CBS' Criminal Minds

How many of you have seen the show Criminal Minds on CBS? It is one of the most popular shows on TV, and fits in nicely to the genre of forensics shows.

I just saw a preview for an upcoming episode. The lead was "The reason he kills is beyond twisted." And it is bound to show yet another psychopathic individual committing violent street crimes.

As shown in the book, this helps create misconceptions about who is dangerous, and also about what actually motivates people to commit violence. It fits in perfectly with the media's focus on individual level motivations rather than structural or societal motivations, too.

Watch the full episodes here:

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/criminal_minds/

Just beware though that none of this nonsense is accurate or informative. It is merely meant to entertain. What people, I ask--other than criminal justice students of course--are entertained by random murder of human beings by violent strangers?

The "hook" for this coming episode is: "The reason he kills is beyond twisted."

Is it reasonable to conclude that people who watch this stuff are also twisted?

Media miss the boat on this high profile shooting

Most crimes are seen in the US as being cause by individual level factors.

The recent murder of innocent civilians and the assassination attempt of a member of Congress is no exception.

Yes, there has been focus on what political elites said prior to the shooting, suggesting a possible link between their words and this guy's actions. And there is a storm brewing in the press about "toning down the political rhetoric."

Now, the focus is shifting to the shooter, his background, his motivations. And the blame is being laid squarely at his feet. Take this recent story as an excellent example:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110110/ap_on_re_us/us_congresswoman_shot_gunman_11

While this fits nicely with our belief in free will, the fact remains that individual behavior always has a context. And the context here is this man has a long history of mental problems for which he never got help. This is a failure on us as a people.

Rather than focusing on this context, the new media instead tell us how crazy he was, and oh yeah, did you know he killed a federal judge (and that four other federal judges have been killed in our history). And he is being defended by a public defender who also defended two other high profile, crazy killers?

Once again, the media miss the boat on this story.

Shooter "deranged," "crazy," "strange," has "troubled background

So says the mainstream media.

This fits in nicely with how the media attributes criminal motivations almost solely to individual level factors and especially mental illness or insanity.

Here are some examples of this in recent articles:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110109/ap_on_re_us/us_congresswoman_shot

http://www.npr.org/2011/01/09/132780010/vitriol-cited-as-possible-factor-in-arizona-tragedy

And here is an argument about how silly it is for some media organizations to "rush to delete embarrassing, incriminating, or inconvenient Web pages in the wake of breaking news."

http://www.slate.com/id/2280593/