So Christmas and New Years are well and truly over. A sigh of relief for some but unfortunately for an access course student it's the definition of the beginning of a hectic rush. I been given all the rest of my assignments for the year, with deadlines ranging from now until the end of March. These include extensive essays, projects and exams. In other words, every bit of time I have to spend writing should be prioritised on my assignments for now. Not only that but I have an engagement party to plan too!
Because of this, I've decided to take a six week break from the blog, unless I find myself with enough time to get a couple of posts in. Once everything is all over and done with I can get focused on criminology research again and preparing for university properly (I've been accepted by all five of my university applications by the way! Amazing!)
So this post is just a heads up on why it's been a bit quiet here lately. A comeback is inevitable and I'll be looking forward to it.
Recently I've become increasingly more interested in
trials. I would say my niche is definitely criminal psychology; trying to
decipher what appears to happen inside a criminal’s mind, along with their
situations and experiences, resulting in an estimated profile of who they are.
Understandably, I tend to focus my research on the psychological side of
criminology, but recently I have been beginning to learn more about the law
side of crime, along with topics that I know will be included in my university
course such as terrorism and the media.
The last two weeks I have been doing extensive research into
the media and their contribution to the sensationalism of American criminal
trials. I’ve decided to write a ‘series’ of blog posts focusing on individual
trials and what impact the media has had on them. This first addition will
focus on the Jodi Arias vs Travis Alexander and the state of Arizona trial,
which is technically still on-going due to her sentencing being determined this
year.
Travis Alexander was a salesman and motivational speaker,
with a fantastic career and social life. He was also a Mormon, and took his
religion very seriously, as it helped him through a difficult childhood in
California, in which his drug-addicted parents neglected him and his seven
siblings. His Mormon grandparents chose to raise him after his father’s death, and
introduced him to a more positive life, in addition to a new found faith that
he would hold close to his heart until the day he died. Jodi Arias was a
beautiful, young woman, also born in California and met Travis at one of his
motivational speeches during a conference in Las Vegas in September 2006. They
were both instantly attracted to each other, however due to Travis’s religious
ties they were unable to fulfil their lustful wishes. Jodi was later baptised
as a Mormon by Travis and they were able to start their relationship officially
in February 2007.
Unfortunately, their relationship did not go as swimmingly
as one would hope. Jodi became increasingly jealous and paranoid as Travis
mingled with female friends. Jodi felt as though Travis was embarrassed to acknowledge
his relationship with her to his Mormon friends, despite their
physical relationship growing more intimate and seedy behind closed doors. Regarding their sex life, Jodi said in court, “I
felt like a piece of toilet paper. I kind of felt like a prostitute. It seemed
like Travis kind of had a Bill Clinton version of sex; where oral and anal are
also sex to me, but not for him.”
Travis ended his relationship with Jodi in June 2007 yet
still continued to have sex with her. He was due to fly to Mexico on June 10th
2008 and originally requested that he could take Jodi with him. In the lead up
to the date, he asked if he could take another female friend instead.
Travis was discovered dead by his friends in the shower of
his home on June 9th 2008. He had been shot in the head, stabbed 29
times and had his throat cut so deep it had nearly decapitated him. In the 911
call made by his deeply disturbed friends upon finding his body, they mentioned
Jodi and how Travis had said she had been stalking him and intruding on his
personal life via Facebook and email accounts.
During the crime scene investigation, a digital camera was found in a washing machine with an attempt to wipe the images taken on it. A specialist was able to retrieve some of the images and found unimaginable evidence linking Jodi to the crime. At approximately 1.40pm, a series of sexual images of the pair were taken, in which they were clearly having sexual relations and enjoying each other’s company. At around 5pm, more images were taken of Travis showering. The last image of Travis taken alive was at 5.29pm.
Following on
from this image, a blurred picture of someone (believed to be Travis) bleeding
extensively on the shower floor was taken. A bloody handprint was found in the
hallway (in addition to an extremely large amount of bloodstains on the floor) and
it contained both Travis’s and Jodi’s DNA. A large collection of the crime
scene photos were leaked and are available for anyone to view online.
