TO WHAT EXTENT CAN PSYCHOLOGY EXPLAIN WHY PEOPLE OFFEND?

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“I am the master of my fate/ I am the captain of my soul.” Although not spoken out loud, those were the last words by Timothy McVeigh. He was pronounced dead at 7:14am local time, on June 11th, 2001, after being imprisoned for bombing the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people, and injuring over 600 more. Many people have their own theories about what constitutes a criminal and to what extent psychology explains why people may offend, but unfortunately there is not just one answer.
It is generally accepted that the cause of crime are rarely one or two reasons but rather the combination of some, therefore, to fully understand how something influences crime we need to look at multiple theories all together. Therefore, in the following, the case study Timothy McVeigh is going to help understanding what circumstances led him to committing this act of terrorism, that is still the deadliest act of domestic terrorism to this day. Therefore, in the following one can understand what terrorism is, how we see terrorists, and how Timothy McVeigh differs from the norm. There’s a look into different psychological and criminological theories, and how they relate to this case. There is going to be an explanation of his live and what influenced him to go down a path of violence and finally a discussing in which way the theories help to explain him, and where they fail to deliver.

When looking at crime behavior through the lens of psychological theories, it is necessary to take into account the types of crimes at issue, the complexities in crime definition, as well as prevalent beliefs about normality and deviant behavior in a given social setting. In any discussion involving crime causality, psychological theories should be considered. Cognitive theories, which focus on the way in which individuals express their perceptions, may contribute to the life of crime. (Akers, 2011) Behavioral theory, in particular, is focused on the idea that individuals evolve their behaviors according to the reactions that their behaviors receive from the people around them. Proponents of psychodynamic theory propose that individual personalities are controlled by unconscious psychological processes rooted in early childhood. (McGuire, 2004) Psychodynamic theory centers around a person’s early life experiences and how these affect their probability of crime. The first is psychodynamic theory, which centers on the idea that a persons early childhood experiences affect their likelihood of future criminal behavior. The third is cognitive theory, the basic premise of which suggests that an individuals perceptions, and the way in which they are expressed affect their likelihood to commit crimes. (Moore, 2011)Taken together, these three theories or characteristics provide compelling insights as to why an individual might commit a crime (Hollin, 2012)

To understand why McVeigh specifically committed this act, one has to understand what terrorism is and why terrorists do what they do. The Crown Prosecution Service defines terrorism as use or threat of action, designed to influence any international government organization or to intimidate the public. Its purpose is advancing a political, religious, racial, or ideological cause. (cps.gov, 2021) SO why do people become terrorists? When we think of terrorism, we automatically think of big groups that give each other a sense of safety and unity. People also tend to make the assumption that terrorists are severely mentally unwell. So far, however, all research results indicate that it does not take a pathological personality to become an extremist. It is enough to have sensitive psychological points, or "psychological vulnerabilities", as the scientific term goes, which encourage a radical world view. (Bhui, et al., 2016)
As a rule, it is the social environment and the desire to belong to a group that explain the entry into an extremist scene. However, McVeigh wasn’t in a terrorist group, he didn’t exactly work alone but is often seen as a lone-actor terrorist. And the likelihood of someone like him so be mentally ill is 13.49 times higher than to a group actor. This doesn’t mean that mental illness causes Terrorism. (Gill, 2015)

