Psychological profile: Andrei Chikatilo

Type :

Case study

Pages :

5 pages

Format :

.doc

Published date :

10/05/2009

Category :

Social studies

Sub category :

Psychology

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Summary :

Introduction
Russia's most notorious serial killers
The situations that compelled Andrei Chikatilo to commit heinous murders
The task of catching serial killers
Rational logic behind where criminals commit crimes
Conclusions
References

Abstract

Every human is capable of committing murder; however, there are only a select few who actually chose to do so. Murders are classified by their nature, whether or not they were premeditated, and the number of victims slain and the time span of the murders. Serial killers are those who generally commit premeditated murder of three or more individuals over an extended period of time with a cooling off period between killings. Serial murderers pose a grand threat to society as they tend to continue killing until they are captured. Scholars across the disciplines of criminology, sociology and psychology have all proposed a number of theories which attempt at understanding what causes such abominable behavior. Focusing here on one particular serial killer, a psychoanalytic approach is applied at comprehending the motives behind his brutal slayings. Subsequently profiling techniques are examined as to their validity and accuracy in isolating and identifying serial murderers. It must be understood at this point that profiling does not aim to predict the actions of a serial murderer at large, instead profiles are created to assist police investigations by drawing a detailed illustration of the criminal by employing a multitude of techniques.