I 100% agree that there is an overemphasis on trying to establish a "so-called" motive. It is mostly a waste of tax-payor resources to do this. "Motive" is defined as: "something which causes someone to act". The proximate motive here clearly is that the suspect desired or wanted the victim to be dead and therefore he intentionally killed him. It was clearly not an accident. The most important question is this: Was the killing intentional? In other words, was the suspect's intention to kill the victim. If so, then the proximate motive is that the suspect wanted the victim dead and that is all the "motive" we really need. It should really not matter if there is intentional killing due to race/creed/color/politics/revenge/wealth/social status or insanity or even psychosis of the suspect IMHO. Of course, cases where the motive was to kill for self-defense/self-preservation must be teased out from those wherein the victim was not initially threatening the life of the suspect. My 2 cents. Thank you.
In a nutshell, “don’t speculate.” In theory, yes. But humans speculate about everything. It’s what makes us human. So I offer the counter argument: speculate. You may not find the exact answer you’re looking for. There may not be an absolute answer. But that doesn’t make it futile because everything you learn along the way, mistakes especially, contribute to your growth.
I agree with the author. If that guy had a mental illness, then it’s a tragedy all around. And perhaps there were system failures that did not get him off the streets sooner. And we can have discussions such as have been started by folks like Freddie DeBoer and Scott Alexander, where the logic follows to an endpoint of forced incarceration, perhaps indefinitely, for certain mental illnesses. And as a society, we can grapple with the implications of that.
OTOH, if that guy had a beef and wanted to be a vigilante, there’s not much to see there either, beyond “don’t be that guy”. Even if you could peer deep into his soul, why would you want to?
As for The Onion, they’re on point with guns per usual. It’s 2a and the law of the land. The end. To try to rationalize why guns are allowed to the extent they are in the US (as opposed to any other western nation) is pointless and beyond stupid. It is what it is. There is no good, or other, reason. And ain’t never gonna change, given the threshold for constitutional amendments.
Except that the U.S. is not unique when it come to murder, mass murder, and mass killing. Even assuming more killing are caused by guns than in other countries, mass killing are committed in other countries in other ways.
Yes. Anything can be used as a weapon. The point is that guns are unique in its ability to take out many people in short period of time, at a distance, where you don’t need any physical advantage to inflict harm.
Yes, a car killed 2 in Germany. And we hear about it….cuz it’s so darn unusual. 2 gun deaths in 1 incident doesn’t even make the news in the US since it doesn’t even qualify as a mass shooting…and although I don’t have the statistics at my fingertips, it would hardly surprise me if that was a daily occurrence.
I would like to write a guest post in response to this--is there a way to do that? Another psychiatrist point of view, and I have written extensively about the idea that involuntary psychiatric treatment is away – – or not – – to prevent mass murders. My email is dinamiller@yahoo.com
An awful lot of time and energy is seemingly wasted trying to discern motive. I doubt that a single act of violence has ever been averted by identifying motive. It may, of course, be of value in identifying the culprit. A small percentage of the population are psychopaths; they have no conscience at all and are unable to feel or understand empathy or guilt. A larger percentage are sociopaths. They are basically skilled con men who may have some conscience but are able rationalize their actions in order to overcome any twinges of guilt. Unfortunately, many of these people gravitate to politics where they can commit endless crimes with impunity.
I hate exposing myself but the truth is one must have a criminal mind to fully comprehend criminal behavior. Sadly my own was finely honed after 18 years of addiction where I found it easy to manipulate people to get what I wanted. Or at the time believed I needed. I used to say that addiction policy and criminal policy should be made by recovering folks because they know what it takes to help a person change their behavior. And it doesn’t come from pharma.
Dr. Ostracher makes excellent points. As a psychotherapist, I have worked with many people to understand that attempting to figure out "the why" doesn't always lead to more peace or resolution to grief, trauma, loss, etc. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0732118X18302551
Dr. Cifu--crazy does not equal violent. Sure, do I think you've got to have something kicking around upstairs that causes one's self to act in such a way? Sure. But that's my biased view from influences of mass media. But what does the Evidence tell us:
-The overwhelming majority of those with mental illness are not violent people nor commit violent crimes/acts;
-Those with mental illness are much more likely than the general public to be victims of violent crime (not perpetrators);
-There is a slight increase in violence among others with mental illness but is mostly connected to co-morbid SUD, recent hospitalization, and is usually pointed toward members of perpetrators closest circle (friends, family, caregivers).
The research below is helpful to understanding that the belief that mental illness=violence is mass media sensationalism that is not based in actual fact.
