As opposed to a “regular” murder in which one person murders another in a spontaneous and unplanned way, much more frightening, is the phenomenon of multiple-victims murder, either by taking the lives of several people at the same time, or the life of one person at a time in a pattern that repeats itself.
The multiple-victims murder has a high toll of victims and often creates significant anxiety in the public. Yet, the rate of finding the murderers in these cases is relatively very low, especially in serial murders, and the murderers are usually caught many years after the execution of the murders, if at all.
This book examines the various categories of mass murder and serial murder and suggests a new category: mass-serial murder. It presents and criticizes the most up-to-date research and theoretical literature in this field, and suggests an integrative theoretical model. It is intended for criminologists, psychologists and sociologists, as well as students and any reader who is interested in trying to understand the complicated aspects of this field of investigation.
Prof. Arnon Edelstein is the head of the Department of Informal Social Education at Kaye Academic College of Education in Beer-Sheba and a lecturer in Ariel University. He has an MA from the Institute of Criminology in the Department of Law, and a PhD from the Department of Law (Criminology) of the Hebrew University. Prof. Edelstein investigates the field of youth at risk, and has published numerous articles on delinquency and deviance among immigrant youth. In addition, Prof Edelstein wrote two other books in Criminology: Criminal Career and Serial Criminality and Intimate Partner Femicide in Israel. Prof. Edelstein is married, with three children, and the family live in the south of Israel.
