The Creation of Dangerous Violent Criminals

Lonnie H Athens

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351584432
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Kriminologie

Lonnie H. Athens' path-breaking work examines a problem that has baffled experts and the general public alike: How does a person become a predatory violent criminal?

In the original edition, the process that Athens labeled "violentization" encompassed four stages: brutalization, defiance, dominative engagements, and virulency. In this edition, Athens identifies a new final stage, violent predation, as the culmination of the violent criminal's development. He uses vivid first-person accounts gleaned from in-depth interviews and participant observation of nascent and hardened violent criminals to back up his theory.

In this vastly expanded edition, Athens examines how his thinking and ideas have evolved over the past thirty years and renames and clarifies two stages of development. Athens also addresses, for the first time, criticisms of his original theory. Milestones of this important work are discussed, as well as the paradoxes surrounding its present-day status in the field of criminology. Athens proposes a revised theoretical model that will be useful for classroom use, as well as for interested general readers and professionals.

1

Dangerous Violent Criminals

Case 24: Multiple Assault with a Deadly Weapon

I was cruising around town with two friends of mine, when we suddenly got hit in the rear end by another car. After we stopped off the road, I looked back and saw three guys in the car that hit us. I asked my friends, ‘What in the hell were those guys trying to do, kill us?’ One of my friends said, ‘I don’t know what in the fuck they were trying to do. Let’s get out and find out.’

When we jumped out, they were already out of their car. The rear bumper of our car was only bent up some, but I was mad because they could have hurt us bad. I said, ‘Why in the hell did you run into the back of our car?’ They said, ‘Why did you stop in the middle of a block so fast?’ I said ‘Look, you stupid dumb motherfuckers, you ran into us, we didn’t run into you.’ Then they said, ‘We didn’t run into you on purpose, you stopped so fast, we couldn’t stop in time.’ After they said that, I really got pissed off because they didn’t act like they were sorry. They didn’t seem to give a damn whether they hurt us or not, which got me mad as hell at those stupid motherfuckers. So I said, ‘Well, if that’s all you dumb motherfuckers got to say about it, let’s go on and fight.’ They just stood there looking at me dumbfounded, which made my hatred for them explode. I said, ‘You’re going to be sorry for the day you hit us, you dumb stupid motherfuckers, because now I’m going to kill all three of you.’ I decided to get something and really mess them all up bad. I looked in the car and grabbed a heavy steel crowbar. I told my friends, ‘Now I’m going to do some real damage to them.’ Without saying another word, I started swinging the crowbar and smacked one of the guys hard right in the side of his head. I could feel his skull splatter open when I hit him. He fell to the ground with blood pouring over his face, neck, and shoulders. As I looked at him, he clutched his head and blood ran through his fingers and he screamed, ‘Please help me, please help me, my head is bleeding real bad. I’m going to bleed to death.’ But I was still mad and could care less whether he lived or died. All I wanted was to get the other two guys before they got away.

Then I turned and quickly hit another one hard across his arm twice while he was still staring at his crying friend who I had hit in the head. After I hit him, he looked at me and squealed, ‘Oh my arm, my arm, you broke my arm.’ Next I swung and hit the last guy hard in the leg, but I didn’t get a chance to hit him solid again. Before I could hit him again and do some real damage to him, he started running with the guy I hit in the arm. I chased those yellow motherfuckers for maybe a half block before I suddenly began worrying about the police getting me. Then I ran back as fast as I could to our car satisfied that I did real damage to two of them. We jumped in the car and drove off fast.

Case 16: Kidnapping and Attempted Murder

James and I got the munchies and were walking to the grocery store to buy some cupcakes. In the parking lot of the store, we saw a fancy camper. I said, ‘Check out that camper’, and we started looking in its windows. James said, ‘That’s a bad truck, man.’ As we were walking away, an old woman walked by us with a big man pushing her grocery cart. She said, ‘Keep away from my truck.’ I said ‘We were just looking at it.’ She said, ‘Keep you black asses away from my truck.’ After she told us to keep away from her truck, I got mad. After she added the part about our black asses, I got doubly mad and wanted to kill her old stinking ass on the spot. I said, ‘Kiss my ass, you old stinking bitch.’ The big grocery store man said, ‘Get out of here before I call the police.’ I said, ‘Fuck the police, they’re not about anything. I’ll kill that old bitch for talking about my black ass.’