Society has become obsessed with divining causation. The fact is most murders are not by crazy people. Killing IS a normal part of life. In pre-civilisation days any slight could result in death. Then came the 10 commandments, so that us plebs were no longer allowed to kill, but the elites continue to kill at leisure (wars, policies), for that is the purpose of that law, to prevent the plebs from killing the elites who oppress them. It's a very effective system. And on occasion, lone wolves (critical thinkers, not crazies, unless you define as crazy as anyone who doesn't believe in the system) break the law.
Excellent point Tracy! We humans hate ambiguity and not knowing. So even in the evidence of clear answers we create them so satisfy our need to know/control.
I wrote about this very thing myself this week -- the dream logic of sensation and meaning, and how we default to stitching them into narratives: https://moperry.substack.com/p/dream-logic
So we find out why. The next murderer has a different why or set of whys. No one can truly know what is in the mind, heart or soul of another. No one murder is any more a tragedy than any other.
As a psychologist who has interviewed many children and adolescents with severe behavior problems (including jailed offenders), I agree that humans are complex creatures, that it's common for a single behavior to have multiple motives, and that the person may not always be fully aware of their motives. It is NEVER helpful to ask them "why" they did something, either because of their lack of self awareness, and/or it makes them defensive. Having said that, I also know that establishing rapport with such a person and engaging in authentic active listening without judgment often reveals a great deal about the thoughts and beliefs that led them to commit an action. While there is no perfect prediction, I have found the FBI report, "The School Shooter: A THREAT ASSESSMENT PERSPECTIVE," based on their extensive study of school shooters, helpful in carrying out a threat assessment. When you read about these kids, you tend to learn there are SO many instances when intervention could have helped and we ignored it. I agree that media speculation on motive is more titillating than insightful (but also very human because we all want to know why). But as a profession, call me naive, I still think we can learn valuable information in talking to such folks, when they don't commit suicide. Oh, and motivation and intent is also relevant to the legal case:
Given the sheer size of humanity, the fact there are so few, relatively speaking (notwithstanding news hysteria) says to me that being overly focused on prevention is akin to:
"Zero Covid!!!!"
"Zero terrorism!!!!!!"
"Eradicate illness!!!!!!!!"
It's a mindset I completely fail to see the logic or rationality of.
Absurd, unproductive, and potentially dangerous is a bad combination! Thank you, Dr. Ostacher. I remember being baffled at O.J. Simpson's temerity in posing as an innocent man in the courtroom. Duh; talk about clueless. A double murderer is not going to balk at trying to appear righteous. We human beings have a lot in common; but there's also a lot we do not have in common.
“ Ultimately the motive cannot be known, even to the murderer himself.”
I strongly disagree with that belief. The implication is that the individual lacks agency, that they are subject to unknown and inscrutable forces that determine behavior. The implication is there is no goal directed behavior; rather a dismal understanding for a psychiatrist or any mental health professional.
While true reasons for such heinous crimes may be difficult to explain, I believe that it is very challenging to comprehend the worldview and framework of behavior of individuals perfectly, but an individual can have a very thorough understanding of his own philosophy and actions. Thus a murderer can have a profound understanding of his motives and goals for committing the crime.
I would appreciate a more detailed explanation of the above assertion of unknowable motives.
There is no implication that the murderer lacks agency, just that we tend to want simple narratives to explain things, or find in people’s behavior things that resonate with us. Mangione could even tell us why he acted the way he did, but even so it may not fully explain it.
From the outset, the error is that we ascribe the label "crazy" to all behaviour we dislike. Yet, killing has been the way of humans forever, both in evolutionary terms for individuals, and systemically, from the elites.
Interesting post. Is the following true as a generalization: knowing a motive for a crime provides the means to prevent it from happening again. However, because murder is generally perpetrated by the insane, perpetrators can only be locked up in asylums? I must be missing something here.
I don't believe the hundreds of murders that occur every year in inner cities such as Chicago are perpetrated by the insane. Those murders are by far the more numerous murders as compared to the sensational murders such as school shootings or the murder committed by Mangione.
The reason we created our nice justice system is to eliminate vengeance, and look at crime coldly. All murder should be treated in exactly the same way, without regard for assumptions of justification. Sadly, we've lost this analysis, now the justice system has become more vengeful than the posses it sough to replace.
I don’t think our justice system was created to eliminate vengeance—it was created to enact punishment for illegal behavior. Death penalty was supposedly to scare people from committing the ultimate crime: murder. I don’t think it is necessarily a deterrent, but it does guarantee that a murderer will not commit the offense again.
