CRIMINOLOGY AND CRIMINALISTICS Inspiring Copycat Violent Crime — a Question of Social Responsibility Emil W. Pływaczewski Faculty of Law, University of Bialystok, Poland Wojciech Cebulak Department of Criminal Justice, Minot State University Minot, North Dakota, USA Abstract. The phenomenon of copycat crime, especially copycat murder, is nothing new. One would think that, because it has been around for so long, somehow the problem would have been addressed. Unfortunately, that is not the case, as we continue to see important details of horrible and violent crimes being reported by mass media without reflection on, or consideration of, how this type of information could be used by some in planning their own crimes, imitating the crime reported. This article discusses both the media and the law enforcement aspect of the copycat problem and concludes with the authors’ own recommendations. It is essential that both mass media and police make important changes in their approach to releasing information about crime to the public. It is naïve to believe that only law-abiding people are consumers of mass media, or that important details about the commission of violent crimes that are reported by media are never going to be used by anybody for an illegal purpose. DOI: 10.5604/01.3001.0012.1708 http://dx.doi.org/10.5604/01.3001.0012.1708 Keywords: copycat murder, copycat crime, mass media, copying other people’s conduct We would like to extend many very special thanks to Professor Jacek Dworzecki of Police Academy, Szczytno, Poland, whose excellent analysis very significantly enriched this article. Verba docent, exempla trahunt. (Words teach, examples attract.) In June 2016, the United States and the world tried to understand how 49 people were shot and killed in cold blood in a gay bar in Orlando, Florida, the worst mass killing in the modern history of the United States. To say that people were in shock would, sadly, not necessarily be true of all Americans, because there have been so many mass shootings in recent times. Rather than shock, we would describe the mood in the country at the time as a mixture of sadness, frustration, helplessness, and intense fear that this is not the end by any means — there will be more, similar tragedies, and they could happen at any time. We look at images of law enforce- ment at the scene of the crime, and a reflection inevitably arises: Alas, they came too late…Why didn’t anybody prevent the mass murder? All the police in the world, with all their guns, power, and impressive equipment, cannot bring the 49 innocent victims back from the dead… Alas, they came too late, one more time… That is not Internal Security, July–December 137 Emil W. Pływaczewski, Wojciech Cebulak to say that the police are directly responsible for the Orlando tragedy, but…How many more mass killings must we suffer? Are we really doing everything we can to prevent such atrocities? Can every part of society, including mass media and law enforcement, say that they are doing absolutely everything they can? Perhaps there is a desensitisation factor here as well — at least with regard to a portion of society — but we don’t want to talk about that today. What we do want to discuss is the “copycat” problem, that is the idea that comprehen- sive and detailed mass media reporting on crimes like, for example, the Orlando tragedy inspires some people, consumers of this kind of news reporting, by imita- tion, in other words by following a real-life example, to commit crimes that are similar to the crime that happens to be reported about at a given moment. A very important question arises: How much information does society have a right to, how detailed should the information be, without inspiring more murderers to com- mit more atrocities? For example, going back to the Orlando massacre, is it really indispensable for society to know that… Norman Casiano crawled into a bathroom (…) Casiano froze, certain the gunman was inches away. (…) The shots sounded louder. They were getting closer. (…) Casiano heard a laugh. The sound of “pure evil,” he said. “It didn’t sound like a person.” (…) “It was like a laugh of satisfaction,” Casiano told CNN’s Anderson Cooper. (…) “One of the first things I hear when I close my eyes are guns, bullets hitting the floor and that laugh,” Casiano said (…).1 Our question, again, is:- is it really crucial for society to know, for example, that the perpetrator laughed with the sound of “pure evil”, or with “a laugh of satisfac- tion”? Isn’t it obvious that there are going to be some people who are going to want to imitate that behaviour during their own murders, people who will be inspired to commit similar atrocities, and get their own publicity? It is a tragic fact of life in the contemporary world that there are some people who are so vain and so cruel to others and so selfish that they will do anything just to get into the headlines in mass media, even if it means sacrificing their own lives in the process! Not only do they not care about other people’s lives but they also don’t care about their own lives, and these are frequently young people who could have done so much good in their lives. Instead they choose to die because they are totally dedicated to their evil goals and there is simply no way to commit their crimes and at the same time save their own lives in the process. In other words, a suicide attack, or — if that doesn’t work or doesn’t apply — being killed by police, is the only way to perpetrate such crimes. Many terrorists are a good example of this kind of evil mind. Historically, the phenomenon of copycat murder is nothing new, it goes back at least to Jack the Ripper but, unfortunately, there have been too many more 1 Sanchez R, Park M, Witness: Orlando shooter laughed during rampage. CNN, 14.06.2016. Electronic source: http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/14/us/orlando-shoot- ing-as-it happened/index.html, accessed: 6.10.2017. 138 Internal Security, July–December Inspiring Copycat Violent Crime — A Question of Social Responsibility copycat murders since. This copying behaviour is well documented and one would think that mass media would have done something about it by now, but the prob- lem is, they haven’t. In the words of Loren Coleman: A pattern underlies many of the events we hear about in the news every day. But the pattern is not openly discussed (…). It is either overlooked or ignored. The pattern is called the “copycat effect.” It is also known as “imitation” or the “contagion effect”. (…) The copycat effect is the dirty little secret of the media. (…).2 We should ask some questions in this context: Why exactly is the copycat pat- tern overlooked or ignored by mass media? Why does this “dirty little secret” even exist in the first place? If it’s really “dirty” then why don’t the media do something about it? Or perhaps we should ask why society doesn’t put pressure on media to do something about it? Even former US President Obama acknowledged the importance of “inspiration” in the Orlando mass murder: Mr. Obama added that shooter Omar Mateen was “inspired by various extrem- ist information that was disseminated over the internet.” “All those materials are currently being searched, exploited, so we will have a better sense of the pathway the killer took in making a decision to launch this attack,” he added.3 Granted, the President did not say “copycat”, but is there really a huge difference between “copycat” and “inspiration”? While it is true that not every inspiration must be copycatting, it is safe to state that the reverse is true: every case of copycatting by definition involves being inspired by the model that the copycat is using. How can one closely imitate or copy another person’s behaviour without being inspired by that person and/or the person’s particular conduct? Of course, we do keep in mind the informative function of mass media in society — they are very important in respect of making society aware of what is going on in the news. Nobody denies this. However, a very important question arises at this point: Where is the moral line that mass media should not cross, we mean the borderline between on one hand informing the general public, i.e. law-abiding members of society, about crime and on the other hand providing information that criminals or potential criminals may find very useful for committing new crimes? After all, it is very important to realise this important fact of life: criminals have TVs too! (or, in some cases, people who are not criminals yet when they learn about a crime by using mass media, but who are inspired to commit a crime precisely 2 Coleman L, The copycat effect: How the media and popular culture trigger the mayhem in tomorrow’s headlines. NY: Simon & Schuster, 2004, p.1. Electronic source: h t t p s : / / b o o k s . g o o g l e . c o m / b o o k s ? h l = e n & l r = & i d = 3 B 4 l T T Z E 5 8 o C & o i = f n d & p g = P R 9 & d q = c o p y c a t + e f f e c t & o t s = v f N v k 7 3 k T l & s i g = 1 S 0 g p 4 1 N e 8 E 4 S S F U D r 9 N W 9 H q I 5 0 # v = o n e p a g e & q & f = f a l s e , accessed: 7.10.2017.