Liamcrime

When I first discovered that notorious serial killer Ian Brady (the Moors Murderer) had written a book from his prison cell offering an insight into the phenomenon of serial killing and its analysis, I thought this can offer a fresh insight into the mind, motive and methodology of a serial killer, through the lens of a serial killer himself. The book within itself holds so much room for critical analysis and interpretation, it is incredibly challenging to pinpoint one particular finding. This blog aims to explore in smaller parts, numerous findings throughout the book- “Gates of Janus”. The book is broken into three significant chapters. The first chapter explores the contextualisation and social construction of serial murder with ties to morality, hedonistic nihilism and the social constriction of murder, and the ways in which the phenomenon of murder has been commodified and romanticised, this is explored through the lens of the media, and produces a cultural criminological narrati...

‘Criminological research for beginners—A student’s guide’ is written by Laura Caulfield and Jane Hill who are both experts in criminological research and have conducted research themselves on a range of interests including criminal psychology, restorative justice and community approaches to crime and deviance. This book is in my opinion, an essential read for those such as myself who are new to the field of criminology and find use in reading about the learned experiences and empirical conclusions made from those who have conducted academic research as well as those who may wish to re cap on key skills and philosophical theories surrounding the methodologies and routines within criminological research. It can be argued that throughout reading the book, we are provided with a space to critically reflect upon our own epistemologies, ontologies, methods and attitudes to criminological research and how we can apply them to a real life, day to day framework when researching society, ind...

After having read the Anatomy of Violence by Adrian Raine, I first felt an immense sense of accomplishment. This Is because even though, I take a keen interest in Biology and the natural sciences, I do not study them full time, and I was able to understand the underpinnings of Raine’s arguments for the Biological roots of crime.   Adrian Raine was born in Darlington 1954, he is currently Professor of Criminology at the Richard Perry University Pennsylvania. His current research is based around Biological interventions for Anti-social behaviour, part of this research involves structural brain scanning to identify patterns in the brains of violent offenders. Raine also specialises in Neurocriminology and is in my opinion, the future of the movement of the discipline along with his previous PhD supervisor Peter Venables.   Throughout the book, Raine would talk about a leading argument and weigh it with substantial evidence. Much of this evidence I did agree would be a f...