Absolutely not. The sentence was never supposed to be punishment but deterrent. But ultimately, posses and unregulated killings were more dangerous for the elites, the justice systems organizes killing into cold definitions. That's what we've lost in last two decades.
I think many people just want to know what would drive another to do so a heinous act—especially in the case of school shootings & other mass murders. But even then, can we ever really prevent it from happening again? Even in places where guns are not as easily accessible as in the US, crazed people use knives to commit mass murders, and sometimes poison (Japan) or bombs.
"Insane" is not a mental health term, it is a legal term defined by the state. It generally means the person was cognitively incapable of understanding the difference between right and wrong as defined by society (as in what's legal vs illegal). Most people who commit murder do not meet this criteria, as evidenced by their efforts to avoid detection before and after the crime. That is why VERY few defendants even attempt to use that defense, because it almost never works.
I suggest it can problematic to extrapolate from “most people” to an individual case?
“Most people” do not die of prostate cancer, but if you are dying of prostate cancer this is not a helpful observation.
Most people are not a brilliant man with schizophrenia when they take a life but some people are exactly that. Michael Laudor (The Best Minds by Jonathan Rosen) was such a man and he spends his days in a forensic hospital. His motive was to kill the evil being manifest in puppet form as his pregnant fiancé. Understanding his motive helped neither prevent nor solve the tragedy for everyone.
If we assassined CEOs at the same clip as we experience school shootings and we'd have stricter control of firearms by the following week.
I 100% agree that there is an overemphasis on trying to establish a "so-called" motive. It is mostly a waste of tax-payor resources to do this. "Motive" is defined as: "something which causes someone to act". The proximate motive here clearly is that the suspect desired or wanted the victim to be dead and therefore he intentionally killed him. It was clearly not an accident. The most important question is this: Was the killing intentional? In other words, was the suspect's intention to kill the victim. If so, then the proximate motive is that the suspect wanted the victim dead and that is all the "motive" we really need. It should really not matter if there is intentional killing due to race/creed/color/politics/revenge/wealth/social status or insanity or even psychosis of the suspect IMHO. Of course, cases where the motive was to kill for self-defense/self-preservation must be teased out from those wherein the victim was not initially threatening the life of the suspect. My 2 cents. Thank you.
In a nutshell, “don’t speculate.” In theory, yes. But humans speculate about everything. It’s what makes us human. So I offer the counter argument: speculate. You may not find the exact answer you’re looking for. There may not be an absolute answer. But that doesn’t make it futile because everything you learn along the way, mistakes especially, contribute to your growth.
I agree with the author. If that guy had a mental illness, then it’s a tragedy all around. And perhaps there were system failures that did not get him off the streets sooner. And we can have discussions such as have been started by folks like Freddie DeBoer and Scott Alexander, where the logic follows to an endpoint of forced incarceration, perhaps indefinitely, for certain mental illnesses. And as a society, we can grapple with the implications of that.
OTOH, if that guy had a beef and wanted to be a vigilante, there’s not much to see there either, beyond “don’t be that guy”. Even if you could peer deep into his soul, why would you want to?
As for The Onion, they’re on point with guns per usual. It’s 2a and the law of the land. The end. To try to rationalize why guns are allowed to the extent they are in the US (as opposed to any other western nation) is pointless and beyond stupid. It is what it is. There is no good, or other, reason. And ain’t never gonna change, given the threshold for constitutional amendments.
Except that the U.S. is not unique when it come to murder, mass murder, and mass killing. Even assuming more killing are caused by guns than in other countries, mass killing are committed in other countries in other ways.
I just saw this headline, for example: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/20/death-and-injuries-in-germany-as-car-ploughs-into-crowd-at-christmas-market
Yes. Anything can be used as a weapon. The point is that guns are unique in its ability to take out many people in short period of time, at a distance, where you don’t need any physical advantage to inflict harm.
Yes, a car killed 2 in Germany. And we hear about it….cuz it’s so darn unusual. 2 gun deaths in 1 incident doesn’t even make the news in the US since it doesn’t even qualify as a mass shooting…and although I don’t have the statistics at my fingertips, it would hardly surprise me if that was a daily occurrence.