About ten minutes later we saw her truck again in a parking lot behind a building. I said to James, ‘Look, there’s that same damn truck. Now I can get that old bitch.’ We ran out to the truck, looked around, and then busted open the back door. I told James, ‘When that old bitch comes back, let’s take her out some place where I can stomp her ass. I’m going to fuck her up bad.’ James only laughed. I was still hot from her referring to our black asses and acting like we were dirt for her to kick around. I wanted to get her old stinking ass bad for saying that to us. I had hate for that old stinking white bitch. James wasn’t as mad about her referring to our black asses as I was.

We sat in her camper eating the food she had gotten while we waited for her to come back. I couldn’t wait til she saw us. When she came back to the camper, we pulled a knife on her and told her to start driving. She said, ‘I’ll do anything you want, but please don’t hurt me.’ As we drove off, she said, ‘I’m sorry for what I said to you at the grocery store, please let me go.’ We didn’t say a word until we told her to pull the camper into a vacant lot we drove past. After she parked the camper, she started crying and slobbering, ‘Please don’t hurt me, please don’t hurt me. I’m sorry, please….’ I knew the old stinking bitch was only lying. Seeing her slobber like that only made me madder and hate her even more.

I jumped out of the camper, grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her out of the cab. She landed face first on the dirt. She got up on her hands and knees and started yelling, ‘Help, police, help police, help.’ I said, ‘Shut up you old stinking bitch’, and kicked her in the stomach as hard as I could and knocked all the wind out of that old bag. She rolled up in a ball in the mud gasping for her breath, and I kicked her again which straightened her out like a stick. I tried to lift her up by the clothes, but she was so muddy that she slipped out of my hands, so I grabbed her by the hair. James said, ‘Would you look at her ugly old face.’ After I looked at it, I got so mad, I smacked and backhanded her about twenty times. Then I threw her against the camper and she slumped down on the ground. James opened a can of pop and asked her, ‘Do you want some pop?’ She said, ‘No, I only want you to let me go.’ I said, ‘I’m not going to let you go, you stinking old bitch. I’m going to kill you.’ I grabbed her by the hair again and slammed her head back and forth against the side of the truck until blood started running out from her hair and over her ears. Then I dropped her to the ground, kicked her over into the mudpuddle and left her for dead. We got into her camper and drove off.

As soon as one finishes reading the previous two cases, if not before, one is struck with the thought that these were certainly heinous violent crimes. What may be less obvious is exactly why they merit this pejorative designation. There are two primary reasons why they deserve it. One reason springs from the grievous nature of the violent crimes committed. In the second case presented, the elderly victim nearly died as a result of the horrible injuries she sustained at the hands of her much younger male attacker. In the first case, there were three young male victims rather than only one elderly female. Nevertheless, two of the three victims were very severely injured, with one requiring lengthy hospitalization in order to recover from his wounds. Violent crimes can be considered grievous whenever a major violation of another person’s body is committed, whether it is accomplished by the actual infliction of great bodily harm or only the real threat of the infliction of great bodily harm.

The other primary reason why the violent crimes described in the two cases merit the designation of heinous springs from their relative lack of provocation. There are qualitatively distinct degrees of provocation for the commission of violent crimes. Speaking loosely, provocation may range from maximum to moderate, to only minimal, to no provocation whatsoever. Maximum provocation may be said to occur only when the victim’s actions place the subsequent attacker’s physical safety in imminent danger. In this case, the perpetrator may sometimes later successfully claim that his or her violent action was legally permissible on grounds of self-defense and thereby not a crime. Moderate provocation may be said to occur when victims purposely and cruelly antagonize their subsequent attackers to the point of tormenting them. Although violent crimes which are moderately provoked are not potentially justifiable as are those which are maximally provoked, they are at least somewhat understandable to most people. Minimal provocation may be said to occur when the victims provoke their subsequent attacker, but their provocatory actions fall somewhat short of those just described. For violent crimes to be heinous, there must have been only minimal or less than minimal provocation for their commission.