Jodi was arrested six weeks later on July 15th.
She originally pleaded not guilty and fabricated a story that involved two
masked gunmen breaking into the home and attacking both her and Travis, with
her escaping out the door after they had shot Travis. Her original police
interview is available to watch on YouTube, here is an excerpt;
She also took part in a media interview and continued to
dishonestly tell this story which is available to watch here;
Upon the start of her trial, Jodi changed her story and
admitted dishonesty. She then claimed she killed Travis in self-defence, after
a long abusive relationship with him. She claimed Travis was an abusive and
violent man who indicated to her that he was a paedophile. This shocking blow
of false information caused public outcry, as the majority of the nation
determined she was slandering Travis’s image for her own manipulative gain. In
addition, she was crushing Travis’s reputation in a way to project herself as
the victim despite Travis’s brutal and gory murder.
America’s criminal trials are televised if they are exceptionally
popular. Jodi Arias’s trial ran for 55 days and was streamed live to the
nation. Every aspect of it was made available for the public to see; the
cross-examinations, the verdict, the crime scene photographs, texts and emails
exchanged and all background history of the accused and victim. Jodi has been
interviewed by the press multiple times which have all been televised and are
easily accessible to view, as well as creating a Twitter account which she
updates very regularly (via television conversations with her followers) and
selling her artwork on Ebay. The result of this, like all other trials which
are made public, is that the trials become somewhat of a drama story, in which
the people involved are catapulted into the media’s limelight and become
infamous.
“Stories with child homicide
victims and/or perpetrators are particularly likely to be featured so
prominently that they become long-running stories with a familiar cast of
characters, regularly invoked as symbols of wider issues or the state of the
nation, illustrated by the Moors murders, and the Jamie Bulger and Soham
cases.” – (Robert Reiner, 2007, The
Oxford Handbook Of Criminology)
Although Robert Reiner’s quote is in regard to UK criminal
cases, the quote is relevant to all popular, extreme trials that capture the
public’s interest. Frequently throughout my research into Jodi’s case, I had to
remind myself that this was actual reality, in which real people are going
through an extremely distressing trial and a poor, young man was murdered. In the UK, all cameras are banned from entering the courtroom. An artist is allowed
in and will usually sketch main perpetrators of the case. A criminal’s mug shot
is also released to the public. There is absolutely no chance of a video recorder
being allowed in the courtroom to capture any footage of the ongoing trials for
media gain. As a result of this, the UK public rely only on journalist reports
to find out information throughout a trial. However, recent changes have been
made, in which criminologist or media reporters can now update their Twitter
accounts with step-by-step tweets on how the trial is panning out, as seen by
Rupert Evelyn’s tweets during Ian Watkin’s trial and sentencing. The reporting style of America’s media to this case has been shocking for me to
watch. There has been no decorum, nor any privatisation of any details of the
case. Everything has been on a platform for anybody to watch, whether it be
live on television or found on YouTube. Jodi has been interviewed time and time
again despite being in custody, and as a result of this has found herself
becoming an international celebrity with a cult following. ‘Justice 4 Jodi’
t-shirts and wristbands are being donned by thousands of people, with ‘Justice
4 Travis’ merchandise also being sold. The public have been captivated by every
minute of this story and trial, with hundreds of people camping outside Arizona’s
state county court in the desperate hope of winning a spare seat in the
courtroom as if the trial is as entertaining as a football game. Copious
amounts of arguments and debates have flooded social media sites and chat shows
in regard to Jodi’s guilt or innocence, with people able to input incredibly
detailed arguments and opinions as if they have a personal relationship with
the people involved in the case. As a result of this incredible showdown of a murder trial, Jodi and all
involved have become celebrities. Personally, something about that fact sends
chills down my spine. The case was about Travis, and finding out the truth of
his murder and gaining justice for him. Instead, his whole life, murder and intimate,
personal details have been broadcast to the whole world and have been used as a
source of entertainment. The sensationalism of the trial has over-shadowed the
fact that this young, inspiring man with his whole future ahead of him was
brutally killed, and that his family must now live on with the knowledge that
the whole world knows the smallest, minute details of the most upsetting and
distressing times of their lives.
