Žudikų tipologija Lietuvoje

Abstract

The study analyses typological differences among persons convicted of murder in Lithuania. The study continues the discussion of the previous article “The Process of Murderer’s Social Disadaptation at Different Stages of His Life” published in Mykolas Romeris University “Social Sciences Studies” journal, and uses the results from the same sample of 521 murderers convicted in Lithuania. The first study discussed the common traits of all studied murderers, while this article aims to reveal the most essential typological differences among them, which would enable the authors to separate the murderers to distinct types. The authors used multivariate statistical methods (principal component method in particular) to detect the general traits responsible for the majority of differences among murders. The psychological phenomenon, which determines these traits, is called “emotional destructiveness” and is a paradoxical and converse interconnection between the intensity of one’s destructive (aggressive or sadistic) emotions and the strength of one’s emotional self-control. The ability to control emotions depends on alcohol and drug misuse, and a carefree attitude towards life.The data show that the intensity of emotional destructiveness has an impact on other differences among murders, especially the motivational factors for murderers to commit the crime and how these murders were committed. Offenders with a high level of emotional destructiveness tended to commit murders because of “an explosion” of their destructive emotions. The data show that clear differences among murderers possessing high or low emotional destructiveness can already be observed in their childhood and adolescence years. The data also show essential differences among murderers in their personality traits and attitude towards life. A possible use of the results of this study to improve criminal legislation and crime prevention are discussed in the article. The article shows that data provide new prospects in making criminal legislation and crime prevention more individualistic.