Criminology Research Project Inc.

Part 2

Fort Hood Mass Murder

I sit in the dining room of the Ramada Inn-Tuscaloosa long before any of the rival and obsessed football fans come to life in anticipation of today’s 2:30 p.m. war between long time rivals LSU and The University of Alabama.  I’m not thinking about football, I thinking about Maj. Nidal Malik Masan, the unassuming Army psychiatrist that has become the most well known mass murder of the past few years.

It never fails that big criminology related “happenings” seem to occur when I am away from my office without access to my files, studies, and statistics.   Reality is, I wouldn’t even know of a happening if it were not for dedicated Advisory Board members, especially C. W., who monitors everything so completely and contacts me through the marvel of modern technology.  However, to keep you up-to-date as much as I possibly can I will make a few brief comments.

First of all, at this early stage it is impossible to conclude, with any degree of certainty, the actual cause(s) of the Fort Hood mass murder and the workings of Major Masan.  As time passes, even then there will always be speculation and an honest difference of opinion among academics, social scientists and those within the criminal justice system as to what is accurate and was is fiction.  One must never forget that much of what we in criminology do is mere speculation, we don’t call it this as we all have our diplomas hanging on our walls which say we are expected to use certain “big words” that tend to set us apart.  Nevertheless, the bottom line is that Major Hasan violated society’s norms and, in doing so, created a fire storm as to why he did what he did.

There are various explanations of criminal behavior and the one a social science professional chooses to “go with” is determined by this particular professionals academic background, training, experience and, yes, even his/her childhood growing up experiences.  Everyone is a product of what he/she has experienced, therefore there is a built in bias, a skewed view if not careful, and, therefore an honest difference of opinion.  There are, however, a few ideas worth consideration and, with your patience I will discuss one….Spiritualism.

As an explanation of criminal behavior, spiritualism provides a sharp contrast to the scholarly explanations used today.  Unlike today’s theories, spiritualism stressed the conflict between absolute good and absolute bad.  People who committed crimes were thought to be possessed by evil spirits, often referred to as demons.

Although the genesis of this perspective is lost in antiquity, there is ample archaeological, anthropological, and historical evidence that this explanation has been around for many centuries.  We know, for example, that primitive people explained natural disasters such as floods and famines as punishments by spirits for wrongdoings.  This type of view also was used by the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans.  Much later, during the Middle Ages in Europe, spiritualistic explanations had become well organized and connected to the political and social structure of feudalism.  Originally, crime was a private matter between the victim, or the family of the victim, and the offender(s).  Unfortunately, this means of responding to offenses had a tendency to create long blood feuds that could destroy entire families.  There also was the problem of justice: A guilty offender with a strong family might never be punished.

To avoid some of these problems, other methods were constructed for dealing with those accused of committing crimes.  Trial by battle, for example, permitted the victims or some member of his or her family to fight the offender or some member of the offender’s family.  It was believed that victory would go to the innocent if he or she believed and trusted God.  Unfortunately, this arrangement permitted great warriors to continue engaging in criminal behavior, buttressed by the belief that they always would be found innocent.  Trial by ordeal determined guilt or innocence by subjecting the accused to life-threatening and/or painful situations.  For example, people might have huge stones piled on them.  It was believed that if they were innocent, the God would keep them from being crushed to death; if they were guilty, then a painful death would occur.  People also were tied up and thrown into rivers or ponds.  It was believed that if they were innocent, the God would allow them to float; if they were guilty, then they would drown.

Compurgation represented another means of determining innocence or guilt based on spiritualism.  Unlike trial by battle or ordeal that involved physical pain and/or threat of death, compurgation allowed the accused to have reputable people swear an oath that he or she was innocent.  The logic was based on the belief that no one would lie under oath for fear of God’s punishment.

Today, we have many groups and individuals who believe those crimes and other wrongs can be explained by the devil.  For example, in the late ‘80’s when “prime time preacher Jim Bakker of the famed PTL Club confessed to an adulterous one-night stand with a former church secretary, some of his followers said that it was the result of the devil’s work.  When Internal Revenue Service auditors revealed that several millions of dollars were unaccounted for by the PTL organization, Bakker’s then wife Tammy Faye said that the devil must have gotten into the computer.  Others who have been caught for criminal acts have used the exact same explanation, an example being Jimmy  Swaggart standing before a national television audience, tears and all, saying that the devil had caused him to cavort with prostitutes.

It is important to remember that even though people might criticize the argument that “the devil made me do it” as quaint or odd, it nevertheless makes sense for some people who try to understand and explain crime.  In fact, it might even be argued that the public’s interest in this type of explanation grows at the same rate as our population growth.  According to the National Council of Churches, church membership grows gradually at approximately the same rate as the nation’s population.  This must not be confused with the statistics that show a gradual decline in mainline denominational membership and an increase in interdenominational or nondenominational membership.  In other words, as many or more young people profess a belief in God, they just are not attending the structures of a typically accepted church organization.  Denomination is declining, believing is God is rising.

