Wisconsin Mass Murder

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071008/ap_on_re_us/wisconsin_shooting_victims;_ylt=AqQgY7SnC3xA6QDW2eGKE2RH2ocA

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071008/ap_on_re_us/wisconsin_shooting

News out of Wisconsin is that a young police officer (he was only 20) has shot and killed six young people in some sort of lover's spat. One other person was wounded. The shooter was killed by police.

In most states, the minimum age at which one can become a sworn police officer (replete with a badge and gun) is 21. Some of the web discussions about the Wisconsin case posit the question of how this officer was even able to become a police officer. In fact, training and other restrictions on who can become a police officer have been points of debate since policing became professionalized in the 1910s and 1920s.

August Vollmer, considered the father of the professionalism movement in policing (before which police positions were allocated as political favors), advocated that police have a college education before being set out upon the streets. Back then, the equivalent of a bachelor's degree could be achieved much more quickly than it can today (2-3 years rather than 4-5). Vollmer believed that the pursuit of a university education would equip potential officers with critical thinking skills and would allow them to develop more knowledge of the world and maturity before being put into such a powerful social position.

These days, most police officers are required to have 60 credits of university education and to be at least 21 years of age. The background checks on officers are generally quite stringent, but it is impossible to always predict whether someone might "snap" (much as we'd like to be able to predict this).

It has been observed that we allow military members to carry weapons and go to war at just 18 years of age. It might be observed that incidents of violence to self or intimate others have become a significant concern in the American military-- especially since the war on terror has amplified. Young people set out with weapons and the authority to use them do not always make very good decisions. The following article talks about the issue in terms of suicide: http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-soldiertreatment1003.artoct03,0,4076162.story?track=rss. However, suicide is but the other side of the coin from homicide. The two acts extend from very similar dark places in the mind, and, often, someone who murders others will then kill themself (or wait for police to do it for them, termed "suicide by cop").

Welcome to Crime.wav

I've blogged in a variety of settings prior to now, and I've enjoyed it. But I haven't found a blog "home" and so I decided to set up here. My prior shortcoming in the past, in terms of maintaining a blog, also likely came down to the matter of being too generalist. So, this time, I intend to stick to my area of expertise. I'm trained as a sociologist-- specifically in social psychology, deviance, and criminology. I very much enjoy studing about crime and, in particular, the extreme variants of criminality. Trying to explain human behavior is always a challenge because of the extent of variability, but trying to explain human behavior at the extremes is that much more difficult. For most of us, we just have no frame of reference by which to make sense of such behavior.

Years ago, I used to host a radio talk show at Indiana University. It aired at midnight and provided a forum in which I would talk about current cases and criminality more generally. This forum is designed to serve the same purpose, but in blog form (though I may start adding podcasts). I'd like to send a thank you out to Jeremy Freese for suggesting the name of the show, which is even better-suited to today's digital landscape. I'd also give a kudos to his blogosphere, which inspired me to restart my own.

And, so, until tomorrow!