CRIMINOLOGY AND CRIMINALISTICS

Inspiring Copycat Violent — a Question of Social Responsibility

Emil W. Pływaczewski Faculty of , University of Bialystok, Poland Wojciech Cebulak Department of Criminal , Minot University Minot, North Dakota, USA

Abstract. The phenomenon of copycat crime, especially copycat , 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 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 aspect of the copycat problem and concludes with the authors’ own recommendations. It is essential that both mass media and 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 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 , 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 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. 3 Schultheis E, Obama: Orlando shooter an example of “homegrown extremism”. CBS News, 13.06.2016. Electronic source: h t t p : / / w w w . c b s n e w s . c o m / n e w s / o b a m a - o r l a n d o - n i g h t c l u b - s h o o t i n g - e x a m p l e - o f - h o m e g r o w n - e x t r e m i s m / , accessed: 11.10.2017.

Internal Security, July–December 139 Emil W. Pływaczewski, Wojciech Cebulak by the particular mass-media reporting on a particular crime). They also watch news, just like law-abiding members of the general public! Add to that another important fact of life: much crime news provides detailed information about exactly how crimes are committed, exactly how the victims of those crimes suffered, who the criminal is, what motivated him/her in crime commission, etc. — and you have an explosive potential, a real likelihood of more crime being committed because of crime information provided by mass media. Wouldn’t you agree that it is more important to prevent crime, especially violent crime like murder, than for mass media to be super-informative in their crime reports? We completely agree with Tufekci when she says:

1. Law enforcement should not release details of the methods and manner of the killings, and those who learn those details should not share them. (…) [T]here should be no immediate stories about which guns exactly were used or how much robo-cop gear was utilized. There should be (…) no details about which room was entered first or which victim was killed second. (…) [T]here should be no reporting of the killer’s words, or actions (…).4

As you can see, there are implications of the problem of detailed crime descrip- tions in media not only for mass media but also for law enforcement. Tufekci then goes on to propose her additional recommendations, such as making it harder to find social-media accounts of killers, not revealing names of killers immediately (“If possible, law enforcement and media sources should agree to withhold these for weeks”, with the idea that “merely delaying the release of information may greatly reduce the spectacle effect”), and the suggestion that killers should not be profiled extensively, at least not at first (“We do not need to know which exact video games they played, what they wore, or what their favourite bands were”).5 Copycat crime is, of course, part of a broader phenomenon of people copy- ing other people, and the behaviour being copied could be legal or illegal. This is true, and we don’t even need psychological research or behavioural research to know that it’s true.6 Have you ever been to a restaurant and a person would tell the waiter, pointing at another customer: “I will have whatever that guy over there is having”? Or have you been on a flight where one of the passengers looks at what others are eating/drinking and requests the same? A teenager recently told one of the authors that when he had gone to a public swimming pool a few days earlier, he tried a new way of diving into the pool. It was new in that he twisted his body in the air before hitting the water, something he had never done before. What happened next? A few other swimmers had been watching him and started copying his dive! They probably did it because it looked new, fun, and safe, which is all they needed to go ahead with the decision to copy the teenager. Plus, perhaps

4 Tufekci Z, The Media Needs to Stop Inspiring Copycat Murders. Here’s How. The Atlantic. 19.12.2012. Electronic source: h t t p : / / w w w . t h e a t l a n t i c . c o m / n a t i o n a l / a r c h i v e / 2 0 1 2 / 1 2 / t h e - m e d i a - n e e d s - t o - s t o p - i n s p i r i n g - c o p y c a t - m u r d e r s - h e r e s - h o w / 2 6 6 4 3 9 / , accessed: 12.10.2017. 5 Ibid. 6 However, research on this issue is not difficult to find, see for example: Samson A, Copy That. Consumers Frequently Copy, But Being Copied Has Its Downside, 2012. Electronic source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/consumed/201204/copy, accessed: 7.10.2017.