Jodi was found guilty of first degree murder on May 8th
2013 in the first phase of her trial. Due to a hung verdict on her sentencing,
she is due to start her second phase of the trial in March 2014, in which the
jury with decide whether she will face the death penalty or life imprisonment. Already,
an interest is sparking back up again in the media and this will inevitably be
the second part of what I can only describe as an intrusive, crazy and
unbelievable media input to Jodi Arias’s trial.
"Genetics, accidents of birth or events in early childhood have left criminals’ brains and bodies with measurable flaws predisposing them to committing assault, murder and other antisocial acts. …. Many offenders also have impairments in their autonomic nervous system, the system responsible for the edgy, nervous feeling that can come with emotional arousal. This leads to a fearless, risk-taking personality, perhaps to compensate for chronic under-arousal. Many convicted criminals, like the Unabomber, have slow heartbeats. It also gives them lower heart rates, which explains why heart rate is such a good predictor of criminal tendencies. The Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, for example, had a resting heart rate of just 54 beats per minute, which put him in the bottom 3 per cent of the population.” ― Adrian Raine, http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/criminology
I found this quote on Google whilst searching for top criminologist sayings and I found it incredibly interesting. There were many to choose from, but this quote stuck out further than the others to me. It is something that has always fascinated me about criminals; the courage they have to commit the atrocious crimes that they do. I am a seriously empathetic person, that’s why I’m incredibly into animal rights and charities, and I cannot comprehend how someone can kill, rape and thieve off other human beings for pleasure or gain. If not for the fact that they are taking something from these people that they have no right too, but also the anticipation and anxiety of getting caught and punished.
If I was to break into somebodies house and steal their laptop, I can only imagine how I’d be feeling. I would be sweating, my heart beating a million times an hour, whilst any slight, small sound would send me into a frenzied panic. The thought of being caught, publicly shamed in the media and locked away for decades would be consistently pacing through my mind. Furthermore, the image of my family and friend’s faces as they are told I am a criminal would scar me for life. The thought of their lives being effected by my disgusting wrong-doings already sends a chill down my spine. Now, that is how I automatically feel when even imagining committing a crime like that. Whether that is from instinct, or I have been systematically trained to think like that is another issue entirely. But what astounds me is these criminals, whether they receive these same warning signals or not, continue carrying out the crime. They either ignore these feelings of guilt, shame and anxiety, or they do not feel them. Certain situations can occur where a person is, for want of a better word, forced to commit these crimes. If a man has no money, no job, no family, no home and is hungry, can he still be blamed for trying anything he can to attain some cash? Does he still experience those horrid feelings of shame and guilt yet he is so desperate he ignores them? Or is he so angry at the world, the corporations and lack of family and care around him that he is now forcibly numb to those feelings?
I’d like to welcome you to my blog. This is my first post regarding my criminology research. The reason I have decided to create this blog and begin writing, is firstly for preparation for my university studies. I am hoping to study criminology at university next year, eventually pursuing a career in the police force, prison services or some sort of psychology. This is the perfect place for me to practice writing about crime and getting into the right frame of mind regarding my future. I am currently studying humanities and social science at college, which is incredible, but not directly linked to criminology (although some subjects are similar!) Whilst my current course is ongoing, I’ve decided to begin my own research into criminology.
Also, criminology is one of my biggest passions! It’s something I find incredibly interesting and I love to talk about it at any given opportunity. There are copious amounts of stories appearing in the press EVERYDAY which I discuss with my partner and inside my mind. Why not write these down? It’s something to enjoy and look back on. Who knows, in a few years, my initial opinions may have changed!
Furthermore, blogging is a great tool to network and discuss topics with people. I’d love to have like-minded people and students read my writings and engage in debates and discussions with me. So please, feel free to comment and leave your website links too, I’d love to read more criminology based blogs.
As far as introductions go, I feel I've covered all the essentials. I hope you enjoy my blog and thank you for taking the time to read it. I’m looking forward to posting my first piece of writing!