I would like to write a guest post in response to this--is there a way to do that? Another psychiatrist point of view, and I have written extensively about the idea that involuntary psychiatric treatment is away – – or not – – to prevent mass murders. My email is dinamiller@yahoo.com
See the about page. We accept submissions at sensiblemedicine2022@gmail.com
An awful lot of time and energy is seemingly wasted trying to discern motive. I doubt that a single act of violence has ever been averted by identifying motive. It may, of course, be of value in identifying the culprit. A small percentage of the population are psychopaths; they have no conscience at all and are unable to feel or understand empathy or guilt. A larger percentage are sociopaths. They are basically skilled con men who may have some conscience but are able rationalize their actions in order to overcome any twinges of guilt. Unfortunately, many of these people gravitate to politics where they can commit endless crimes with impunity.
Is it not the height of sanity to kill a serial murderer?
I hate exposing myself but the truth is one must have a criminal mind to fully comprehend criminal behavior. Sadly my own was finely honed after 18 years of addiction where I found it easy to manipulate people to get what I wanted. Or at the time believed I needed. I used to say that addiction policy and criminal policy should be made by recovering folks because they know what it takes to help a person change their behavior. And it doesn’t come from pharma.
I prefer comparing different types of murderers.
There are cowardly disgusting men who kill their children and significant others
There are perturbed youth (incl young adults) who commit school shootings
There are Mangiones, who are in so much pain (any type of pain) who at least aim properly
and yes, a few crazies, but not many.
Dr. Ostracher makes excellent points. As a psychotherapist, I have worked with many people to understand that attempting to figure out "the why" doesn't always lead to more peace or resolution to grief, trauma, loss, etc. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0732118X18302551
Dr. Cifu--crazy does not equal violent. Sure, do I think you've got to have something kicking around upstairs that causes one's self to act in such a way? Sure. But that's my biased view from influences of mass media. But what does the Evidence tell us:
-The overwhelming majority of those with mental illness are not violent people nor commit violent crimes/acts;
-Those with mental illness are much more likely than the general public to be victims of violent crime (not perpetrators);
-There is a slight increase in violence among others with mental illness but is mostly connected to co-morbid SUD, recent hospitalization, and is usually pointed toward members of perpetrators closest circle (friends, family, caregivers).
The research below is helpful to understanding that the belief that mental illness=violence is mass media sensationalism that is not based in actual fact.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/315791736_The_Link_Between_Mental_Illness_and_Firearm_Violence_Implications_for_Social_Policy_and_Clinical_Practice
https://icjia.illinois.gov/researchhub/articles/mental-illness-and-violence-is-there-a-link/
https://www.apa.org/monitor/2021/04/ce-mental-illness#:~:text=Grandiosity%2C%20grandiose%20delusions%2C%20and%20mania,5%2C%202014).
Society has become obsessed with divining causation. The fact is most murders are not by crazy people. Killing IS a normal part of life. In pre-civilisation days any slight could result in death. Then came the 10 commandments, so that us plebs were no longer allowed to kill, but the elites continue to kill at leisure (wars, policies), for that is the purpose of that law, to prevent the plebs from killing the elites who oppress them. It's a very effective system. And on occasion, lone wolves (critical thinkers, not crazies, unless you define as crazy as anyone who doesn't believe in the system) break the law.
Excellent point Tracy! We humans hate ambiguity and not knowing. So even in the evidence of clear answers we create them so satisfy our need to know/control.
Beautifully said.
I wrote about this very thing myself this week -- the dream logic of sensation and meaning, and how we default to stitching them into narratives: https://moperry.substack.com/p/dream-logic
So we find out why. The next murderer has a different why or set of whys. No one can truly know what is in the mind, heart or soul of another. No one murder is any more a tragedy than any other.
Amen.
As a psychologist who has interviewed many children and adolescents with severe behavior problems (including jailed offenders), I agree that humans are complex creatures, that it's common for a single behavior to have multiple motives, and that the person may not always be fully aware of their motives. It is NEVER helpful to ask them "why" they did something, either because of their lack of self awareness, and/or it makes them defensive. Having said that, I also know that establishing rapport with such a person and engaging in authentic active listening without judgment often reveals a great deal about the thoughts and beliefs that led them to commit an action. While there is no perfect prediction, I have found the FBI report, "The School Shooter: A THREAT ASSESSMENT PERSPECTIVE," based on their extensive study of school shooters, helpful in carrying out a threat assessment. When you read about these kids, you tend to learn there are SO many instances when intervention could have helped and we ignored it. I agree that media speculation on motive is more titillating than insightful (but also very human because we all want to know why). But as a profession, call me naive, I still think we can learn valuable information in talking to such folks, when they don't commit suicide. Oh, and motivation and intent is also relevant to the legal case:
http://okcca.net/ouji-cr/4-63/
Given the sheer size of humanity, the fact there are so few, relatively speaking (notwithstanding news hysteria) says to me that being overly focused on prevention is akin to:
"Zero Covid!!!!"