140 Internal Security, July–December Inspiring Copycat Violent Crime — A Question of Social Responsibility some of them had been looking for something new and fresh, and this looked like a good opportunity? The point is, some people, perhaps even many people, copy other people, whatever the underlying reason is. We are not saying that everybody copies everybody else, but we do think that the power of what we call “unintended leadership by example” has been very seriously underestimated in contemporary society. Of course, copying could apply both to crimes and non-criminal behaviour, and it doesn’t always have to be unintended. A certain portion of murderers do not necessarily intend that their crimes be copied by anybody, but they probably realise that copying could take place and they go ahead with their crimes regardless. The likelihood of people copying another person’s behaviour increases if the person being copied is a charismatic leader (and/or it could even involve a leader, for example Lieutenant-Colonel Herbert Jones, VC, OBE, a British army officer and posthumous recipient of the Victoria Cross who led a charge against Argentinian forces during the Battle of Goose Green in 1982 during the Falklands War) and was killed in the process. It is also good to remember that “leadership” could be about immoral and illegal behaviour in some cases (good leader for a bad cause) and in other cases it could be about moral and legal conduct (good leader for a good cause). Concerns about the copycat problem have by no means been limited to West- ern countries like the United States. Poland for example, has quite an elaborate network of different police structures in place, with PR-related and mass media- related responsibilities. According to Professor Jacek Dworzecki of Police Academy, Szczytno, Poland.

Activities of state administration, and of its components: institutions, offices and groups, find themselves, in every democratic state organisation, within the spe- cial interest focus of mass media and, related to that, public opinion shows great interest in these activities. In the realities of the Polish state’s functioning, Police are undoubtedly the public institution most scrutinised by mass media. There is no other institution or organisation which would deliver so much sensational information which is of interest to society. Contacts with mass media are an inherent part of the functioning of every com- pany, institution, or organisation. It is no different for the police, which must also take care of its image, given that it is perceived as an important representative of the state. Public relations tasks are carried out by specialised organisational components, that is to say Wydzialy Komunikacji Spolecznej (Divisions of Social Communication) and Zespoly Prasowe (Press Groups) which are within the struc- tures of Komenda Glowna Policji (Main Police Headquarters) and of komendy wojewodzkie (voivodship headquarters) of police across the country. Also, within regional units at a lower level, that is to say komendy powiatowe (county headquarters), PR activities which many times are related to social imagery, are implemented by specially trained press officers. Of course, within the press/ information segment of the Polish police, similarly to their other official seg- ments, the hierarchical organisational structure is binding. At the top level, the spokesperson of the Komendant Glowny Policji (Main Police Chief) is responsible for cooperating with mass media, with the Komendant Glowny Policji also being the subject-matter supervisor of the spokespersons who serve in komendy

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wojewodzkie (voivodship headquarters) of police. In turn, the spokespersons working at the voivodship level, are the subject-matter supervisors of press officers in municipal, county, and regional headquarters.7

Does the above by itself demonstrate the copycat problem in Poland? No, how- ever, Dworzecki does describe the nature of the relationship between police and mass media, which, as we have seen earlier, is one of the biggest problems in the copycat phenomenon. Simply put, information that police give to mass media, even if it is given in good faith and with good intentions, could be used by criminals or potential criminals in order to commit a crime. Dworzecki talks about the legal obligation which police have, to release information addressed to public opinion, which is based on such as for example Prawo Prasowe (Law on the Press) of January 26th, 1984.8 Could that legal obligation of the police be taken advantage of by criminals or potential criminals? Absolutely yes. Dworzecki also discusses the nature of press/information departments in policing, emphasising that when they were being created, the guiding principles were openness and accessibility of communication policy, and he stresses that the openness is viewed from the standpoint of releasing information which is to be complete, true, precise, and — as much as possible — quick.9 . Again, could that kind of public-information policy be abused for illegal purposes? It is obvious that the answer is yes. While Dworzecki does not directly discuss the copycat problem, he does talk about various types of restrictions in police-media relations, such as: (a) Before a presentation or meeting with mass media, the police press spokesperson always contacts the police officer in charge of the case to be discussed, or the officer in charge of the police operational activity, or the who is supervising the criminal proceeding in the case; (b) It is very important that information released to mass media not complicate the work of, for example, those officers who are involved in operational/ reconnaissance or investigation-related activities aimed at resolving a crime; (c) Information regarding forensic traces left by a criminal at a crime scene is not released; (d) Information that would allow identification of persons who took part in an incident is not released; (e) Personal data on crime victims is protected; (f) Judgements about perpetrators’ guilt are not allowed, unless the guilt is obvious.10 More directly involving the issue of copycat violence in Poland, there was the case of “the bomber from Wrocław” (a big Polish city) who was apprehended in May 2016 and who had planted explosives in a city bus. Fortunately, the planned explosion did not take place because the bus driver had noticed the explosives and had taken them out of the bus before the explosion (the bomb exploded on the pavement, injuring one person). Information released by the police indicated not

7 Dworzecki J, Policja a media. Granice przekazu. 2017, unpublished material. 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid.

