There is an opinion that the mass killings of students that occurred in Kazan and Perm are connected only with social, cultural, educational, economic, ideological and managerial reasons. This is of course a misconception. In particular, not every economically disadvantaged and suffering fr om poverty person is capable of killing innocent people. The reason for such murders is connected, as investigations and forensic examination show, with mental states and human disorders. But when these two factors overlap, that is, externally-social and internally-mental, then a crime occurs.
I had to analyze the religious and ideological terrorism of Islamists. Among them were selected guys with certain internal mental characteristics. The suicide bombers were all drug addicts. I talked about this with colleagues-psychologists from the FSB at scientific conferences.
Can an economically disadvantaged person kill innocent schoolchildren and students?
Historically, it is known that an underprivileged person is capable of killing a class enemy or attempting to assassinate government officials.
A soldier driven by hazing can kill his oppressors. This is a relatively adequate reaction, sometimes not related to mental disorders. But if a soldier decides to kill children from a nearby military garrison, whose parents have nothing to do with the army, because of their suffering from hazing, then this is something else and is connected with the mental disorders of the soldier.
If social, cultural, educational, economic, ideological, managerial problems lead to mental disorders of citizens of our country, then it needs to be investigated.
At the same time, it is necessary to investigate this, taking into account the motives of the crime in conjunction with the factors of mental deviation of the individual.
There is an opinion that it is not beneficial for the authorities to discuss the social and state reasons for these mass murders of innocent schoolchildren, for example, due to the preservation of a favorable image of the regions of Russia. Therefore, it is easier to blame this problem on psychiatrists and on the problem with mental disorders.
And indeed, the educational and cultural problem often boils down to the fact that students with mental disabilities do not have a critical attitude to dangerous information.
In addition, due to the degradation of society, there is a problem of criminal norms in culture and education. In particular, children begin to consider stealing and engaging in corruption as the norm and therefore dream of working in those areas wh ere it is possible to do this.
But is there a norm imposed by society to kill innocent people?
In feature films, killer characters mostly kill for something. For power, for money, etc. And films that lead to this among young people have nothing to do with those who kill innocent people. Killing for money or for anything else among young people is a different topic!
For example, a guy who kills a particular person or members of society because they humiliated him and committed bullying is a different problem. And according to statistics, such offended avenger killers often went to psychiatrists.There are many facts and publications about this.
By the way, there are already publications on the Perm mass murderer that he suffered from a prolonged depressive syndrome.
The problem of culture, education and economics in terms of how it affects the risk group of young people with mental disorders is relevant! It is necessary to consider the influence of society and mental disorders in the aggregate.
It must be remembered that the factor of chronic postponement of a criminal act and psychological transference are the basis of mental disorders according to Freud. These mental disorders can be at the level of neuroticism and at the level of psychoticism.
Most often, mental patients are not born, but become. But at the same time, it must be remembered that there are makings and according to statistics, everyone shows the dynamics of mental disorders in different ways.In particular, economic deprivation does not lead to psychosis for everyone. According to statistics, there is a risk group, but there are those who, due to external reasons, will never become psychotic and will not show mental disorders due to these factors. There is a natural mental status.
Nevertheless, it is relevant to study how culture, economics and education affect the aggravation of mental disorders and mental degradation of society. (See R.R. Garifullin "The Concept of Russian psychological security" (2000).
If killing innocent people becomes a new worldview of young people who supposedly have no psychological problems and act according to some kind of teaching, then this is a horror! But this, according to my observations, is not yet there.
All the mass murderers had psychological and mental problems. The Kazan mass murderer has schizophrenic type disorders. The Perm killer is a depressive with a mask of normality.
And, nevertheless, there are opinions that the topic of the danger of mass murderers is blocked, since the authorities are motivated by the unwillingness to publicize more global problems that lead to mass murder.
More recently, as a researcher, I managed to eavesdrop on the dialogue of students about murders in computer games. It was a dialogue about how they overcome the barrier to kill in a virtual space. Some said that they could not overcome this barrier and therefore turned off the computer. Others are happy to kill and brag. Everyone reacts psychologically differently. In their dialogue, they did not reach outright fantasies about using these games as a guide to action in reality. They kept that to themselves. And yet, there is a small probability of the appearance of such at-risk individuals with latent schizophrenia, depression, resentment and tension, who can relieve their tensions with the help of murders in reality. According to statistics, most young people are saturated with these killer games, and then forget about these games, being carried away by other values of life.
It should be noted that these games are not harmless. Especially at the stage of personality formation.
These games distort and transform the norms of children's behavior. It can't help but leave a mark. Possibly leads to a split personality. And then, it happens in different ways. For someone, this internal criminal subpersonality is fading away, and for someone it does not give rest and asks for an exit into reality.
At the same time, there are studies according to which the parents of schizophrenic children are saved from their dangerous deeds by putting them behind computer games. Such substitution saves these parents from a deferred crime in the family.
Associate Professor of the Institute of Psychology and Education of KFU, Candidate of Psychological Sciences Ramil Garifullin
