Abstract
Prevalence rates of multiple homicide are statistically rare and vary across nations, yet such cases create substantial suffering for victims and can generate widespread fear among the general population. Despite extreme rarity, it remains important for forensic experts and professionals to be prepared when extremely violent events occur. This review summarizes contemporary behavioral science of serial and mass murder, then highlights the application of recent leisure research to add new motivational and behavioral insights. Research on the application of leisure science to homicide research is in its infancy, yet in conjunction with other related behavioral science disciplines, appears to hold promise in understanding, and perhaps helping to prevent, future violence.
Highlights
Forensic behavioral science draws from an array of disciplines, including psychiatry, psychology, sociology, and anthropology, to understand human behavior as it relates to legal matters
Forensic behavioral science typically draws from multiple social and behavioral science disciplines, including psychiatry, psychology, and sociology, to help better understand social and behavioral features, dynamics, and processes that contribute to crime
The integrative approach of forensic behavioral science highlights individual, demographic, social and cultural features that are found to be associated with violence, which taken together, offers a more complete understanding of multiple homicide than any single discipline
Summary
Forensic behavioral science draws from an array of disciplines, including psychiatry, psychology, sociology, and anthropology, to understand human behavior as it relates to legal (often criminal) matters. Social and behavioral science disciplines have their own empirical and theoretical literatures pertaining to crime, yet a basic familiarity across these literatures can help both academics and professionals to better understand, prevent, and solve cases of violent crime. This descriptive review summarizes the behavioral science literature on serial and mass murder before highlighting emerging research on the application of leisure science, as a specific discipline, to cases of multiple homicide. Leisure scholars utilize quantitative and qualitative research methods to address the who, what, when, and why pertaining to experiences that are personally enjoyable and meaningful. Homicide experts have long known that many serial homicide offenders greatly enjoy planning and committing crimes, the application of robust leisure theory to understand details of how and why is very recent [2]
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