Theoretical Criminology Essay Question

The Case of Charleston Church Shooting under the lens of Positivist Criminology

Student Name

Dr. James Windle

University Name

March 22, 2016

Table of Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................3

The Charleston Church Shooting:...................................................................................................3

Profile of Shooter- Dylann Roof:....................................................................................................4

Education:....................................................................................................................................4

Social Profile:..............................................................................................................................5

Financial Status of the Family:....................................................................................................5

Encounters with Police and History:...........................................................................................6

Theory of Criminal Positivism:.......................................................................................................6

Eysenck's Faulty Conditioning Theory and Personality Continuum:..............................................7

Dylann Roof- The Melancholy Personality:....................................................................................7

Hate Crime and Positivism in Dylann Roof’s Case:.......................................................................8

Troubles at Home and Family:....................................................................................................8

Racism a Motivation for Crime:..................................................................................................8

Conclusion:......................................................................................................................................9

References:....................................................................................................................................10
Introduction:

The motivation for crime and criminal tendencies have remained a topic of debate and

research among sociologist and social psychologists. The research has attempted to underpin the

biological, individualistic and social factors which drive the criminals towards crime and have

established various explanations for the criminal activity. Due to the fact that crimes differ in

their nature, methodology, and rationale, it is difficult to consolidate one particular motivation

for crime and establish a judicial and rehabilitation framework which fits all of the crimes and

criminals. In America, there has been a surge in hate crimes in last decades and according to

Southern Poverty Law Centre, there are 784 active hate crime groups nationwide and they exist

in every state (Sethi, 2015). The country has also witnessed an increase in a number of individual

hate crimes driven by ethnic, religious and racial biases. A hate crime not only targets the

individuals, but it terrorizes whole communities, spreading a negative message in the society.

The anger and outrage can cause national level disruption and may lead to anomaly and

deviance. There are various theoretical frameworks to analyse motivation for hate crimes. This

essay will analyse the crime case of Charleston Church Shooting in 2015 and will evaluate the

motivation for the crime of the prime suspect in the case Dylann Roof under the light of criminal

theories of ‘Criminology Positivism’ and Wilson and Herrnstein’s ‘Crime and Human Nature’.

The Charleston Church Shooting:

The Charleston Church Shooting took place at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal

Church on June 17, 2015, during a prayer service, killing nine people including a senior pastor

and a state senator. The gunmen opened fire and shot indiscriminately on the attendees of the

Bible study as he began to disagree with them on the topic of scripture. The gunmen used a

Glock 41 .45-caliber handgun to shoot at the people. According to the narratives of survivors, the
gunman attended the Bible study with 13 other people. He especially asked about the Senator

and sat beside him. Among the dead, there were three women and nine men, another man

survived the gunshots. The entire shooting took around six minutes and shooter left one of the

attendees unwounded to be the lone survivor and narrate the events. The shooter turned the gun

on his head to kill himself but realized that he is out of bullets. He fled the scene after the

shooting and was arrested the next morning.

The shooting was one of the largest shooting at a worship place in America since 1991

when a Buddhist temple came under attack. The African Methodical Episcopal church has a

history of 200 years and is one of the historical landmarks of the city. It has been a place where

various African American movements have been planned including strikes.

Profile of Shooter- Dylann Roof:

Dylann Roof was arrested as the prime suspect of the Charleston Church Shooting and he

later confessed the crime. He has been charged with nine counts of murder and one count of

attempt to murder and is facing 31 hate crime charges in federal court. Roof is a 21-year-old

white boy born to Franklin Bennet and Amelia Cowles. He has= blonde hair, cut in the style of a

bowl and have lean stature. The parents of Dylann Roof had divorced before his birth and stayed

together until only his early childhood. At the age of 5, Dylann Roof’s father remarried and was

again divorced later in his teenage. Dylann Roof’s childhood and background indicate trouble at

home and school (Robles and Stewart, 2015).

Education:

Dylann Roof’s school records show trouble as he attended seven different schools in last

nine years. During his childhood, he moved back and forth between Lexington and Columbia
where his mother and father lived respectively. Roof’s educational history also indicates that he

was not a natural student. He attended White Knoll High school where he left the school during

the time he was repeating his first year. Later registered to Dreher High School in a different

district, he eventually became a dropout. There are no records of him passing high school.