The major problem with spiritualistic explanations, nonetheless, is that they cannot be tested scientifically.  Because the cause of crime, according to this theory, is other worldly, it cannot be verified empirically.  It is primarily for this reason that modern theories of crime and social order rely on explanations that are based on the physical world.

What does all of this mean relative to Major Hasan and the now infamous “Ft. Hood Mass Murders?”  Let me attempt to explain.  First of all, Major Hasan is Muslim and, therefore, apparently has a very strong, unwavering faith in a “higher power.”  One cannot deny the use of the words “very strong” when thoughts of the 911 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York come to mind.  The Muslim pilots were so dedicated to the cause of this “higher power” that they forgave their lives to honor this “higher power” with the belief that if they died doing the will of this “power” they would go straight to Heaven and, equally, have a nice supply of young women at that their command.

With Maj. Hasan, a biosocial approach is in order in that it must be acknowledged that the importance of learning and the extent to which the learning and conditioning of behavior occur differently from individuals because of neurological variations. In other words, does Hasan have a neurological disorder such as a brain tumor or some other physical and or social disorder?

“The system” is busy, social scientists are working overtime, as are the various members of the criminal justice system, civilian and military.  Questions are being asked such as, why was Hasan’s behavior not recognized earlier?  The honest opinion of this writer is, at this point we don’t know.  It will be easy to place blame on others, the Army on the Defense Department civilian leadership, the general citizenry will say it’s a governmental problem and, yes, some will say it was the devil.

The fact is there are those that become obsessed with various things that cause these individuals to act very peculiarly.  At this moment Tuscaloosa, Alabama, is packed with people in various phases of mania in expectation of today’s 2:30 p.m. football game at The University of Alabama’s Bryant-Denny Stadium. The people are acting very strangely here in T-Town but this strange behavior is accepted at this moment in time.

There is a very popular saying in my state and it is, “In Alabama we don’t play football, we live it.”  I am sad to say that this is a generally accurate statement.  In sitting in the stadium later today I am sure I will look across the 90,000 plus crowd and think about one priority.  There will be this tremendous crowd of people who have spent no telling how money on tickets, hotel rooms, inflated food prices and an undetermined amount on memorabilia just to watch two separate groups, called “teams,” beat up on one another for 60 minutes which, by the assistance of a time clock, will stretch the overall time period to several hours.  I will question the priorities of this crowd by asking myself if the total attendance in tomorrow’s Tuscaloosa County church services was calculated how close would that figure come to the attendance at today’s athletic event?  The answer is, not very close.

What does one gain from fanatical thinking?  Well, it brings about a relief to today’s problems temporarily and it allows us to do really strange things.   For instance, if I were to walk down the streets of my home town and all of a sudden start jumping up and down, screaming, and looking like a clown from the circus by the way I’m dressed, I would be arrested.  Not to mention hugging the person sitting next to me for some action that had occurred on the field.  What if I hugged the next person that walked passed my at home in the super market, a person that I had never met and didn’t know, I would be locked up or, at the very least, thought to be a bit unusual.  Not the case today, if you are dressed in Crimson and white or the colors of rival Louisiana State University, your counterparts, dressed identically, will be a “family member,” will openly start a relationship of discussion and will be felt to be part of the crowd.  People will talk to one another and, yes, hug after that “big play” only because of a common allegiance.

The same with people like Major Hasan.  He is a member of a strict sect that requires a conservative and total dedication, without exception, and is willing, even eager, to accompany his “higher authority” by carrying out whatever he considers his “higher authority” to desire, want, or command.

In closing, I say that today no one knows what brought about the Fort Hood massacre.  Various theories are beginning to surface and will continue to do so for days and weeks to come as more is uncovered relative to the person and life of Nidal Malik Hasan.  We will know, already do, his bank account information, what’s on his computer hard drive, the e-mail he has sent and received, who he has talked to in the recent and distant past, what he eats and where he eats it, etc.  You name it and someone will have come up with an answer.  This is how our system operates.  The Army will and does have it’s experts, the media will become “The Authority” on this case, already has, and the structure of the Federal Bureau of Investigation will do what it does to answer the many questions that are already being asked. 

Will we ever know what actually caused Hasan to do what he did?  No.  Will social science speculate and say, “We know?”  Oh, yes.  The so-called experts are already coming out of the woodwork with their pet theories.

I, myself, have been contacted by several media outlets in that, for some reason, there are those that have come to believe that I have a specialized knowledge of why people kill other people in the name of doing what is right and acceptable versus what is wrong and not acceptable.  Here I respond by saying that I only know because I have read and I am not an “expert,” just a professor who was paid to study a particular subject after having jumped through the correct hoops to get that almighty “degree” whose proof is the diploma smartly farmed and displayed on the wall, and to stand before a group of future “experts” to spout what I once had someone spout to me. 

Criminology Research Project will continue to up-date its blog regularly.  At the moment the most rational thing that can be done is to wait a time with patience so that our so-called “experts” can ply their trade and come up with whatever theory they may.

We can feel comfortable in knowing that people don’t do things without a reason, as flawed as this reason may be.  Hasan had a reason, what it was is not to be known anytime soon.