Criminology of Poisoning Contexts

Warfare, Terrorism, Assassination and Other Homicides

Michael Farrell

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9783030408299
• eBook ISBN:
  9783030408305
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Pathology
• Index: Social Sciences

This accessible book examines poisoning in various contexts of international conflict. It explores the modern-day use of poison in warfare, terrorism, assassination, mass suicide, serial poisoning within healthcare, and as capital punishment. It examines a broad range of international cases from the Americas, Europe, Japan, India and more in relation to Situational Crime Prevention and its theoretical precursors, in order to explore potential prevention strategies and the ways in which perpetrators circumvent them. Case studies include analysis of attempts on the lives of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, the Tokyo subway attacks, the crimes of Dr. Harold Shipman and the Heaven's Gate and Jonestown cults. For each, the means, motive, opportunity, location, and perpetrator-victim relationship is examined. This accessible book speaks to students of criminology and those interested in penology, careers in criminal justice, homicide detectives, anti-terrorism personnel, forensic pathologists and toxicologists.

© The Author(s) 2020

M. FarrellCriminology of Poisoning Contextshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40830-5_1

Begin Abstract

1. Poisoning and Its Contexts

Michael Farrell¹

(1)

Stoke Lacy, Herefordshire, UK

Michael Farrell

Email: [email protected]

Keywords

CriminologyHomicidePoisonPoisoning contextsPoisonsSituational Crime PreventionMeans and other features

End Abstract

Introduction

We begin by defining criminology, homicide, and poison. With reference to different contexts (healthcare serial poisoning, assassination , terrorism, warfare, mass suicide, and capital punishment) I describe associated poisons. While emphasising the importance of theory and Situational Crime Prevention (SCP), I touch on the related criminological features of means, motive, opportunity, location, and perpetrator-victim relationships. The chapter next sets out the aims, scope, and features of the book. I describe its methodology and specify the proposed readers. Finally, to help give an orientation to the whole book, the subsequent chapters are outlined.

Criminology, Homicide, and Poison

Criminology

In some perspectives, criminology is multidisciplinary, being informed by a range of social sciences. These include sociology, social theory, psychology, history, economics, and political science. As such a collection of disciplinary tributaries, criminology is concerned with the nature of crime, its antecedents, and the conditions that create crime as a social phenomenon (Lacey and Zedner 2012, p. 160). Others emphasise that criminology is shaped less by theoretical assumptions and more by its remit. In this view, it is the study of crime that makes criminology a coherent discipline bringing together practitioners including sociologists, social policy analysts, social anthropologists, psychologists, psychiatrists, statisticians, lawyers, and economists (Rock 2012, p. 70). In short, criminology is a multidisciplinary subject which may have different theoretical bases and is concerned with crime, its precursors, and its context.

Homicide

Law in England and Wales illustrates aspects of homicide common to many other countries. Homicide concerns the offences of murder and of manslaughter. It also applies to a person otherwise causing or being involved in another’s death. Here the general criminal conduct or ‘actus reus’ is the same (killing another person) but complications arise about the causes (Croner 2008, p. 37). Under common law, murder is committed when ‘a person unlawfully kills another human being under the Queen’s Peace, with malice aforethought’ (Ibid. p. 37). With ‘malice aforethought’ there is an intention to kill or to cause ‘grievous bodily harm’ ‘Unlawful killing’ includes, as well as actively causing another’s death, failing to act after creating a dangerous situation (ibid., p. 38).

Certain special defences (diminished responsibility, provocation, and a suicide pact) allow for a conviction of manslaughter rather than murder, and a court judgement of ‘voluntary manslaughter’ (Croner 2008, p. 39). A court may make a judgement of ‘involuntary manslaughter’ where a defendant causes the death of another without the required ‘mens rea’ for murder, for example, by an unlawful act ‘likely to cause bodily harm; or by gross negligence’ (ibid., p. 41). The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 provides that an organisation is guilty of an offence if the way that its activities are managed and organised ‘causes a person’s death’ and ‘amounts to a gross breach of a relevant duty of care owed by the organisation to the deceased’ (ibid., Section 1).

Various types of homicide can be designated. They can relate to perpetrators (‘male perpetrated homicide’), victims (‘infanticide’), circumstances and location (‘domestic homicide’), and mode of killing (‘shooting’ or ‘stabbing’). As Brookman (2005) notes, homicide is diverse, and its forms differ considerably in their nature and underlying causes (ibid., p. 279). Hough and McCorkle (2017) provide examples of the range of homicides. Dobrin (2016) presents an overview of homicide data sources. Poison homicide, the topic of this book, specifies the mode of killing as well as examining other features such as perpetrator, victim, and location.

Poison

Although defining poisons looks at first as though it might be straightforward, the concept is slippery (Farrell 1990). It is a maxim of toxicology that ‘the dose makes the poison’ (Kolok 2016, pp. 1–9). Morphine for instance is beneficial in small doses to control pain but deadly in larger quantities. Nevertheless, even lethal doses of morphine are still tiny. So, we can still say that poisons generally have a harmful effect in small amounts.

