Katz, J. (2003). Righteous Slaughter. In Violence and Society: A Reader. (pp. 81-95). Prentice Hall.
{14 pages}
-The model criminal homicide: an impassioned attempt to perform sacrifice to embody one or another version of the ‘good’.
-Even in crazy circumstances, the offenders seem to be defending the ‘good’.
-Lungsgaarde: “self righteous”
-The defense of ‘flagrante delicto has been acceptable for centuries in many societies.
-In homicide cases pertaining spouses, the killer often stands as a defender of the children’s moral sensibilities.
-Defending the right to control property: killers can sense himself upholding the institution of property rights in general.
-“ The violence does not occur randomly, the violence erupts in situations that put at stake what the people involved momentarily regard as dimensions of the eternal ‘good’.
-In many cases, both the killer and victim agree that the ‘good’ is at stake.
-Feature 2 of typical: lack of premeditation
-These homicides: not morally self-conscious acts emerge quickly, fiercely impassioned, and are conducted with an indifference to the legal consequences.
-Feature 3: that tacks are conducted within the spirit of a quickly developing rage.
-Feature 4: which points to a third explanatory task, is suggested by the arbitrary relationship between what the assailants are attempting to do and their practical results.
-Victim’s death: not necessary or sufficient element of the assailants animating project.
-Definition of the problem: “righteously enraged slaughter” or an impassioned attack through which the assailant attempts to embody in his victim marks will eternal arrest to the assailants embrace of the primordial good.
-Explanation: 1) the killer needs to interpret the victim’s behavior, so he knows the victim is attacking what he regards as an eternal human value. 2) The killer needs to undergo a particular emotion process and must transform what he first sensed as an eternal humiliating situation into a rage. 3) The killer must organize his behavior for if death may or may not occur, but when it does, it is sacrificial slaughter.
-’Several patterns in homicide situations indicate that the killers develop righteous passion against the background of taking a last stand in defense of respectability.’
-All stories described at beginning mentioned the victim either teasing/dared the killer to resolve the conflict.
-Killer’s perspective: the victim teases, dares, defies or pursues the killer. In all cases, the victim sustains a sense in the killer-to-be that there is no escape from the issue at hand.
Brittany Camargo Perez 