Social Profile:

The friends and family of Dylann Roof sketch a picture of a troubled kid who was lonely,

withdrawn and extremely introvert. Mr. Cowels, maternal uncle of Roof describe him as a quiet,

soft-spoken boy who was too introverted. The stepmother of Dylann also remarked that he was

withdrawn and spent a lot of his time inside the room, looking up for bad stuff on the internet.

However, Dylann had friends from his school years and it also included the friends from Black

community with whom he was in touch. He also attended the perfect middle class and racially

integrated school where he had encounters with both African-American teachers and students.

In the school, Dylann demonstrated a quiet and withdrawn personality and he was not the

particularly popular kid, but he did not show any biasedness or bigotry against the Back students.

Furthermore, Dylann’s father and mother are remarked as friendly and social people and his

grandparents were also venerated members and the parents also invited and were involved with

African Americans friends (Buncombe, 2015).

Financial Status of the Family:

Franklin Bennet, the father of Dylann run a company of preservation of buildings and he

was successful in his field. During the years’ of financial crisis, his father’s company came to the

brink of bankruptcy and was shut down. The mother of Dylann Roof has also been evicted in

2009 due to the financial liquidation.

Encounters with Police and History:

During his early teen years, he consumed Alcohol and Marijuana and his mother

grounded him at the use of the drug. Other than this, Dylann had his first encounter with police

in a shopping mall where he tried to terrorize the employees of a shopping mall. He was wearing

black clothes and was asking about the time of check in and check out of an employee. When the

police arrived, they arrested him for possessing painkiller medicine Suboxone and was banned

from entering the shopping mall. His second encounter occurred when the police recovered parts

of semi-automatic Rifle and police initially caught him for loitering the park. The third time, he

was arrested for trespassing the shopping mall from which he was barred. Other than this, the

boy did not have any history of criminal activity.

Theory of Criminal Positivism:

The theory of positivism in Criminology studies the crime through the scientific method,

quantifying the crime and its impact. It is the scientific study of the society and crime based on

empirical evidence. The criminal positivism rejects the idea of free will as perpetuated by

classical thinker in criminology and also declines the proposition that crime is motivated by the

greatest gain of the offender. Instead, positivism promoted a theory of crime driven by tangible

and identifiable features and studied those factors in the light of scientific measurement and

study (Beirne, 1987). The positivist’s research established that crime is a determined action

rather than an outcome of free will or individual choices. The positivist researcher explored a

number of factors that determine the crime including biological or genetic factors, psychological

traits or the sociological environment or forces.

The positivist framework of criminology revolves around three identifiable assumptions.

Determinism: The crime is determined by a range of biological, social and psychological factors

and these factors are outside the individual control, rejecting freewill and greatest gains.

Differentiation: The differentiation emphasizes on the distinction between criminals and non-

criminals and that there is something essentially different in criminals from non-criminals.

Pathology: Pathology indicates that something has gone wrong in the criminal’s biological,

psychological and social lives which has triggered crime (Burke, 2013).

Eysenck's Faulty Conditioning Theory and Personality Continuum:

Hans Eysenck wrote a book ‘Crime and Personality’ in 1964 in which he examined the

role of genetics in determining the crime along with analysing the important environmental and

social factors. The Eysenck also developed a bio-social continuum of personality in which the

individual’s tendencies are evaluated on the scale of introverted and extroverted and stable and

unstable. The four personality types included Phlegmatic, sanguine, Choleric, and melancholic

(Eysenck, 2013).

Dylann Roof- The Melancholy Personality:

The childhood memories and narratives of Dylann Roof indicate him to be an extremely

introverted person. According to Joseph Meek Jr., a friend of Dylann Roof, “he was a lot more

quiet, he was like emotionless”. The accounts of his stepmother also portray him as an introvert

and unstable person. Dylann’s friends explained that he looked upset as if something was wrong

at home but did not ever shared. The article by Robles and Stewart highlight that he was spotted

to be quietly sitting at curbs in the afternoons and even though he was helpful to his neighbours,

they found him strange. All of these facts indicate an unstable and introvert personality,

highlighting that Dylann Roof would fall into the category of melancholy.
Eysenck's Operant Conditioning Theory:

According to Eysenck’s operant conditioning theory, the child avoids pain and seeks

pleasure and the total amount of pain must outweigh the pleasure of crime to deter the criminal.