The notion of a poison as a harmful substance has to be qualified. Boiling liquids are injurious but are not considered poisonous because their effect depends on temperature. Swallowing powdered glass will harm you but its ‘mechanical’ action excludes it from any poison list. Some substances such as pollen or nuts can harm people who are allergic to them, but are harmless to others, so the substances of themselves cannot be considered as poisons. We might think of poisons as being taken by mouth, but of course, they can be absorbed in other ways, such as by being injected into the bloodstream or under the skin.

All these points lead us towards a suitable definition. A poison must be able to kill or do serious harm to the functioning of bodily organs or tissues. A small dose is harmful. Its effect is not dependent on mechanical action or temperature, or on individual bodily peculiarities. Poisons may be administered in different ways. Such considerations are reflected in modern-day definitions. In Dorland’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary (Anderson 2007) poison is stated to be ‘any substance that, when relatively small amounts are ingested, inhaled, or absorbed, or applied to, injected into, or developed within the body, has chemical action that causes damage to structure, or disturbance of function, producing symptoms, illness, or death’.

Poisoning Contexts and Associated Poisons

Different contexts are a main concern of this book: healthcare serial poisoning, assassination, terrorism, warfare, mass suicide , and capital punishment. Each of these is defined and described in its relevant chapter. Immediately below I describe poisons associated with each context. This involves some repetition, but I hope it is forgivable because it enables the reader to get a quick overview of the poisons associated with each context under its own heading. The sections can therefore be used as a quick primer when reading the relevant later chapters.

Drugs Used as Poisons by Healthcare Serial Poisoners

Healthcare serial poisoners tend to kill patients with overdoses of drugs, or the ‘wrong’ drugs. Types of medication used improperly to poison patients can be classified according to their usual legitimate use. They are heart drugs (digitoxin and digoxin, lidocaine, potassium chloride, epinephrine, ajmaline, amiodarone, sotalol); muscle relaxant drugs (mivacurium chloride injection, pancuronium, vecuronium, succinylcholine chloride); analgesics (morphine, diamorphine, pethidine, acetaminophen); and diabetic drugs (insulin, glyburide). Healthcare serial poisoners have occasionally used other substances including sodium hypochlorite—bleach (Farrell 2018). Below, I describe poisons used by healthcare serial killers and which are discussed within fuller case studies in a later chapter. They are heart drugs, analgesic drugs, and ‘other substances’.

Among heart drugs, the alkaloid ajmaline (Gilurytmal), first isolated from Indian snake root (Rauwolfia serpentina), is used to treat conditions involving irregular or abnormal heart rhythm. Amiodarone (Cordarex), which increases the time between heart chamber contractions, is used to treat conditions associated with irregular heartbeat including ventricular arrhythmias (which are associated with improper electrical activity in the ventricles of the heart). Digitoxin and digoxin are powerful extracts of digitalis which strengthen each heartbeat and lengthen ‘rest’ beats. Lidocaine (xylocaine) is used for heart conditions including ventricular tachycardia (typified by regular fast heartbeat) and is also used as a local anaesthetic ‘numbing agent’. As an antiarrhythmic drug sotalol (Sotalex) is prescribed for serious abnormal heart rhythms. Medicinally, potassium chloride helps to treat and prevent low blood potassium which can occur owing to vomiting and diarrhoea (e.g. United States Pharmacopeial Convention 2019). Essentially, many heart drugs affect the strength and timing of heart rate to counter cardiac problems and if they are used improperly this very action can cause death.

Turning to analgesic drugs, morphine (an alkaloid derived from opium) induces euphoria in patients who are dying and eases anxiety in conditions such as shock or cardiac arrest. It dampens down aspects of the central nervous system, so inducing sleep and depressing respiration. Diamorphine is a morphine-based drug.

Regarding ‘other substances’, sodium hypochlorite (bleach) from a cleaning bucket was used to kill patients receiving dialysis treatment. It was introduced into their dialysis lines by Kimberly Clark Saenz who claimed that it was part of a disinfecting routine.

Poisons Used in Assassination

Poisons used in assassination include VX, Novichok, polonium-210, and ricin. Both VX and Novichok affect nerve transmission. VX is a lethal nerve agent, generally an amber-coloured translucent oily liquid, developed in the United Kingdom in the 1950s. Odourless and tasteless, VX can be dispersed as an aerosol or vapour into the air and can contaminate water, food, and agricultural products. Absorbed by inhalation, skin contact, or by being swallowed it can ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Poisoning and Its Contexts
• 2. Theory and Poisoning Contexts
• 3. Healthcare Serial Poisoning
• 4. Assassination and Poisoning
• 5. Terrorist Acts Using Poison
• 6. Poisoning in Warfare
• 7. Mass Suicide Using Poison
• 8. Capital Punishment by Poisoning
• 9. Implications of poisoning contexts
• Back Matter