"Zero terrorism!!!!!!"
"Eradicate illness!!!!!!!!"
It's a mindset I completely fail to see the logic or rationality of.
Absurd, unproductive, and potentially dangerous is a bad combination! Thank you, Dr. Ostacher. I remember being baffled at O.J. Simpson's temerity in posing as an innocent man in the courtroom. Duh; talk about clueless. A double murderer is not going to balk at trying to appear righteous. We human beings have a lot in common; but there's also a lot we do not have in common.
“ Ultimately the motive cannot be known, even to the murderer himself.”
I strongly disagree with that belief. The implication is that the individual lacks agency, that they are subject to unknown and inscrutable forces that determine behavior. The implication is there is no goal directed behavior; rather a dismal understanding for a psychiatrist or any mental health professional.
While true reasons for such heinous crimes may be difficult to explain, I believe that it is very challenging to comprehend the worldview and framework of behavior of individuals perfectly, but an individual can have a very thorough understanding of his own philosophy and actions. Thus a murderer can have a profound understanding of his motives and goals for committing the crime.
I would appreciate a more detailed explanation of the above assertion of unknowable motives.
There is no implication that the murderer lacks agency, just that we tend to want simple narratives to explain things, or find in people’s behavior things that resonate with us. Mangione could even tell us why he acted the way he did, but even so it may not fully explain it.
From the outset, the error is that we ascribe the label "crazy" to all behaviour we dislike. Yet, killing has been the way of humans forever, both in evolutionary terms for individuals, and systemically, from the elites.
Crazy is the N word for mental illness. Although as a very NOT PC person, I find myself using that word from time to time.
Interesting post. Is the following true as a generalization: knowing a motive for a crime provides the means to prevent it from happening again. However, because murder is generally perpetrated by the insane, perpetrators can only be locked up in asylums? I must be missing something here.
I don't believe the hundreds of murders that occur every year in inner cities such as Chicago are perpetrated by the insane. Those murders are by far the more numerous murders as compared to the sensational murders such as school shootings or the murder committed by Mangione.
The reason we created our nice justice system is to eliminate vengeance, and look at crime coldly. All murder should be treated in exactly the same way, without regard for assumptions of justification. Sadly, we've lost this analysis, now the justice system has become more vengeful than the posses it sough to replace.
I think because the elites are no longer as threatened by the lowly us; they are threatened by each other. And human behavior is quite innate!
I don’t think our justice system was created to eliminate vengeance—it was created to enact punishment for illegal behavior. Death penalty was supposedly to scare people from committing the ultimate crime: murder. I don’t think it is necessarily a deterrent, but it does guarantee that a murderer will not commit the offense again.
Absolutely not. The sentence was never supposed to be punishment but deterrent. But ultimately, posses and unregulated killings were more dangerous for the elites, the justice systems organizes killing into cold definitions. That's what we've lost in last two decades.
I’m not sure that knowing a motive really helps prevent crime. Maybe just part of what helps to solve it.
I think many people just want to know what would drive another to do so a heinous act—especially in the case of school shootings & other mass murders. But even then, can we ever really prevent it from happening again? Even in places where guns are not as easily accessible as in the US, crazed people use knives to commit mass murders, and sometimes poison (Japan) or bombs.
"Insane" is not a mental health term, it is a legal term defined by the state. It generally means the person was cognitively incapable of understanding the difference between right and wrong as defined by society (as in what's legal vs illegal). Most people who commit murder do not meet this criteria, as evidenced by their efforts to avoid detection before and after the crime. That is why VERY few defendants even attempt to use that defense, because it almost never works.
https://www.criminaldefensefla.com/blog/mental-illness-the-insanity-defense-statistics/#:~:text=Insanity can be extremely difficult,succeed with their insanity plea.
Points well taken. Thanks.
I suggest it can problematic to extrapolate from “most people” to an individual case?
“Most people” do not die of prostate cancer, but if you are dying of prostate cancer this is not a helpful observation.
Most people are not a brilliant man with schizophrenia when they take a life but some people are exactly that. Michael Laudor (The Best Minds by Jonathan Rosen) was such a man and he spends his days in a forensic hospital. His motive was to kill the evil being manifest in puppet form as his pregnant fiancé. Understanding his motive helped neither prevent nor solve the tragedy for everyone.