On the surface, your pilot example may seem relevant, but we're not trying to pigeon-hole pilots, are we? We don't have myths, rules and general assumptions on why a person chooses to be a pilot. This is where the seemingly overzealous profilers come into play. What they have done with 'serial killer' is detrimental and useless.
Do we assume that all pilots liked to play with toy planes as a kid? Some did, some didn't. There's more kids who played with planes as a kid that DIDN'T become pilots than did become one. Do we assume that all people who love planes will be pilots? No. Can we, or do we try, to predict who will become a pilot? No. We can't even if we wanted to, same with anything else.
The many myths, misconceptions and furious attempts to connect all serial killers have done nothing but confuse the issue further and is detrimental to law enforcement. One of the reasons why some serial killers got away with things for as long as they did was not due to their smarts but due more to misconceptions that law enforcement had about the supposed 'nature and behavior' of serial killers.
Yes, if they stopped at defining it as killing 'x' amount of people in a minimum of 'x' amount of time, then fine. BUT, they try to make too many connections or whatever that just aren't there nor are they unique to 'serial killers'.
If you get your definitions off Wikipedia, of course certain parts are going to be suspect. "Serial Killer" has a thousand different definitions, wikipedia has just conglomorated them to give a general overall definition. And don't say you didn't get this off Wiki cuz I just looked at the Wikipedia definiton and you definitly did. Speaking as a psychology student...well, what I said above, basically.
Is it normal I think we need to throw out the term 'Serial Killer'?
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"It essentially describes most people"
...wut
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Anonymous Post Author
11 years ago
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If you take away the killing part. They try too hard to define someone or something that has no boundaries.
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bleach_baby
11 years ago
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That is because the term serial killer is a blanket term for someone who, you know, kills serially. It is not a psychological classification.
That's like saying the word "pilot" is stupid, because aside from the fact that they fly planes, it describes most people.
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Anonymous Post Author
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On the surface, your pilot example may seem relevant, but we're not trying to pigeon-hole pilots, are we? We don't have myths, rules and general assumptions on why a person chooses to be a pilot. This is where the seemingly overzealous profilers come into play. What they have done with 'serial killer' is detrimental and useless.
Do we assume that all pilots liked to play with toy planes as a kid? Some did, some didn't. There's more kids who played with planes as a kid that DIDN'T become pilots than did become one. Do we assume that all people who love planes will be pilots? No. Can we, or do we try, to predict who will become a pilot? No. We can't even if we wanted to, same with anything else.
The many myths, misconceptions and furious attempts to connect all serial killers have done nothing but confuse the issue further and is detrimental to law enforcement. One of the reasons why some serial killers got away with things for as long as they did was not due to their smarts but due more to misconceptions that law enforcement had about the supposed 'nature and behavior' of serial killers.
Yes, if they stopped at defining it as killing 'x' amount of people in a minimum of 'x' amount of time, then fine. BUT, they try to make too many connections or whatever that just aren't there nor are they unique to 'serial killers'.
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bleach_baby
11 years ago
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If you get your definitions off Wikipedia, of course certain parts are going to be suspect. "Serial Killer" has a thousand different definitions, wikipedia has just conglomorated them to give a general overall definition. And don't say you didn't get this off Wiki cuz I just looked at the Wikipedia definiton and you definitly did. Speaking as a psychology student...well, what I said above, basically.
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Anonymous Post Author
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Actually, I got information from numerous sources, many from books before there was internet, let alone wikipedia.
Here's a link to the FBI, where you can read all about it, since the FBI is supposedly the expert here.
http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/serial-murder/serial-murder-1#two