In neither of the cases presented did the level of provocation exceed the minimal level, although it did vary somewhat between the cases. In the second case presented, the victim’s conduct was the more provocative, since she intentionally provoked her subsequent attacker by directly insulting him, but he was in no sense tormented by her. In the first case, the victims’ conduct was less provocative, since they unintentionally provoked their subsequent attacker through colliding with the car in which he was a passenger and then failing to offer a proper apology quickly enough. Although the level of provocation in each case differed, it was either minimal or less than minimal in both of them.

Heinous violent crimes, therefore, are those in which the provocation is grossly disproportional to the injuries inflicted upon the victim, so that these are the violent crimes in which people are severely injured or killed with little or no apparent provocation. Most people dread becoming the victim of a heinous violent crime more than any other crime because they fear that without any real provocation on their part, someone could gravely harm them. People justifiably fear that merely by being at the wrong place at the wrong time and by saying and doing the wrong thing or not saying and doing the right thing to the wrong person, they or someone they care about could be seriously injured, maimed, or killed. The likelihood of this happening in our present society is not so remote as to make this a groundless or needless worry for any individual, including those most heavily shielded from the vagaries of social life.

Criminals who commit heinous violent crimes are the most dangerous violent criminals in our society, with perhaps the lone exception of certain white collar criminals whose actions jeopardize the health or safety of large numbers of people. Although the term ‘dangerous violent criminal’ may, at best, seem to be needlessly redundant, it is, in fact, an appropriate way to designate those violent criminals who commit heinous violent crimes. Contrary to the belief of most lay people and criminologists alike, not all violent criminals are equally violent: some are much more violent than others. Those select few violent criminals who will commit grievous violent acts with the least amount of provocation are the most violent ones. That explains why the term ‘dangerous violent criminal’ is not a redundancy, but an apt designation.

The basic question which the occurrence of heinous violent crimes ultimately raises is: How does a human being in our supposedly highly civilized society become the type of person who would commit these violent crimes without any apparent moral qualms or reservations? Or to put it more simply, what makes people become dangerous violent criminals? In this book, I hope to provide a fuller and deeper answer to this troubling question than has been provided before. The chapters that follow should make the process through which dangerous violent criminals are created less dark and mysterious and much more understandable. Unfortunately, the elucidation of the process behind the creation of dangerous violent criminals is not without its drawbacks. Most people’s feelings toward dangerous violent criminals are probably morally unambiguous. They have outright hostility towards any violent criminals plaguing their communities and want these criminals swiftly caught and severely punished for burdening them with anxiety and fear over their own and their families’ personal safety.

However, people will discover through reading this book that they have had a shortsighted and simplistic view of this very serious problem. When they now look at a dangerous violent criminal, they see only the finished product of a lengthy and at points tortuous developmental process which most definitely ends, but which did not start, with a malevolent human being. A reading of this book will afford a much longer and more complex view of the dangerous violent criminal. When people look at a dangerous violent criminal at the beginning of his developmental process rather than at the very end of it, they will see, perhaps unexpectedly, that the dangerous violent criminal began as a relatively benign human being for whom they would probably have more sympathy than antipathy. Perhaps more importantly, people will conclude that the creation of dangerous violent criminals is largely preventable, as is much of the human carnage which follows in the wake of their birth. Therefore, if society fails to take any significant steps to stop the process behind the creation of dangerous violent criminals, it tacitly becomes an accomplice in creating them. Thus, as a result of this drastic change from a nearsighted and simplistic to a farsighted and complex view of dangerous violent criminals, a real sense of moral ambiguity over this problem is generated which may prove quite distressing.

2

The Key to the Creation of Dangerous Violent Criminals

What is the key to discovering how dangerous violent criminals are created? Perhaps the best way to find the answer to this question is to look at the keys which have already been used to try to unlock the mystery behind their creation. Since different theories offer explanations of phenomena in terms of particular factors or processes to the exclusion of other factors or processes, they may be thought of as providing the keys to the mysteries of the creation of phenomena, whether the phenomenon under consideration be some dreaded disease or dangerous violent criminals. Thus, possible keys to the creation of dangerous violent criminals may be found in the major existing theories which purport to explain it.