142 Internal Security, July–December Inspiring Copycat Violent Crime — A Question of Social Responsibility only that the would-be perpetrator had planned to kill many people, but also that he copied the explosives formula used by the Tsarnaev brothers during the Boston marathon bombing in April 2013 (Harlukowicz, 2016, p.5),11 thus being directly a very clear example of copycat violence. It is also worth noting that the perpetrator in the Wrocław case was successfully targeted and apprehended within five days from the time he planted the bomb, and that this successful operation was made possible because of the work of a total of 1750 police officers, out of which close to 1300 came from various operational services of several police units.12 Polish criminological literature contains additional examples of the difficulty of protecting democratic values while at the same time making sure the safety of innocent people is not compromised:

Freedom of speech and the right to have information could thus sometimes be limited due to the necessity of preserving safety and the stability of state constitutional order. Mass media should be aware of the enormous responsibility which they have in that regard. This is because as a consequence of their posi- tion and importance of their role in contemporary citizen societies as “guardians of democracy”, there are responsibilities and necessary limitations which they must sometimes accept in order to properly perform the noble function for which they were created. To recap, the conflict briefly described here between two values: the right to safety and the right to freedom, as every other dilemma of this kind, is not capable of being completely resolved. Any a priori theses are doomed to fail. The optimal solution is the criterion of correctness and rational- ity, by appealing to the reason and a sense of citizen responsibility of a person who is facing this dilemma.13

For the last example of concern with criminal copycatting in Polish criminological literature, let us briefly look at Holyst’s discussion of the issue, in the context of mass media’s role in shaping public opinion’s attitudes and behaviours:

It is assumed that content shown in mass media is received by a passive viewer who receives information from mass media and internalises it. The viewer learns both altruistic as well as bestial behaviour. The viewer transforms the content he/she acquired from the media into action which he/she introduces into reality. According to this concept, mass media are responsible for the process of destroying human psyche and any societal harm because mass media show aggression, violence, and cruelty.14

The way we see the issue of copycat violent crime, especially murder, is that we are dealing here with a multi-layer problem:

11 Harłukowicz J, Bombiarz z Wrocławia naśladował Carnajewów. Gazeta Wyborcza, 25–26 May 2016, p. 5. 12 Sitek E, Kulisy sukcesu. Policja 997, 2016, No. 7 (136), pp.12–13. 13 Kochanowski J, (2011). Media a terroryzm. Biuro Rzecznika Prawa Obywatelskich. Warsaw, 2009 — cited in: Hołyst B, Terroryzm, Vol.1. Warsaw: LexisNexis, p.183. 14 Hołyst B, Terroryzm, Vol.1. Warsaw: LexisNexis, p. 181.

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1. Law enforcement’s excessive cooperation with mass media in providing them with the most detailed and the most current information on crime possible. 2. Too much crime information in mass media, this is associated with mass media’s unwillingness to perceive it as a problem or to do something about it, which in turn is associated with the nature of mass media, especially their reliance on viewer/reader ratings as well as on corporate sponsorship. 3. The high degree of media-dependence among society, in other words soci- ety’s reliance on mass media reporting to obtain information and analysis about different societal problems, in this case crime. In the US for example, most people get information about crime from mass media, not from criminological journals or books — in the words of Kenneth Dowler: “Public knowledge of crime and justice is largely derived from the media.”15 4. Society’s demand for sensationalism and its expectation of “exciting”, “meaningful”, and “relevant” news.

We also believe this discussion of the copycat effect should be conducted in the larger context of problems with media reporting on crime. These problems are pretty widely known, especially the issue of media coverage of crime not reflect- ing reality.16 Unfortunately, even some respected authorities on US policing, while discussing the relationship between police and media, do not even acknowledge the copycat problem. For example, Leonard and More’s discussion of police-media relations includes: the power of the press (it “…has not been underestimated. The newspapers of a community or city can “make or break” a police department.”), cooperation between police and media (“It has been demonstrated over and over again that through a mutual policy of confidence and cooperation, the ends of both news reporting and police administration can be served in a most effective manner.”)17, and recommendations which some people may find simplistic, to say the least:

Law enforcement should respond to media needs by providing honest, straight- forward responses to requests for information. Cooperation, whenever possible, should be timely to allow reporters and TV crews to comply with tight deadlines. As much information as possible should be provided to simplify the media’s task. (…) [T]he key is to make oneself available and to simplify the media’s acquisition of information.18