How does this fit Timothy McVeigh? To understand this, we would need to get into detail on his personal life. Timothy McVeigh grew up in Pendleton, New York with his father after his Parents split. Additionally, to his father he was also raised by his grandfather who often took him shooting in a nearby forest his grandfather was also a prepper, someone who believes in upcoming disasters and prepares themselves for those and influenced his grandson with his beliefs. He was bullied in school and never had any romantic relationships (Michel & Herbeck, 2001)A psychiatrist who talked with him after he got caught, McVeigh claimed that the US government was the ultimate bully (Michel & Herbeck, 2001)Moreover, he described how he would find a feeling of safety in his fantasy world where he would be the strong one that takes down perpetrators. After high school he went to uni, quickly dropped out and started learning about weapons, their technology, gun law and survival training as well as the highly antisemitic and racist turner diaries while he was working as a security guard. The book described a bombing of a federal building and fueled McVeigh's paranoia about a government conspiracy to repeal the Second Amendment. (Ball & Dagger, 2013) (Reavis, 1997) He graduated from Army School in May 1988. Shortly thereafter, his unit became part of the 1st Infantry Division and was transferred to Fort Riley, Kansas. There he became known as the highest scoring rifleman and was eventually promoted to sergeant. (Michel & Herbeck, 2001)In January 1991, his division deployed to the Persian Gulf War under the code name "Operation Desert Storm". He proved to be a model soldier and received several service awards for his bravery, including the Bronze Star Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, the Southwest Asia Service Medal, the Army Service Ribbon, and the Kuwaiti Liberation Medal. He spent much of his free time learning and reading about all kinds of firearms, explosives and the second amendment (the right to bear arms) (Michel & Herbeck, 2001) (Linder, 2007)The war hit him spiritually. Although it was easy for him to kill on the battlefield, decapitating an Iraqi soldier with cannon fire on the first day, he was shocked when he was asked to kill surrendering Iraqi soldiers or witness death on the highway. McVeigh had always aspired to become a member of the United States Army Special Force. Upon his return in 1991, he entered the evaluation and selection program. Unable to endure a 90-minute march with a 45-poun (Horgan, 2005)d pack, he dropped out of the program after two days. He later said “You learn how to handle killing in the military, I face the consequences, but you learn to accept it. “ (Michel & Herbeck, 2001) He then returned to Fort Riley ready for years of active service. But very soon the army began to downsize; and in the autumn of 1991 he was offered an honourable early discharge. He accepted the offer and left the army. (Michel & Herbeck, 2001)After his military career ended McVeigh grew increasingly more terrified of the government, being under the impression they had planted a microchip in him during his time in the Army. He began associating with racist groups like the Ku Klux klan, which he never officially joined though. (Chapman, 2010) His final step to radicalization happened in Waco, Texas . On April 19th ,1993, after a 51-day standoff against law enforcement, the FBI deposited nearly 400 canisters of tear gas inside the buildings, hours later a fire broke out and killed over 80 people inside. (Dennis, 2020) McVeigh was under the impression that the cult members constitutional rights (2nd amendment) were being violated. He started handing out stickers with slogans such as “Fear the Government that Fears Your Guns” (Michel & Herbeck, 2001)In September 1994, McVeigh set in motion his plan to destroy Alfred P. Murrah's federal building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. With accomplices Nichols and Fortier, McVeigh acquired tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and gallons of fuel to make a highly volatile explosive. (Michel & Herbeck, 2001) McVeigh chose the Murrah Federal Building because it offered excellent camera angles for media coverage. He wanted to make this attack a platform for his anti-government message. On the morning of 19 April 1995, the second anniversary of the FBI siege of the Branch Davidian compound, McVeigh parked a Ryder truck loaded with the explosive substance in front of the Murray building. People were arriving for work and children were arriving at daycare on the second floor. At 9:02 a.m., the explosion tore down the entire north wall of the building, destroying all nine floors. More than 300 other buildings in the immediate area were damaged or destroyed. In the rubble lay 168 victims, including 19 young children, and more than 650 injured. (Teague, 2004) Early reports suggested that a Middle Eastern terrorist group might have been responsible, (Rohrabacher & Dugan, 2009) but within days McVeigh was considered the prime suspect. He was already in jail after being pulled over for a license plate violation shortly after the bombing, during which he was found to be carrying an illegally concealed handgun. (report, 1995)Nichols soon surrendered to the authorities and the two were charged with the bombing. After a five-week trial that began in April 1997, McVeigh was found guilty after 23 hours of deliberation and sentenced to death. The following year, Nichols was sentenced to life in prison. (Michel & Herbeck, 2001)On death row, McVeigh was interviewed for a biography, American Terrorist , by Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck. McVeigh spoke with some pride of the bombing and referred to the young victims as "collateral damage". On 11 June 2001, after an attempted stay of execution, federal prison authorities placed a needle in McVeigh's right leg and pumped a lethal stream of drugs into his veins. He died within minutes and his body was cremated. (Michel & Herbeck, 2001)
