The Three Long Weeks The Washington Area Is Terrorized By A Series Of Random Sniper Attacks

What makes someone want to take the lives of ten people? The month of October, 2002, for the Washington Metropolitan Area was very bloody and violent. There was a killing spree that claimed ten innocent lives in Virginia, Washington, D.C., and Maryland. The series of shootings, according to the police reports, began with what was believed to be a white van or truck. The police later discovered that the person behind the shooting was John Allen Muhammad. John had an accomplice: a teenager by the name Lee Boyd Malvo. Lee was in a blue, 1990 sedan. The first killing was at 5:30 p.m. victim was shot through a window. Approximately an hour passed and a 55 year old man James Martin was shot and killed in the parking lot of grocery

The Beltway Sniper case included two men John Muhammad, and Lee Malvo whom carried out attacks killing 10 people and wounding several other people. All of these attacks were carried out by using a high powered .223 caliber rifle. The ballistics processing was especially important because the use of firearm was the weapon that killed 10 innocent people, and wounded several others. This case was cracked because one of the suspects called police and mentioned they were responsible for a murder that took place in Montgomery Alabama outside a liquor store. The investigators that were working on that case found a magazine left at the crime scene, and they compared the fingerprints left on it to fingerprints of Malvo’s immigration record.

Have you ever heard of the DC sniper? Did you hear about the summary of the DC sniper case? Do you know the timeline of the DC sniper case? Have you ever heard of the evidence in the case of the DC sniper? Do you know the process for collecting Gunshot Residue? Do you know how the gun evidence will impact the case?

From birth, our families, friends, and society influenced our choices. We were told what we could and could not accept. The music we listened to, the food we ate, and the clothes we wore were all influenced by someone in our community or household. These experiences from your childhood tend to determine the choices we will make as adults. We are living in a world that approaches life with a black or white perceptive, meaning decisions in life are either morally right or morally wrong. Differential Association Theory is defined as a criminological theory created by Edwin Sutherland that focuses on criminal behavior being learned through association with others (Walsh, 559). The theory focuses on an individual’s life that could lead them to a life of crime.

Beginning in October of 2002, the Nation is gripped in fear as people are randomly shot by a sniper or snipers in Virginia, Maryland and Washington D.C. The shootings occurred in mall parking lots, near schools and gas stations, no one felt safe. People were staying indoors, walking in zig-zag patterns outdoors and filling their gas tanks from inside their vehicles. Two men, who are later identified as John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo , drove around in a 1990 Chevrolet Caprice, with a New Jersey license plate shooting people out of the trunk of their car. The car had a hole cut above the rear license plate and the back support cushion and metal support of the rear seat removed to allow the car to be used as a “rolling sniper’s nest” . It gave the shooters access to the trunk without getting out of the car. In total ten people were killed and three wounded in a span of three weeks. What effect did press releases and press conferences have on the capturing of the suspects?

In the D.C, Baltimore area, two people, John Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo drove around on a shooting spree that killed and inflicted terror on many people. The spree lasted from October 2nd, 2002 until October 24th.

May 8, 2007. Plot by six men to attack soldiers at U.S. Army base at Fort Dix in New Jersey was averted. Modern day terrorist often choose targets that are easily defeated. The general public of women, children, and the elderly are acceptable losses.

The Beltway Sniper attacks disrupted an already unsettled community. The Terrorist attacks that took place on September 11th 2001 the area effected by the attacks more commonly by the locals as the DMV (District, Maryland and Virginia) area. Only a year after the events of 9/11 tragedy strikes in the form of two snipers the devastated the community. One cannot really understand the motive of these men without knowing a little about the two men and the crimes the committed.

The total death count before the sniper attacks accord was seven deaths in the multi-state spree and injuring seven people too in the spree. During the multi-state killing spree they obtained a .223 semi-automatic Bushmaster XM-15 assault rifle which was stolen by Malvo. In which they use in the Beltway sniper attacks.

Differential Association theory was designed by Sutherland and Cressey (1960) which has a concept that mainly states criminal behavior is learned. The theory itself brings forward nine separate points that’s described what can lead to criminal behavior being learned. Some of those include; criminal behavior is learned in interaction with other persons, the setting is within intimate personal groups, techniques of committing the crime are learned, a person becomes delinquent because of an excess of definitions favorable to violation of the law. However the final point of this theory defines that while “criminal behavior is an expression of general needs and values, it is not explained by those general needs and values since non-criminal behavior is an expression of the same needs and values”

     Sutherland argued that the concept of differential association and differential social organization could be applied to the individual level and to the group level respectively. While differential association theory explains why any individual gravitates toward criminal behavior, differential social organization explains why crime rates of different social entities differ from each other's. In his fourth edition of Principles of Criminology he presented his final theory of differential association. His theory has 9 basic postulates:

The famous criminologist Edwin Sutherland developed Differential Association Theory in 1939. He felt that criminal behavior is behavior, learned, and is learned in face-to-face interactions with others. Differential association, which operates on the individual level, is where behavior is learned through interaction with others. Through this interaction an individual will learn the techniques and skills necessary to commit crime as well as the motives, rationalization, and attitudes necessary for the crime. This is achieved by determining whether the pros outweigh the cons using the factors of frequency, duration, priority, and intensity.

The Differential Association Theory, established by Edwin Sutherland in 1947, explicit the deviance of an individual's behavior and how it is learned through interaction with others or associations. There are several components that play a role in this theory that determines the main causes of delinquency. One of the components of this theory is, a person do not inherently become a criminal, it is a learned behavior. A person cannot decide one day he wants to commit a crime if he is not influence or challenge by others. When someone engages in criminal acts, they are most likely influence in some way that motivates them to commit the crime.

One of the subcategories of Social Learning Theory is the Differential Association Theory first developed by Edwin H. Sutherland in 1939 in a text call Principles of criminology. The basic steps to this theory are. (Sutherland, 1939)

Differential association theory enables the prediction crime and an understand the cause of criminal behaviour. The Thomas Antwi Bosiakoh in Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning defines it as “a process by which individuals come to have differential access to criminal values through interaction with other people” In summary it suggests that delinquent behaviour is learned thought interaction with other pro-criminal people. Initially DAT was presented by Sutherland in 1939, however in 1947 it was revised, consisting of nine outlining principles. These include: criminal behaviour is learned, criminal behaviour is learned in interactions with other people, criminal behaviour occurs in an intimate group, criminal learnings include techniques and motives, motives are learned from definitions of legal codes as favourable or unfavourable, a person is a criminal because of excess of of definitions favourable to the violation of law over definitions unfavourable to the violation of law, differential association varies, the processes of learning criminal behaviour is the same mechanism as learning any other processes and both criminal and noncriminal behaviours are expression of the same needs and value. These outlining principles form the bases of the theory. DAT has remained one of the most influential theories in understanding the impact of group behaviour and the formation of criminal behaviour.