Not only is there absolutely no mention of the copycat problem but some ideas are exactly the opposites of other authors’, for example Tufekci, above, who advo- cates very strict policies on how much information police should release to mass

15 Dowler K, Media Consumption and Public Attitudes toward Crime and Justice: the Rela- tionship Between Fear of Crime, Punitive Attitudes, and Perceived Police Effectiveness. Journal of and Popular Culture, 2003, 10 (2), pp. 109–126. 16 For example: Ismaili K (Ed.), U.S. Criminal Justice Policy. A Contemporary Reader, 2nd edition. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2017, p.13. 17 Leonard V.A, More H.W, Police Organization and Management, 9th edition. New York: Foundation Press, 2000, p. 51. 18 Ibid., p. 52.

144 Internal Security, July–December Inspiring Copycat Violent Crime — A Question of Social Responsibility media. In the context of the copycat murder issue, it is very clear that a policy of “ [a]s much information as possible” would only aggravate the problem insofar as it would include exactly those kinds of details regarding a criminal and his/her crime that we have been talking about here. In conclusion, we would like to suggest the following recommendations to deal with the copycat problem: 1. Law enforcement public-information policies should be revisited, rethought, and altered to eliminate or at least dramatically reduce the potential for copycat violent crime, especially murder. While total cooperation with mass media may seem very tempting and difficult to resist when officers are faced with pressure to release information, in the final analysis saving human life (by preventing copycat murders) is much more important on a scale of val- ues. Attacking this problem on the “supply of information” side should make a huge difference in how much information mass media can acquire. 2. In addition, if there is still some inappropriate crime-related information that mass media do acquire (for example by information leaking to media), mass media should be much more socially responsible, by limiting the amount and content of information about crime that is released to the public. They should understand their historical role in creating copycat crime. They should also understand that saving human life (by preventing copycat mur- ders) is more important than viewer rating or financial considerations like financial profit or corporate sponsorship. 3. The general public should do two things: Firstly, it should reduce its demands for sensationalist news, including highly specific information about criminals and their crimes. Secondly, the public should use other sources of informa- tion about crime, in other words it should stop relying exclusively on news media. We would like to suggest developing “popular culture” type of pub- lications about crime and criminals that would be available in book stores. They would have to take the copycat problem into account as well, when it comes to information that would be included in these publications. And then of course one would have to find a mechanism for “luring” mass-media consumers away from their TV sets and into local book stores. 4. As we reflect on the copycat phenomenon, we just hope that we will not wake up one of these days to the “breaking news” on TV that another mass murder-type of massacre has taken place an hour earlier — in Atlanta, or Los Angeles, or Houston, or Boston. Or in London, Madrid, Rome, Vienna, Johannesburg, or Toronto — killing 100 people in a gay bar. Or another type of bar. And we would learn with horror that the perpetrator laughed with the sound of “pure evil”, or with “a laugh of satisfaction”. After all, words teach, but examples attract!

References

1. Coleman L, The copycat effect: How the media and popular culture trigger the mayhem in tomorrow’s headlines. NY: Simon & Schuster, 2004. Electronic source: https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=3B4lTTZE58oC&oi=f-

Internal Security, July–December 145 Emil W. Pływaczewski, Wojciech Cebulak

nd&pg=PR9&dq=copycat+effect&ots=vfNvk73kTl&sig=1S0gp41Ne8E4SS- FUDr9NW9HqI50#v=onepage&q&f=false. 2. Dowler K, Media Consumption and Public Attitudes Toward Crime and Justice: the Relationship Between Fear of Crime, Punitive Attitudes, and Perceived Po- lice Eff ectiveness. Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture, 2003, 10 (2), pp. 109–126. 3. Dworzecki J, Policja a media. Granice przekazu. 2017, unpublished material. 4. Harłukowicz J, Bombiarz z Wrocławia naśladował Carnajewów. Gazeta Wyborcza, 25–26 May 2016, p.5. 5. Hołyst B, Terroryzm, Vol. 1. Warsaw: LexisNexis, 2011. 6. Ismaili K (Ed.), U.S. Criminal Justice Policy. A Contemporary Reader, 2nd edition. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2017. 7. Kochanowski J, Media a terroryzm. Biuro Rzecznika Prawa Obywatelskich. Warsaw, 2009. 8. Leonard V.A, More H.W, Police Organization and Management, 9th edition. New York: Foundation Press, 2000. 9. Samson A, Copy That. Consumers Frequently Copy, But Being Copied Has Its Downside, 2012. Electronic source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ consumed/201204/copy. 10. Sanchez R, Park M, Witness: Orlando shooter laughed during rampage. CNN, 14.06.2016. Electronic source: http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/14/us/orlan- do-shooting-as-it happened/index.html. 11. Schultheis E, Obama: Orlando shooter an example of “homegrown extrem- ism”. CBS News, 13.06.2016. Electronic source: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ obama-orlando-nightclub-shooting-example-of-homegrown-extremism/ 12. Sitek E, Kulisy sukcesu. Policja 997, 2016, No. 7 (136), pp.12–13. 13. Tufekci Z, The Media Needs to Stop Inspiring Copycat Murders. Here’s How. The Atlantic. 19.12.2012. Electronic source: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/ archive/2012/12/the-media-needs-to-stop-inspiring-copycat-murders-heres- how/266439/

