Problem: A 28 year old male Ph.D. student in criminology has been charged with breaking into a house and stabbing to death four undergraduate students (three females and one male) while they were asleep. The student has been studying the criminal mindset of serial killers and has been fascinated with how easily some of them get away with crimes. He himself has never committed a crime before. He did not steal anything from the house. Assume that the PhD student is in fact and in law guilty.
In another scenario, A brutally kills his lover and recruits others to help him dispose the body in a distant forested area.
In both scenarios, answer the questions below:
a) What criminological theory(ies) can you advance to explain why they committed the crimes?
b) What punishment would you recommend for the perpetrators, and why based on your understanding of the philosophy of punishment?
c) What policy initiatives would you advance based on the criminological theory (ies) you discuss above, to prevent a similar crime from occurring?