Jeffery Dahmer Under The Glasses Of Criminology
Suhani Gupta
3 July 2023 7:52 AM GMT
Jeffrey Dahmer was born in 1960 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His parents worked as a teletype machine instructor and a chemist. As per the documentary it is evident that Dahmer was a psychologically challenged individual which could also have been because of the household he was in as a child. It has been stated that he was neglected as a child. His mother suffered from depression and had attempted suicide, he had noticed for most of his childhood violence at his house as a normalcy. Later, his parents got divorced when he was just 18 years. This shows that most of his childhood was in stressed situation. He also discovered that he was discovered in dead animals and their bones this was known when he saw his father removing animal bones from beneath their home. Later, he became a alcoholic and considered that as his medicine. He was gay and had the fantasy of as being a dominating partner. Dahmer committed his first murder after three weeks of graduating in 1978. He way so murder was that he used to preserve the bones of the dead after killing them. He was later involved in necrophilia i.e. having sexual intercourse with corpses, cannibalism i.e. consuming another human’s flesh and permanent preservation of the skeleton. This shows that he had driven the aspect of being a criminal due to psychological reasons. He was also challenged by the personality disorder that made him do such things.
APPLICATION OF CRIMINOLOGY THEORIES
Now, to apply the theories of criminology on Jeffery Dahmer, this personality and the crimes he committed.
The first theory that seems to be applied is the Social Strain Theory. According to this theory, a lack of genuine options causes stress on an individual, and as a result, crime is seen as a direct outcome of anger and dissatisfaction among lower socioeconomic levels. They are affected by the fact that they struggle more than other classes to accomplish tasks, and as a result, they begin to choose alternative strategies for doing so in order to relieve their frustration. Aspirations that fail to materialise cause tension, frustration, or strain that enhances the likelihood of criminal activity. The objectives of this theory are specification of strains and deviant adaptations. Emile Durkheim one of the main theorists of this theory gave the term “anomie” i.e. “normlessness”. Normlessness develops when socially defined objectives are universally mandated but access to the legal means of achieving them is stratified according to social standing. After this Robert Merton expanded the scope of the strain theory and stated that there are different ways in which an individual adapts to the stress. Anomie is caused when there is a conflict between institutionalized mean and cultural goals. There are five modes of adaptation to stress such as conformity- who do not care about success or failure here institutionalized means and cultural goals are present, innovation- here an individual does not care about the institutionalised means but wants to achieve the cultural goals, ritualism- here an individual does not care about the cultural goals but in on the path of institutionalized means, retreatism- this means that an individual is a dropout i.e. homeless or drug addict and lastly, rebellion- here an individual sets his own goals and means and does not care about the society set standards. Now, in Jeffery Dahmer we can see that he had a broken childhood where he noticed violence on a daily basis. He can be said to have adopted the way of innovation and retreatism in some ways as he became an alcohol addict and used to mock people without any pity.
The next theory that can be applied here is the General strain theory by Robert Agnew which states that there are three types of strain-inducing stimuli that are failure to achieve goals (eg: not have adequate means) , presence of negative stimuli (eg: child abuse, domestic violence) and absence of positive stimuli (eg: change of school, divorce). He also mentioned that there are two types of strain objective- can be observed by anyone and subjective- can only be observed by an individual. He also proposed some conditions/ solutions to relief the stress such as acceptance of strain, minimum negative outcomes and minimum importance to goals. Now, in this case it can be inferred that Jeffery did not see a normal childhood which shows that there was presence of negative stimuli because of the domestic violence and the absence of positive stimuli because of the divorce between his parents which might have contributed to the psychological factors that affected his criminal intentions.
Under the Positive school, a contributor to criminal traits is biological and psychological factors also. Raffaele Garofalo stated that the criminals do lack the moral sentiment of “pity” compared to a non-criminal which can be evident in case of Jeffery Dahmer as he used to mock the disabled which brought him fun rather than showing humility and pity to them. Also, the way he used to murder the individuals for pleasure and keep there remains for himself showed that he lacked the sentiment of pity.
Now as per the Personality Theories, Jeffery was also recorded as being a Psychopath as the theorists under this theory have stated that a psychopath has the traits of experiencing little or no guilt when inflicting harm on others which is evident in this case as he used to kill people without any guilt and for his own pleasure. He was also diagnosed with the bipolar personality disorder which is a mental illness which means the condition is caused by deficiencies in the autonomic nervous system’s ability to regulate emotion. There are thought to be inappropriate levels of or an imbalance between neurotransmitters such as serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine, causing emotions to alternate from one extreme to another. In effect, the bipolar individual can fluctuate from having a very low to a very high arousal threshold.
Under the Psychoanalytic theory, Sigmund Freud gave the concept of libido which means the personality aspect that drives a person to seek self- satisfaction. The uncontrolled feature of libido results in the deviant behaviours. For instance, if the libido is for sex then it may result to rapes. It can be noticed in the case of Dahmer as well that he used the corpse of the people he killed for his pleasure.
Thus, it can be concluded that Jeffery Dahmer did depict some through the crimes and his criminal personality the theories of criminology which proves the theories true in reality as an when applied. He was strangled by the strain caused in this home which contributed to the criminal mindset that built upon him later because of coming from a broken home he was neglected and thus went on wrong ways by having alcohol addiction. Later, he was also captured by the arms of cannibalism that caused him to commit the murder of the innocent and use them for his pleasure.
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