Investigating serial murder

What makes a serial killer? Are these people mad or bad? Samantha Helsham presents a challenging view in her article which suggests that the serial killer may not be evil but suffers from serious emotional and cognitive pathologies and this renders the person incapable of any moral knowledge. Along this line of reasoning the serial killer is mentally defective. If, as some research suggests, the serial killer is a psychopath born with a brain disorder how then must the law deal with such a person?  Helsham's article will no doubt stimulate much debate over this highly vexed question.

Kimberley Tyrrell takes us into the world of cinema and the representation of the serial killer in film. The profile as presented in the movie is in a number of cases very close to the description which emerges in recent research. Tyrrell provocatively raises the issue of why there is very little discourse in academic and popular cultural analyses about why the white male serial killer rarely has his face figured as an important element of the serial killer film. The article presents much thoughtful critique of the serial killer film and will no doubt provide many film buffs of this genre with food for thought.

Brian Simpson also questions whether the focus on the individual pathology of the serial killer might be misplaced. He argues that it may be time to refocus our concerns on the nature of society as a possible cause for the young white male serial killer. His concern is that many of the victims of serial killers are prostitutes and that this type of victim is too often portrayed as being a death of less importance than the death of the 'innocent woman'. Serial killing is, as the title suggests, a feminist issue which relates very much to a patriarchal society.

With all that is known about the serial killer, in the end it is the quality of the evidence gathered at the scene of the crime which is of crucial importance to establish the link between the killer and his victim. Gale Spring suggests that too often the importance of photography as an evidentiary tool is not heeded. He argues cogently for the need for appropriate standards to be developed for forensic photography at a State, national and international level.

And also

• Looking at women and the Australian legal system
• Science, corporations and the law
• Legal expense insurance
• Workers’ entitlements
• Housing problems in Sydney following the Olympics
• President Bush’s response to the threat of terrorism: the Military Order

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