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From a psychological point of view, there is almost certainly no such thing as a crime without motive. What people really seem to be saying that the crime does not have a motive that is immediately apparent, or that the perpetrator of a violent crime has a motive that contains insufficient rationality or intensity (or provocation) to justify the enormity of the act that has been committed.
Forensic psychologists adopt this approach when seeking meaning in the apparently meaningless. The account of the violent act – the location, the triggers, the details about the victim and his or her relationship to the perpetrator – all provide some early clues as to what might have happened.
However, before the violence can be properly understood, psychologists need to bring to life the key characters in the background; this usually includes early care givers whose role in influencing the individual’s pathway into violence may be crucial; adversity, trauma and negative peer influences in teenage years shape the direction the individual travels although by no means determine the outcome.
Motiveless homicides are usually defined as homicides in which a victim is killed by an offender and a motive was not determined by the police investigation. Motiveless does not mean that the police do not know the motive for the homicide, but rather that no other motive could accurately and objectively explain the reason for why the homicide occurred.
However, this is especially problematic for the police because failing to establish a homicide motive is considered an investigative shortcoming. Due to the limited research conducted to date on motiveless homicides and the significant challenges they pose to investigators.
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