form of deviance” (Hagan, 2017). Both Dahmer and Nilsen experienced events in their youth that caused changes in their personality. With Dahmer, he had a very intense surgery when he was very little. With both of his parents working, they didn’t have the time to give him the support he needed through this event. He changed from a happy little boy into a loner, withdrawn from his parents and friends (Miller, Vandome & McBrewster, 2009).

Nilsen experienced the death of his grandfather at a very early age. To Nilsen, his grandfather was his father figure since his own father was never around (Masters, 1985). Even though his family still loved him and wanted to show him affection, he rejected it, it could not compare to the love he felt with his grandfather. He withdrew from his family, and envied the attention his biological siblings received from their mother and, later, step father. He was ashamed of his sexuality and his lack of wealth which only caused him to withdraw from society even more (Masters, 1985).

For Dahmer, Hirschi’s Social Bond Theory is very fitting. This theory states that delinquency takes place when a person’s bonds to society are weakened or broken (Hagan, 2017). Dahmer grew up isolated from his parents, and this isolation grew when his family moved to a secluded home in a heavily wooded area of Ohio (Miller, Vandome & McBrewster, 2009).

In the case of Nilsen, Gottfredson and Hirschi’s General Theory of Crime could be applied to his crimes. This theory explains that low self-control in the pursuit of self interest will result in crime (Hagan, 2017). Much of Nilsen’s life is spent in the pursuit of his own interests of escaping his family, having a better life and trying to achieve a stable and lasting relationship. After joining the military, Nilsen let his drinking become out of control so that he could approach other (Coffey, 2013). While working for the London Metropolitan Police, Nilsen strived for companionship and a lasting intimate relationship; he would get drunk and try to pick up men at a gay bar but he felt neither of these lifestyles could be sustained (Masters, 1985). It is after he leaves the police that he beings killing.
PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY

Psychological theories of crime explain how the individual differences in the way a person thinks or feels about their behavior might make someone more prone to commit crime (Greene, Heilbrun & Wrightsman, 2019). These variations in personality could be identified through increased anger, weakened attachments to family and friends, and a desire to take risks.

Freudian theory, which could be applied to both men, argues that human nature is made up of instinctual drives that demand satisfaction (Hagan, 2017). These instinctual drives, in a “normal” individual, could be controlled through moral and ethical restraints, but when those restraints are absent, like with Dahmer and Nilsen, those drives will seek out pleasure. Those who agree with Fruedian theory view criminality as “unconsciously motivated and often due to repression of personality conflicts and unresolved problems experience in early childhood” (Hagan, 2017).

CONCLUSION

Both men experienced rather similar lives; Nilsen was only 15 years older but both experienced personality changes between the ages of 4 and 6 years. You could say that they both came from broken homes as both had experienced their parents divorce. They experienced some sort of abandonment by their parents; Nilsen’s father left he and his siblings with his mother, while Dahmer’s mother left him with his father. Neither had great relationships with their families and felt that their siblings received more attention. Nilsen joined the military to escape poverty and his family; Dahmer joined out of fear of his father. Both took up drinking heavily while enlisted. Both had taken their first victim in 1978, just months apart; their first victims even shared the same first name: Steven/Stephen. Even their method of murder was strikingly similar. It is terrifying to think that so much of these men’s lives mirrored one another. Thanks to criminological theories we can take a look into these men’s lives and at least try to understand how and why they would commit such heinous murders.

References

Buchan, Jamie (29 December 2009). “Author inspired by serial killer Nilsen”. The Press and Journal. Aberdeen, Scotland: Aberdeen Journals.

Coffey, Russell (2013). Dennis Nilsen: Conversations with Britain’s Most Evil Serial Killer. John Blake.

Dahmer, L. (1994). A fathers story. New York: W. Morrow & Co.

Davis, D. (1995). The Jeffrey Dahmer story: an American nightmare. NY, NY: St. Martins Paperbacks.

Edison, N.J. (2003). The World’s Most Infamous Killers. London, England: Chancellor Press. p. 79.

Greene, E., Heilbrun, K., & Wrightsman, L. S. (2019). Wrightsmans psychology and the legal system (9th ed.). Boston, MA, USA: Cengage.

Hagan, F. E. (2017). Introduction to criminology: theories, methods, and criminal behavior (9th ed.). Los Angeles: SAGE.

Masters, Brian (1985). Killing for Company: The Case of Dennis Nilsen. New York City: Random House.

Masters, Brian (1993). The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer. London, England: Hodder & Stoughton.

Miller, F., Vandome, A., & McBrewster, J. (2009). Jeffrey Dahmer: Serial Killer, Sex Offender, Murder, Rape , Torture, Dismemberment, Necrophilia, Cannibalism, Columbia Correctional Institution. Alphascript Publishing.

Norris, Joel (1992). Jeffrey Dahmer. London, England: Constable & Robinson.

Saborsky, A. L., & Ramsland, K. (2013). DISTANCE DIAGNOSIS: Can We Really Tell Whether Dahmer had Asperger’s Disorder? (cover story). Forensic Examiner, 22(2), 42–48. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=i3h&AN=90223425&site=ehost-live

Waddell, Bill (1993). The Black Museum: New Scotland Yard. London, England: Little, Brown and Company.