About the authors

Emil W. Pływaczewski, Professor, PhD, Dr. habil. is the Head of the Chair of and of the Department of Criminal Law and Criminology at the University of Bialystok, Poland. Since 2012, the Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Białystok. His main area of research and professional interest is criminology in the broad sense. Correspondence: Uniwersytet w Białymstoku, Wydział Prawa, ul. Mickiewicza 1, 15–213 Białystok, Poland. E-mail: [email protected]. Wojciech Cebulak, PhD, Professor, Department of Criminal Justice Minot State University Minot, North Dakota, U.S.A. His main areas of research and professional interest are: criminal law, , policing, white-collar and corporate crime, international and comparative criminology, international and comparative criminal justice systems. Correspondence: Dr.Wojciech Cebulak, Professor of Criminal Justice, Minot State University, Criminal Justice Department, 500 University Avenue West, Minot N.D. 58707, U.S.A. E-mail: [email protected]

146 Internal Security, July–December Inspiring Copycat Violent Crime — A Question of Social Responsibility

Streszczenie. Zjawisko przestępstwa naśladowanego, szczególnie morderstwa, nie jest zjawiskiem nowym. Niektórzy mogą sądzić, że skoro zjawisko to jest znane od dłuższego już czasu, jakieś kroki musiały zostać przedsięwzięte, aby ten problem rozwiązać. Niestety, nic bardziej mylnego. Media nieustannie donoszą o brutalnych przestępstwach nie szczędząc nam ich szczegółów, bez jakiejkolwiek refleksji, czy zastanowienia w jaki sposób taka informacja może zostać wykorzystana przez kogoś, kto planuje przestępstwo, często imitując przestępstwo, które jest rozlegle analizowane przez media. Niniejszy artykuł omawia problem przestępstwa wzorowanego zarówno z punktu widzenia mediów, jaki i funkcjonariuszy porządku publicznego oraz zawiera rekomendacje własne autora. Wydaje się istotnym, aby zarówno mass media jaki i policja dokonali znaczących zmian w sposobie ujawniania i przekazywania szerokiej opinii publicznej informacji dotyczących przestępstw. Naiwnym jest sądzenie, że tylko ludzie prawi, przestrzegający prawa są odbiorcami środków masowego przekazu, jak również pogląd, że szczegóły brutalnego przestępstwa podawane przez środki masowego przekazu nigdy nie zostaną wykorzystane przez kogoś mającego złe zamiary. (aa)

Резюме. Преступления, совершенные преступниками-подражателями, особенно убийства, не являются чем-то новым. Некоторые могут считать, что поскольку проблема давно известна, были уже предприняты какие-то решения. К сожалению, это далеко не так. Средства массовой информации практически каждый день сооб- щают о жестоких преступлениях, описывая все подробности их совершения, даже не задумываясь, как определенная информация может использоваться во время планирования преступления преступником-подражателем. В данной статье рассматривается проблема преступления, совершенного преступником-подражателем как с точки зрения СМИ, так и сотрудников првоохранительных органов, а также содержатся собственные рекомендации авторов. Очень важно, чтобы средства массовой информации и полиция существенно измененили способ передачи информации о преступлении обществу, так как наивно полагать, что только законопослушные граждане являются получателями информации, пердаваемой разными каналами СМИ, или что подробности совершенного жестокого преступления, о котором сообщается, никогда не будут использованы злоумышленниками. (mj)

Internal Security, July–December 147