Serial killers
Shows give us a hitman mindset says professor
TV criminologist David Wilson has warned our violent media culture is “normalising” people into adopting the mindset of a contract killer.
The professor of criminology – who co-presents TV3’S new series Assassins – says hitmen are professionally desensitised to violence and have the ability to completely detach themselves from murder.
This mentality is normalised in video games like Call Of Duty or graphic dramas such as The Fall, starring Co Down star Jamie Dornan, or Youtube clips of executions.
Assassins features reconstructions of infamous Irish contract killings with actors playing notorious crime figures including Eamon “The Don” Dunne, Paddy Doyle and “Lying Eyes” Sharon Collins.
Mr Wilson said: “So many video games are about taking down targets.
“Without doubt they add to that normalisation of killing.
“A serial killer is intrinsically motivated.
“They want to kill, they want to take a life for sexual reasons or control reasons or disordered thinking about the victim they are going to kill.
“Those reasons are intrinsic. The hitman’s motivations are extrinsic.
“He is simply being paid. He is doing a job.
“That is how he characterises what he does.”
Mr Wilson added hitmen have the ability to “reframe a human being into something that is less than human” – a trait groomed by watching violent media. He added: “How can a hitman look at a person they are going to kill and divorce themselves from the humanity of the person that is their intended victim? “The consistent finding was that they psychologically reframed from the start – this was business. The victim is no longer seen as being human, it is simply business.
“If they don’t do the job, someone else will.
“They are going to criminally undertake for money. His victims are just targets he has to eliminate.
“The words he will use to describe the victim will not be ones which emphasise their humanity – instead they emphasise their neutrality.”
Mr Wilson presents the sixpart TV3 series profiling Ireland’s assassins along with leading investigative journalist Donal Macintyre.
The two published the academic paper The British Hitman, 1974 to 2013, in the Howard Journal of Criminal Justice.
They applied the science of criminology to identify four types of assassin – the novice, the dilettante, the journeyman and the master.
For Assassins, they used this typography to reveal the anatomy of six infamous contract killings here.
Mr Wilson said: “What was surprising about Ireland is how often hits take place on the doorstep.
“In Britain the assassinations were away from the glare of the public, in dark bars or casinos, maybe at gyms or restaurants.
“The Irish hits were taking place in leafy suburban streets, traditional pubs. Not in the underworld, but in the overworld.
“The doorstep is neither private nor public. It is the gateway between the two.
“The reasons are instrumental.
“It’s about catching someone unawares when they are thinking of something else.
“It has something to do with how face-to-face Ireland is.
“Everyone knows everyone else.”
The Professor of Criminology at Birmingham City University explained his views on the matter: “I’m told I’m a prude when I say we are being desensitised to death and violence.
“But what we are going through culturally should be resisted, and called out for what it is.
“If I ask my first year students how many have watched a beheading on Youtube, most have. That is generational.
“None of us would ever have encountered a live public execution – they stopped them in the mid-19th century.
“Now they are just a click away. I think that is deeply troubling.”
What was surprising about Ireland is how many hits take place on doorsteps
DAVID WILSON ON WHERE HITMEN CAN POUNCE