The Hillside Stranglers fall under several themes of violence from class, like containment, instrumentality of violence, social influence, and psychopath, which they will now be analyzed under. I think it also important to note their upbringing and how familial influence could have played a role, through genes or environment. Firstly, in terms of containment it is not enough to say that all these atrocities took place in the Los Angeles area, but the bodies were all disposed in locations relatively close to each other. For the most part, the Hillside Stranglers used hillsides along middle class areas situated closely to police stations (The Hillside Stranglers, 2018), but in an evaluation of more recent victimes it was discovered that one
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There was a clear priming method for Buono through the use of his “hero” Caryl Chessman. Chessman was a notorious rapist, known as the “Red Light Bandit”, that modeled several techniques of criminal behavior that the Hillside Stranglers went on to use (Cable et al., 2012). The first was the use of deception, through posing as an undercover policeman (“Caryl Chessman: American Criminal”, 2018). This element was important to the means in which the stranglers found their victims, as illustrated with Miller. In this situation, and others to follow, the cousins flashed a fake police badge and it was not until the victims were handcuffed and taken back to the “station” that they fully understood what was happening. Another important element from Chessman that was later incorporated by the stranglers, was the importance of female victims. The preference of female victims, specifically prostitutes, could also be due in part by Bianchi and Buono’s family history, but this idea will be explored later. Chessman mainly focused on couples as robbery victims, but when females were victimized he made them perform sexual acts on him (Ulin, 2006). Buono went on to even state that “Chessman should have killed his victims, instead of just sexually assaulting them” (Cable et al., 2012), meaning that this case had a priming effect on him but the focus was on murder for …show more content…
The most important for Bianchi is the need for dominance and control. It was earlier mentioned that Bianchi had always wished to be a police officer and this goal came from a need to inflict power and control over others (McClary, 2008). Similar to Buono, Bianchi also demonstrated a failure to inhibit punishment. Although, Bianchi did not have the same kind of history with the criminal justice system as his cousin had, in meeting with psychologists “not once did he show any concern for his legal fate” (Watkins, 1984). While, psychopath diagnosis relies on personality traits, personality disorders rely on patterns of behaviors. In addition to these personality traits Bianchi demonstrated, he also behaved in a way that would meet the criteria for Antisocial Personality Disorder. This disorder is categorized by “violated the rights of others” (Watkins, 1984) through criminal behavior and also includes behavior like malingering, or faking an illness to get out of something. Bianchi demonstrates both this behaviors, in fact his attempt to form a Multiple Personality Disorder defense by reason of insanity, was described as a “clever malingerer” (Watkins, 1984). It is also possible that these symptoms are caused by genetic and environmental factors in the form of the “adopted child syndrome” (Kirschner, 1992 ), which displays in a similar way. Children with this syndrome are identified as
There was a clear priming method for Buono through the use of his “hero” Caryl Chessman. Chessman was a notorious rapist, known as the “Red Light Bandit”, that modeled several techniques of criminal behavior that the Hillside Stranglers went on to use (Cable et al., 2012). The first was the use of deception, through posing as an undercover policeman (“Caryl Chessman: American Criminal”, 2018). This element was important to the means in which the stranglers found their victims, as illustrated with Miller. In this situation, and others to follow, the cousins flashed a fake police badge and it was not until the victims were handcuffed and taken back to the “station” that they fully understood what was happening. Another important element from Chessman that was later incorporated by the stranglers, was the importance of female victims. The preference of female victims, specifically prostitutes, could also be due in part by Bianchi and Buono’s family history, but this idea will be explored later. Chessman mainly focused on couples as robbery victims, but when females were victimized he made them perform sexual acts on him (Ulin, 2006). Buono went on to even state that “Chessman should have killed his victims, instead of just sexually assaulting them” (Cable et al., 2012), meaning that this case had a priming effect on him but the focus was on murder for …show more content…
The most important for Bianchi is the need for dominance and control. It was earlier mentioned that Bianchi had always wished to be a police officer and this goal came from a need to inflict power and control over others (McClary, 2008). Similar to Buono, Bianchi also demonstrated a failure to inhibit punishment. Although, Bianchi did not have the same kind of history with the criminal justice system as his cousin had, in meeting with psychologists “not once did he show any concern for his legal fate” (Watkins, 1984). While, psychopath diagnosis relies on personality traits, personality disorders rely on patterns of behaviors. In addition to these personality traits Bianchi demonstrated, he also behaved in a way that would meet the criteria for Antisocial Personality Disorder. This disorder is categorized by “violated the rights of others” (Watkins, 1984) through criminal behavior and also includes behavior like malingering, or faking an illness to get out of something. Bianchi demonstrates both this behaviors, in fact his attempt to form a Multiple Personality Disorder defense by reason of insanity, was described as a “clever malingerer” (Watkins, 1984). It is also possible that these symptoms are caused by genetic and environmental factors in the form of the “adopted child syndrome” (Kirschner, 1992 ), which displays in a similar way. Children with this syndrome are identified as