The extant theories of how people become dangerous violent criminals can be placed into one of two broad categories: social environmental and bio-physiological. This classification of theories does not rest upon the presumption that some of the theories exclusively explain becoming a dangerous violent criminal in terms of bio-physiological factors or processes, whereas others explain it exclusively in terms of social environmental factors. Rather, this classification rests only upon the presumption that in all theories, one kind of factor is invariably emphasized to a greater degree than the other. Bio-physiological theories merely place more importance upon bio-physiological factors than upon social environmental ones, whereas social environmental theories place more importance upon social environmental factors than bio-physiological ones. Thus, the present classification of theories into these two categories is based upon their relative, not absolute, emphasis upon one kind of factor or process versus the other. Since all present theories of violent criminality emphasize one kind of factor or process more than the other, there is no theory which cannot easily be placed into one category or the other. In fact, it can be safely stated that virtually all existing theories emphasize one kind of factor or process significantly more than the other. Thus, the present classification of theories of violent criminality accurately reflects their current state of development.

Sarnoff Mednick developed what can perhaps be considered the quintessential bio-physiological theory of the creation of dangerous violent criminals from his study of the indices of the autonomic nervous system activities, such as the galvanic skin response (GSR) of criminals and delinquents.¹ Mednick believes that punishment is the most practical and efficient means which society has at its disposal for the moral training of children, and he developed his theory around the notion that children become dangerous violent criminals because of their failure to learn from punishment. Mednick’s assumptions are that: the way in which the autonomic nervous system operates in a particular child is largely inherited from his parents; the autonomic nervous system largely regulates the emotion of fear; and the arousal and dissipation of fear, in turn, controls whether or not children can learn from punishment.

Given the importance of the first two assumptions in this theory, a few brief and admittedly oversimplified remarks about the autonomic nervous system are appropriate here. The autonomic nervous system has traditionally been conceived of as consisting of two sub-systems: the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous systems. The sympathetic nervous system, which only fully comes into play when the body becomes emotionally aroused, innervates physiological processes such as the heart rate and sweating, the latter of which the GSR is designed to measure. The parasympathetic nervous system, which comes more fully into play when the body is at rest, innervates physiological processes such as digestion. Thus, it appears that Mednick’s theory is most directly based upon the operation of the sympathetic sub-system of the autonomic nervous system.

Mednick describes the causal dynamics at work in those who do not become a dangerous violent criminal in terms of his four often-cited points:

1. Child A contemplates aggressive action.
2. Because of previous punishment or the threat of punishment he suffers fear.
3. Because of fear he inhibits the aggressive response.
4. Because he no longer entertains the aggressive impulse, the fear will begin to dissipate, to be reduced.²

Mednick later adds a critical fifth point: ‘The reduction of fear (which immediately follows the inhibition of the aggression)…act[s] as a reinforcement for this inhibition and will result in learning the inhibition of aggression’³ (emphasis in original). Mednick underscores the importance of this last point, claiming that ‘fear reduction’ is the most powerful inducer of learning now known to humankind.

If Mednick’s five points were restated in terms of how children do become dangerous violent criminals, rather than in terms of how they do not become dangerous violent criminals, his theory could be much bett...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword to the Transaction Edition by Richard Rhodes
• Introduction to the Transaction Edition by Lonnie Athens
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Dangerous Violent Criminals
• 2. The Key to the Creation of Dangerous Violent Criminals
• 3. The Research Rationale and Strategy
• 4. Stage One: Brutalization: Violent Subjugation
• 5. Stage One: Brutalization: Personal Horrification
• 6. Stage One: Brutalization: Violent Coaching
• 7. Stage Two: Belligerency
• 8. Stage Three: Violent Performances
• 9. Stage Four: Virulency
• 10. Theoretical Implications
• 11. Policy Implications
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Afterword to the Transaction Edition
• Index