One of the many theories that could explain his criminal acts is social learning theory by Bandura. One of the most important components of social learning theory is learning through observation. It is the process of learning the desirable and undesirable behaviours of others through observation. It is a quick way to gain information when acting individually. Learning through observation teaches people both positive and negative behaviours. (Rumjaun & Narod, 2020)As theories of crime, learning theory approaches delinquency as behaviours that are passed on by process in groups and communities. Criminal behaviour is thus learned in the same way and through the same mechanisms as any other behaviour. The only difference is the content of what is learned. (Nicholson & Higgins, 2017) (Jeffery, 1995) McVeigh was, for every step of radicalization, under the impression that he did the right thing because he followed the behavior of people with authority. In his Youth he followed his grandfather and started prepping for the day that the government would collapse He started being interested in Guns and firearms because of the community he grew up in. Neither him or his grandfather ever faced consequences for hoarding guns and food. After that when he joined the Army, he did what he was told and even got rewarded for murdering people. (Michel & Herbeck, 2001) The origin of criminal behaviour thus lies in the learning of criminal drives, rationalizations, and techniques, but also deviant motives and ideologies. Deviant behaviour also requires prior practice. Most learning theories in criminology are similar in that learning takes place on the basis of a model or several models. The decisive factors are therefore the persons from whom behaviour is learned and the social environment in which these processes take place. (U.S department of justice, 1973) Historically, learning theories in criminology are the result of the Chicago School on the one hand and initial findings from research in learning psychology on the other. (Short Jr., 2002) As early as the 19th century, there were attempts to explain criminality with learning and imitation processes through Gabriel Tarde's theory of imitation. (Barry, 2007) based on the fact that McVeigh got bullied in school it is not a far stretch to assume that he would imitate others behaviour in hopes of getting recognition. Again, when he helped his grandfather and later in the Army, where he was so successful at imitating the behaviour his authority figures had that he got rewarded.
Furthermore; the frustration-aggression theory (Eron, 1994)based on Freud's hypothesis that aggression is always the result of frustration (Tedeschi & Felson, 1994)can be fitting as well. The stronger the frustration, the more intense the aggressive reaction. Although this very apodictic statement had a great influence on aggression research, it could not be maintained in this form. Frustration is not necessarily followed by aggression, and aggression is not always the result of frustration (frustration tolerance), so Miller developed the hypothesis further just two years later: every frustration is an incentive for aggression, but some frustrations are too mild to trigger aggressive behaviour. (Miller, 1941)Since the aggression instinct increases with continuous frustration, provided that the possibility of rejection is thwarted, there is still a connection to the analytical view, but the cause of aggressive behaviour is no longer to be seen in internal factors (aggression instinct) but consists in sufficiently strong or repeated frustrations as external experiences. This plays into McVeigh as he started of his live being irritated with the government, and over time, especially before Waco he grew very frustrated. After Waco he was not simply frustrated, he was afraid and angry. His frustration grew continuously bigger. He felt as if his rights were being taken away and that he would need to act now. He did not care about casualties (Michel & Herbeck, 2001)because he knew that what he wanted to do was more impactful, and important than the life of civilians.
During his time in the military, he found people that he could relate too, moreover he would only surround himself with people that share the same beliefs and fears, and frustrations as him, slowly entering an echo chamber. Edwin Sutherland's theory of differential association assumes that criminal behaviour is learned through contact with people who are themselves criminals. (Opp, 2020)is therefore also called "differential contact theory”. The term "association", however, refines this idea by the realisation that mere contact with criminal persons is not sufficient, but that during these contacts the criminal definitions and attitudes must also be successfully conveyed. The basic thesis here is that criminal behaviour is learned when more attitudes that favour lawbreaking are learned than attitudes that negatively value lawbreaking. Conversely, the more contact there is with people and groups who break the law and the less contact there is with people and groups who live according to the rules, the more likely it is that criminal attitudes, motives, and definitions will be learned. (Glaser, 1962)Originally the killings McVeigh committed were lawful (military), and so were those of his friends. He said it himself, “however especially as he left the military and surrounded himself with racists clans, cults, and other groups he therefore surrounded himself with criminals. Not every contact he had was with criminals though. He was a well-known face at gun shows, selling antigovernment and pro-gun stickers.
McVeigh did not want to go down in the history books. He just wanted to fight the state. He was a killer, not a pioneer. He wanted to make an impact, show the government that he will fight back. He saw the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building as necessary, to prevent more lives from being lost. He was a hypocrite as well. Waco was the reason he finally decided to bomb a government building because he saw it as unfair, that the FBI killed civilians, yet he did the same thing on a much larger scale. As much as all these theories fit him, they lack something. A lot of American people grow up in gun fanatic communities, with their families taking them shooting on the weekend and they don’t go and kill others. A lot of people are in the military and don’t use their knowledge of explosives to go and build bombs, even more people have contacts to criminals without ever committing any crimes themselves and finally a lot of people are unhappy with the government, especially in America in the 90s after the cold war had just ended a people were afraid of “communism taking over “. None of the things that Timothy McVeigh experienced are exclusive to him. To summaries, Banduras social learning theory can, to some degree, explain his initial interest in firearms, frustration and aggression explains his radicalization and final decision to commit the crime and differential contact explains how his thoughts and ideas were able to flourish in the environment he was in. Even when considering all of this what eventually pushed him over the edge must lie a lot deeper and cannot be explained by these three simple theories. He was not your typical terrorist and that what makes him so fascinating. In the end there are many things that can be said about McVeigh, but one especially is of great significance. At the very bottom of it he was a deeply entitled man that was under the impression that he had the right to murder hundreds of people leaving even more mentally and physically scared.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY


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didnt get a good grade on this haha