Essay on The Life of Ted Kaczynski

Ted Kaczynski, a man known for his bombings sent via mail and hand-delivered, more so than his intelligence. Ted attended Harvard at 16, and went on to get his PhD in mathematics from the University of Michigan. The Ted’s influence of psychological development seems to stem from more environmental factors than that of heredity. From the days as a baby in the hospital in seclusion with the measles to the research studies he participated in while attending college. The lack of ability to “fit” in, and the uniqueness within his personality, limited any type of social or family support. Trying to explain Mr. Kaczynski’s personality if far from simple. To choose one theory of personality,

Throughout the year 1968, Ted became obsessed with winning Stephanie back. He changed his whole outer appearance and was more determined than ever to impress her. Transforming himself into a totally different man, he was becoming someone who Brooks would want. Bundy chose politics as his chosen road towards status; he was active in the Washington State Republican party (Serial Killers 15). Toward the end of 1968, he was unemployed after the Republican

In “The Abu Ghraib Prison Scandal: Sources of Sadism,” Marianne Szegedy-Maszak informs the reader of the situation United States guards caused against Iraqi detainees. Under Bush’s presidency, United States soldiers brought physical abuse and humiliation upon the Abu Ghraib Prison. Szegedy-Maszak briefly analyzes the situation and compares the abuse to further scientific experiments in which test obedience. One of the experiments was the topic of another article titled, “The Stanford Prison Experiment,” written by Philip G. Zimbardo. In his work, Zimbardo discusses the experiment he held at Stanford University. A group of male students from the university were paid to participate in an experiment held in a mock prison. Half of the group

The Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment has to be one of the cruelest and disturbing experiments I have witnessed since the Milgram experiment. This experiment was pushed far beyond its means and went extremely too far. I know experiments in 1971 weren’t as thorough and strategic as today's but I know today's rules and regulations never allow cruel and unusual punish just to test out one’s theory’s. I don’t believe criminologists should be permitted to conduct replications of Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment. I also know that the ACJS and other organizations who set the rules and guidelines for experiments would not promote or condone an experiment that is dangerous and is unethical such as Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment. There were no boundaries or a level

citizens, but it was the researchers afterwards that contributed the most startling idea. Zimbardo, the same man who ran the Stanford Prison Experiment, said in an interview with the New York Times, “Prisons tend to be brutal and abusive places unless great effort is made to control the guards’ base impulses. It’s not that we put bad apples in a good barrel. We put good apples in a bad barrel. The barrel corrupts anything that it touches” (Swhwartz, 2004 p. 2). A professor of Law at Loyola University, Marcy Strauss, studies criminal procedure and wrote a forty-two page manuscript on the lessons that should be discussed beyond news articles. Strauss said of Abu Ghraib, “Undoubtedly, these factors [poor training of guards, poor oversight and horrendous conditions] played a major role in facilitating the abuse. Correcting these conditions is imperative. But, to end the introspection there would be a mistake” (Strauss, 2005 p.9). The idea that people could be malignant under specific circumstances has been proven by Milgrams’ studies and this idea is now apparent in real life. Thus, the concern for prisons, as pointed out by both Zimbardo and Strauss, cannot simply be that the guards or correctional officers do not abuse people in the future. The issue is that the maltreatment and indignity in Abu Ghraib was a result of the poor foundation of the U.S. correctional system (Strauss,

She begins recounting the notorious details, how innocent college students labeled prisoners and guards displayed psychological abuse after only six days of confinement, and makes reference to Stanley Milgram’s obedience study and Abu Ghraib, where similar maltreatment, perceived or real, was conducted on civilians by civilians. She addresses and refutes the accepted belief that the Stanford Prison Experiment proved that anyone could become a tyrant when given or instructed by a source of authority. Instead, she suggests that Zimbardo’s inquiry points toward but does not land on one exact conclusion. She explains the influence of the setting, the presentation of the roles, Zimbardo’s participation, and perhaps a sense of expectation felt, all of which can be reflected in the shocking behavior of a few guards. She argues that it should not have been so shocking. Konnikova discredits the neutrality of Zimbardo’s experiment by insisting that people who would respond to an ad for a psychological study of prison life were not “normal” people. However, with her diction and choice of evidence she displaces the study's culpability in a way that ultimately blurs and undermines her claim.

Though this was just an experiment many of the test subjects were quickly pushed to their limits and the ones in authority took their roles to the extreme. Eventually, this caused an early shut down of the experiment. There was a total of 9 students who were willing to be the prisoners in this experiment. The study issued that the guards would be forced to give brutal and cruel torture upon the prisoner. The experiment was known as one of the most controversial studies in the history of social psychology because even though it was an experiment, the prisoners went through major psychological changes and one prisoner even succumbed to a short period of insanity. Through deindividualized torture, exploitation and manipulation many of the test subjects underwent the same torture as those who were imprisoned at Abu Ghraib. It was finally shut down by a woman by the name of Christina Maslach but similarly to Abu Ghraib no one was held accountable for the short period of torture. Also like Abu Ghraib, the men who played the role of the guards in The Stanford Prison Experiment underwent psychological changes where they became evil, relentless and manipulative all while blaming it on the fact that they’re “just following orders.” In many cases when a person is given authority, they abuse it

Peers of individuals who suffer from mental illness must be attentive to peculiar behavior and take all threats seriously. When people treat situations like these with care and responsibility, often the shooter’s plans are foiled. These simple steps could save countless lives.

