Out of the 50 articles studied, only a handful gave reasons or motives for the crime occurring.
The vast majority of articles neglected ascribing motives of the perpetrator. In the rape cases, no attempt was made to try to explain the crime of rape or give motives. This makes it seem like rape is a crime that cannot be understood and is then perceived as a unique crime. On the other hand, investigators and police are mentioned in murder and assault incidents in order to try understand.
Police are investigating two counts of murder (December 15, 14:42, 2011).
A double murder case and an attempted murder case here being investigated (December 24, 12:00, 2010).
The man was arrested following a police investigation in which the murder weapon was apparently found (December 29, 22:42, 2012).
Warrant officer Sam Tselanyane said the boy, 17, was arrested at his home in Moshawane Village after police received information apparently linking him to the crime ( December 26, 16:14, 2011).
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I would presume that there is a lack of motive given in rape articles because of two main factors.
One could imagine that the reporters, because of empathy, were overcome with feelings of senselessness and could not comprehend why a man could commit such an atrocious act as in the case where a man kidnapped a twelve-year-old boy and raped him repeatedly.
Senselessness is a warranted reaction to vile acts that seem to not make any sense. In a way it is a coping mechanism for dealing with tragedy. Believing an act to be without explanation prevents people from having to try to actually contemplate why the act was committed (Knobloch-Westerwick, Gong, Hagner & Kerbeykian, 2012).
...police stormed into the man's home and rescued the child around 13:00.... They arrested the man after finding him stark naked, still raping the boy in his room...
(December 22, 13:01, 2011).
Another factor for neglecting to give motive could be that the reporter assumed that there was an obvious inherent motive for the rapes, which is sexual desire. Most articles discussed rape as an act for fulfilling sexual desire. This leaves the implication that sexual desire is a motive for rape.
The male nurse who [...] allegedly raped a mentally ill patient in the shower at the hospital ... (December 29, 10:05, 2011).
A pastor was arrested on Thursday for raping a 15-year-old girl [...] the pastor allegedly lured the girl to a spot near an unused railway line [...] she tried to run but the pastor overpowered her... (December 15, 16:22, 2011).
There are several implications for giving no reason or rationalisation to a perpetrator's actions.
Firstly, society and the environment are not held responsible in anyway. Of the articles studied, no contributing factors were mentioned. Factors such as society or childhood environment were ignored. Even when motives were suggested, these were neglected for being possible factors capable of influencing a perpetrator's behaviour.The only incident where motive and reason was given was in the case of the serial killer Taki. His life was discussed in length in the article.
“...Taki had only been educated up to Grade 4, which he did not pass. At the age of nine his father went to Johannesburg to seek employment and never returned till this day. He was left with his mother who was sick and unemployed. His mother pasted away at age 19... . Taki was the eldest of three siblings. He started looking for a job when he was 13
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years old. [..] His father who was supposed to contribute to his well-being left him”
(December 29, 14:39, 2010).
The lack of given motive in other cases creates the perspective that crime is an individualised phenomenon (Hương, 2012). This paints the perpetrator as an inherently bad person and cut off from society. This removes responsibility from societal norms and cultural values (McGee, O'Higgins, Garavan & Conroy, 2011). It is more comforting for to believe that society or culture is without blame in crime. The idea of senselessness also frees members of communities from taking action against offenders (Bernhardsson & Bogren, 2012).
The lack in reported motives for sexual assault crimes could leave implication that rape is a crime of sexual desire and not of violence, dominance or control. This is not to imply that sexual desire should be removed completely as a motive, but simply to highlight that it would be erroneous to dilute the motive for sexual crimes to purely desire. This error misrepresents and neglect of other reasons why rape occurs.
The over simplification that men who rape do not intend to injure or inflict suffering, but merely want sex is entirely misleading. First it suggests that rape can be perceived merely as consensual sex. If there is consent, it means rape never happened. This view is prevalent in South African Police Service, as many victims of rape suffer secondary victimisation when they report their cases (Albert, 2013). Police officers are mostly inclined to believe that the rape was warranted because of the victim (Patterson, 2011). Needless to say, this is completely false.
Secondly, takes away the seriousness of the situation, and essentially rejects the existence of violence violence and the violation against victims of sexual assaults (Ryan, 2011).
Another perceived motive for perpetrators was the supposed inherent evil. The perpetrator's reasons for committing the violent acts can be assumed to lie in the individual’s twisted personality. If this is the case, Pharoah (2008) states that reform is near impossible.
Research by Muehknhard and Kimes (1999) proposes a third motive, that at the perpetrator's mental health. Their research revealed a small percentage of the articles they analysed revealed that the perpetrator may have had a mental illness, or generally referred to him as insane or deranged. Thy found the articles to be lengthier than other articles which did not mention the perpetrator's mental health. Their articles mention some attorneys requesting psychiatric tests for their clients. Judges compelled perpetrators to seek psychiatric help. One article quoted a defense lawyer, who argued that his client was afflicted with paraphilia, and
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couldn’t control his urges (Muehknhard and Kimes, 1999). The reason of mental illness was not found this research's dataset.