Criminal Psychology
Assignment 1- Psychological Approaches and Criminal Behaviour
NDFS34.1
In 1983
a man named Dennis Nielsen was discovered attempting to
flush human remains down the toilet. Upon investigation, it was discovered that
over a period of around 4 years, he had murdered 12 or 13 men, hiding them
around his home before dismembering and burning the corpses.
Nielsen had lured many young homeless men to his
flat, where he plied them with alcohol and killed them, often by strangulation
or holding them underwater until they drowned.
Nielsen had almost immediately confessed to all the
crimes he was accused of and more, but his defence claimed that he was
suffering from a personality disorder and did not remember committing many of
his crimes. During his trial, the prosecutor Alan Green argued that Nielsen had
killed in full awareness of what he was doing, and Nielsen was judged to be
sane and fit to stand trial.
He was found guilty by 12 jurors and sentenced to 25
years in maximum security prison.
Ever since he was first arrested, there has been a
huge amount of debate on why he killed. Nielsen himself never provided a true
explanation, often asking the question ‘why do you think I did it?”.
In this essay I shall be exploring some of the more
common approaches to explaining human behaviour, and how they can be applied to
Nielsen.
