The mass murderer history: modern classifications, sociodemographic and psychopathological characteristics, suicidal dimensions, and media contagion of mass murders

Superhomicide offenders: Nosology, empirical features, and linkages to sexual and multiple murder typologies

The nosology for criminals who murder multiple victims is at once well-established and controversial, perhaps because theorists have largely segregated such offenders from the broader criminal population. The current study introduces the superhomicide offender, an individual convicted of at least five murders, to locate multiple homicide offenders within the criminological and epidemiological science pertaining to the most pathological offenders, and statistically place them with other conceptualizations of severe offenders at the 95th percentile of the offending distribution. Relative to other capital murderers, superhomicide offenders have lengthier criminal history, greater conviction history, and coextensive psychopathology characterized by psychopathy, sexual sadism, homicidal ideation, cluster A and B personality disorders, and major depressive disorder. Superhomicide offenders are profoundly psychopathic with 20 of the 39 offenders reaching the clinical threshold of 30 or more on the PCL-R, and 19 of the 39 are sexually sadistic. Regarding extant typologies of sexual and multiple homicide offenders, 15 are serial murderers, 17 are sexual homicide offenders, 17 are mass murderers, and 17 are spree murderers. Twenty-four of the 39 superhomicide offenders (61.5%) met criteria for multiple typologies, suggesting the new prototype can help unify the study of those who perpetrate multicide and embed them within criminological and epidemiological models that specify pathological antisocial outcomes.

Assassinatos em massa

Este estudo tem como objetivo analisar as ocorrências de assassinatos em massa no Brasil e as características desses crimes na literatura internacional. Foi realizada uma pesquisa on-line com base na análise temática sobre os assassinatos em massa ocorridos no Brasil, que datam de 1999 a 2019, com um total de seis casos. Todos eles foram perpetrados por homens, com idades entre 14 e 50 anos, com características narcísicas, isolamento e alienação social segundo informações obtidas no noticiário. Os textos consultados também sugerem que os transtornos mentais podem predispor ao crime, assim como o bullying. Verificou-se também que nenhuma das notícias mencionava programas de prevenção, apenas enfatizando o crime e a comoção provocada. Sugere-se novas pesquisas sobre o assunto, notoriamente escassas no Brasil, para compreender esse fenômeno à luz da cultura do país e poder atuar preventivamente para evitar desfechos semelhantes no território brasileiro.

Violence, drugs, and psychiatric disorders: news from the Brazilian press

The aim of this study is to describe the way that the Brazilian press reports on episodes of violence involving people with substance-related problems or psychiatric disorders. To develop this documentary study, we analyzed news reports from September 2009 to August 2015 in two major Brazilian newspaper who make their published articles available electronically in the Lexis Nexis Academic® database. The analyses were conducted using descriptive statistics and association tests. We identified 269 news stories related to these themes during the study period. The reported events occurred mainly in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, and 68% of the stories suggested a causal relationship between substance use or mental illness and violence. A marked minority (10%) of the stories made reference to prevention or treatment for the conditions studied. We concluded that the Brazilian press issues incomplete reports on episodes of violence involving people with substance-related problems or psychiatric disorders, emphasizing the relationships between these conditions and potential danger, particularly in cases involving drugs.