The theory highlights the recidivism in the case of Dylann Roof and indicates both the failure of

authority and parents to develop a sense of morality and accountability in him. Dylann Roof was

caught three times before he finally attempted the crime and previously he was suspected of

possession of semi-automatic gun. The government did not take any action and he was allowed

to walk away. As there was no immediate pain to the action, Eysenck’s criminal tendencies were

reinforced instead of being snubbed. The parents of Dylann Roof also did not pay attention to his

changing behaviour and white supremacist comments. As a result, the desire to ignite racial war

overweighed the fear of punishment and motivated him to the severe crime.

Hate Crime and Positivism in Dylann Roof’s Case:

The childhood of Dylann Roof does not raise any red flags about white supremacy or

prejudice against African Americans. A large number of his friends were African-American

during his school and are also part of Facebook friend list. His high school principal and his

school level Black friends also attested that he did not hold any stereotypes against Black

population and there were no instances of bigotry (Henry and Einstadter, 2006). The interview

with her grand stepmother reveals that at the age of four he was a sweet and bright kid. The

instances from childhood do not reveal any biological issues or shortcomings (WEISS and

MONE, 2015). He was a physically competent and does not have any record of serious illness in

the early years. Even though there are no records of his early year at academics, but Dylann does

not demonstrate any mental disability such as learning disabilities. He was an average kid with
many of the same habits as his age fellows including video games, attending church and reading

Bible.

Troubles at Home and Family:

According to the positivist school of criminology, the social and psychological factors

determine the crime and motivate the criminal to deviate from the accepted norms and values.

The childhood of Dylann Roof was troubled as he hailed from a broken home and went back and

forth between his parents. There are evidences that father of Dylann Roof was verbally abusive

and also abused his stepmother verbally. During the financial troubles, the stepmother also took a

job and the father was mostly away from home, leaving Dylann without parental care (Robles

and Stewart, 2015).

Racism a Motivation for Crime:

Even though, racism did not run in the family and Dylann was comfortable being around

black people. But, at the age of 21, he is remembered as usually drunk kid who was hanging out

with his black friends or ranting about white supremacy in front of his white fellows. Dylann was

confused and the confusion is reflected in her life patterns as he sought out his old black friends

on the Facebook and at the same time, he was ranting about igniting a race war. Further

investigation has revealed that Dylann was running a website lastrhodesian.com and the website

was registered on his name (Robles, 2015).

Analyzing the pattern of his life for the criminal motivation, it is likely that Dylann

sought a hideout in internet world to escape the troubles at home. He had a melancholy

personality type with introvert behaviour (Loeber, 1990). As he did not receive attention and care

from home and he turned to the internet world and fell for the propaganda of white supremacy
sites. According to Wilson and Herrnstein in ‘Crime and Human Nature’, the parenting plays an

important role in predisposing the criminal tendencies (Wilson and Herrnstein, 1998). Even

though their theory rejects the social factors such as influence of white supremacy sites, it argues

that the parents fail to develop moral conscience in their children and as a result they have

delinquent tendency. This is a likely course of action in Dylann’s troubled life leading to a

serious crime.

Conclusion:

The theoretical criminology presents various theories highlighting the factors and reasons

of crime and also provide a suiting framework to mitigate crime rate and rehabilitate the

criminals. The case of Charleston Shooting can be described under the positivist school of

criminology, emphasizing that the troubles at home and family coupled with the Dylann Roof’s

introvert and melancholy personality have intrigued him for crime.

References:

BEIRNE, P. 1987. Adolphe Quetelet and the origins of positivist criminology. American Journal

of Sociology, 1140-1169.

BUNCOMBE, A. 2015. Dylann Storm Roof: Who is he and what would drive him to commit the

crime he is accused of?

BURKE, R. H. 2013. An introduction to criminological theory, Routledge.

EYSENCK, H. J. 2013. Crime and Personality (Psychology Revivals), Routledge.

HENRY, S. & EINSTADTER, W. J. 2006. Criminological theory: An analysis of its underlying

assumptions, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

LOEBER, R. 1990. Development and risk factors of juvenile antisocial behavior and

delinquency. Clinical psychology review, 10, 1-41.

ROBLES, F. 2015. Dylann Roof Photos and a Manifesto Are Posted on Website. The New York

Times

ROBLES, F. & STEWART, N. 2015. Dylann Roof’s past reveals troubles at home and school

New York Times

SETHI, A. 2015. Don't let hate crimes persist in America. CNN.

WEISS, M. & MONE, J. 2015. A Look Inside Charleston Shooting Suspect Dylann Roof's

Troubled Life. TPM News.

WILSON, J. Q. & HERRNSTEIN, R. J. 1998. Crime human nature: The definitive study of the

causes of crime, Simon and Schuster.