Criminal justice specialists call for new approach to identify emerging type of murderer with no prior convictions

The rise of “0 to 100” killers who go from watching torture, mutilation and beheading videos in their bedrooms to committing murder suggests there could be a link between extreme violence online and in real life, experts have said.

Criminal justice experts advocated a new approach, inspired by counter-terrorism, to identify an emerging type of murderer with no prior convictions, after cases such as Nicholas Prosper, who killed his mother and siblings and planned a primary school massacre.

Jonathan Hall, the government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said there was a “new threat cohort” combining terrorists who were radicalised online and those who had “gone down a rabbit hole and into a dark world”.

He said: “There are quite a lot of similarities: they are isolated loners, boys rather than girls; the internet is obviously central; quite a high proportion have neurodivergence.

  • yesman@lemmy.worldEnglish
    221·
    2 days ago

    My knee-jerk take is that this is violence in video games part two, electric boogalo. But reading the article, goddam have all of you guys seen beheading videos? I’m too sensitive for that stuff and learned that lesson on rotten.com.

    In a book I just read the protagonist cautions his son that once something is in your head, it’s impossible to get it out. And I think that’s great advice.

    • MelodiousFunk@slrpnk.netEnglish
      10·
      2 days ago

      once something is in your head, it’s impossible to get it out.

      As a method of harm reduction (as it’s impossible to eliminate this kind of violence), we should really be working to change the messaging. “Board rooms, not classrooms.”

    • FoxyFerengi@lemm.eeEnglish
      61·
      2 days ago

      My ex was into watching people die. I didn’t know about it being a explicit thing he searched for until a couple years into dating. I found out because he showed me two videos of people being shot in the head, and when I asked him why he did that he said, “I didn’t think these were that bad, they lived”. Less than a year later he started following me around the house cocking his weapons and pointing them at me or my dog. I think I’m lucky I got out

    • SynonymousStoat@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      2 days ago

      I’ve seen a couple of things that I wish I hadn’t, but I never opened a link to a beheading video. That was definitely one line I wasn’t willing to cross.