The biggest manhunt against a criminal in U.S. history has been to catch serial killer Theodore John Kaczynski. Ted Kaczynski, terrorized the entire country for nearly 20 years. Ted build improvised explosive devices and mailed them to universities, airlines, and various others. The FBI would later name him the “Unabomber” code word for “the UNiversity and Airline BOMbing targets involved.” (FBI, 18 May 2016). A question some have been wondering for many years is why Ted did what he did and how he chose his targets. Studies show, Teds early life events may have impacted him so greatly that it caused psychological abnormalities.

The Milgram Obedience Study was an experiment conducted by Stanley Milgram in 1963 to observe how far people would obey instructions that resulted in harming another individual. The experiment consisted of a “learner” engaging in a memory task and a “teacher” testing the “learner” on the task, administering electrical shocks to the “learner” each time an incorrect answer was given; the electric shocks started out small from 15 volts, labeled as “SLIGHT SHOCK”, all the way to 450 volts, labeled as “X X X”—of course, that was what the participant was told. The true purpose of the experiment was not disclosed until after the experiment and the “random selection” of who would be the “teacher” or “learner” was rigged so that the participant was always the “teacher” and the “learner” was always an actor. The shocks, naturally, were never given to the “learner”, and the “learner” gave responses that were scripted, both in answers to the questions and in responses to the shocks.

The term terrorism is used widely in present day especially in the United States. Terrorism is a double standard, the people who commit those terrorist acts, commit the acts out of beliefs and in their eyes ok. Terrorism can be described as the illegitimate use of force to achieve a political objective by targeting innocent people (Laqueur, 1987). To me the definition mention above is a great definition to describe terrorism as a crime. To aim for innocent people to prove a point which lead major injuries or death in most cases is to most people would be a crime, no questions asked. According to Martha Crenshaw (1995), “Terrorism cannot be defined unless the act, target and possibility of success are analyzed”. So to think, terrorist are people who commit these acts as a way to get their political or religious point across. If we look at the some of the most famous terrorist acts they are automatically labeled crimes. 9/11 was a crime because the persons affiliated with the act, targeted the

On April 3rd of 1996 in Lincoln, Montana, Ted Kaczynski was arrested and sent to court. Pleading guilty, Kaczynski was addressed as a “Domestic Terrorist.” Serving four life sentences for transporting, mailing, and use of bombs, and also murder of 3 people, Kaczynski was also added another 30 years after his life sentences, no parole, and barely missed the death penalty. No one ever saw this coming in Kaczynski’s life. From an early age, his parents pushed him for academic success. At the age of 16, he was accepted to Harvard with a scholarship. Even though Kaczynski did seem socially awkward, no one thought that he could be diagnosed with Paranoid Schizophrenia. Mainly people thought he didn’t know how to express his greatness, but never

“Stairs narrow toward the top. It becomes harder to turn back with each step” (Kershaw, 2010). As said before, there is not a “cookie cutter” definition of what creates a terrorist. One thing is very evident, the radicalization process of an individual is complex, diverse, and is often comprised of idiosyncratic characteristics.

Kaczynski was born on May 22, 1942 to Wanda and Theodore Kaczynski of Evergreen Park Ill, a tidy and middle class suburb of Chicago. The second son Ted’s brother, David was born in 1950. As children, both kids were very reclusive, not playing with any neighbor children and rarely seen outside of the house. At a young age Ted started to show signs of being a gifted learner, he skipped a year in elementary school and his junior year in high school. Ted spent most of his early life studying math and science alone instead of being social in any kind of way. Ted had a different side to him though, he had a love of explosives which he homemade with his know how in the fields that he studied. Kaczynski was accepted into Harvard at 16

Throughout history there have been hundreds upon hundreds of influential figures, although not all of them have devoted their career to understanding the human mind. Of the few who have devoted their time to this hugely important task, Dr. Philip G. Zimbardo’s theories and experiments have made him stand out, and differentiate himself from the rest in his profession. Zimbardo 's area of expertise in the field of psychology is social psychology, the branch that deals with social interactions, including their origins and their effects on the individual. Zimbardo may be most well known for his Stanford Prison experiment, an experiment that seems to address the definition of social psychology perfectly. In this experiment Zimbardo had clinically healthy and sane people volunteer for the position of a prison guard or a prisoner and see how they behaved, for fifteen dollars a day. The prison was actually the basement of the Stanford psychology building, where the experiment would take place for a planned 14 days. As said before, the prisoners and guards were all tested as mentally healthy, and for the sake of the experiment were arrested, and processed on a random morning, August 14th 1971. (Zimbardo, 2007, p. 23). The results of this experiment are outstanding, shocking, and somewhat disturbing, making this one of, if not, the most unethical psychological experiments. Although the experiment is considered wildly immoral, Zimbardo is one of the most influential psychologists