"Mass killing" definitions from reliable sources edit
Ervin Staub defined mass killing as "killing members of a group without the intention to eliminate the whole group or killing large numbers of people without a precise definition of group membership."[nb 1] [nb 2]
Benjamin Valentino defined mass killing as "the intentional killing of a massive number of noncombatants", with a massive number defined as at least 50,000 killed within five years.[3] This is the most accepted quantitative minimum threshold for the term.[4] He also acknowledges that there are "mass killings on a smaller scale".[nb 3]
William Easterly, Roberta Gatti and Sergio Kurlat adopted Israel Charny's definition of generic genocide for their use of mass killing and massacre to avoid the politics of the term genocide.[nb 4] In the Encyclopedia of Genocide (1999), Israel Charny had defined generic genocide as "the mass killing of substantial numbers of human beings, when not in the course of military action against the military forces of an avowed enemy, under conditions of the essential defenselessness and helplessness of the victims."[7] Joan Esteban, Massimo Morelli and Dominic Rohner used the same language in their definition of mass killings.[nb 5]
Chyanda M. Querido has defined mass killing as "the intentional killing of 1,000 or more people (noncombatants), members of any kind of group (religious, political, racial, ethnic, etc), by state governments in the context of an intrastate conflict."[8]
"Mass murder" definitions from reliable sources edit
Ronald M. Holmes and and Stephen T. Holmes have defined mass murder as a form of "multicide" (along with serial murder and spree murder) in which at least three people are killed, but require a definition to account for four variables: the number of victims, location, time, and distance between murder sites. They cite previous studies defining the term with either a three (Holmes and Deburger, 1985, 1988; Hickey, 1991) or four (Hazelwood & Douglas, 1980) victim minimum. They cite another definition of mass murder (Dietz, 1986) as "the willful injuring of five or more persons of whom three or more are killed by a single offender in a single incident."[9]
In the early 1980s, the FBI established a "trichotomy of multiple murder" as part of an initiative to study repeat killers. Murders were categorized as "single", "double", "triple", "mass" for at least four murdered, "spree" for at least two victims in at least two locations with no cooling off period, and "serial" for at least three victims in at least three separate events in at least three different locations with cooling off periods between them. Prior to this, all forms of multiple murder were considered mass killing and the terms "serial" or "spree" were used only in a descriptive sense.[nb 6] According to an FBI report, while developing a consensus definition for serial murder, attendees at the Serial Murder Symposium in 2005 generally described mass murder as four or more murders occurring as part of the same incident, with no distinctive time period between them, and typically at a single location.[11]
According to R. J. Rummel, "although usage varies, both [mass murder and massacre] usually mean the intentional and indiscriminate murder of a large number of people by government agents". As part of his definition of democide, he defines mass murder as "the indiscriminate killing of any person or people by a government."[12]
Notes and references edit
- Footnotes
- ^ Staub p. 8[1]
- ^ Ashmore p. 159[2]
- ^ Valentino p.91 [5]
- ^ Easterly, p. 7[6]
- ^ They define mass killings as "the killings of substantial numbers of human beings, when not in the course of military action against the military forces of an avowed enemy, under the conditions of the essential defenselessness and helplessness of the victims".[4]
- ^ Fox p. 17[10]
- References
- ^ Staub, Ervin. The roots of evil: the origins of genocide and other group violence. Cambridge University Press, 1992. reprint, illustrated. 336 pages. ISBN 978-0-521-42214-7
- ^ Ashmore, Richard D., Lee J. Jussim & David Wilder (Eds.) Social identity, intergroup conflict, and conflict reduction. Oxford University Press US, 2001. Illustrated edition. 270 pages. ISBN 978-0-195-13743-9.
- ^ “Draining the Sea”: Benjamin Valentino, Paul Huth, Dylan Balch-Lindsay. Mass Killing and Guerrilla Warfare. International Organization 58, Spring 2004, pp. 375–407
- ^ a b Esteban, Joan Maria; Morelli, Massimo; & Rohner, Dominic (2010). "Strategic Mass Killings". Institute for Empirical Research in Economics, University of Zurich Working Paper No. 486. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1615375
- ^ Valentino, Benjamin A (2005). "Communist Mass Killings: The Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia". Final solutions: mass killing and genocide in the twentieth century. Cornell University Press. pp. 91–151. ISBN 0801472733.
- ^ Easterly, William, Roberta Gatti and Sergio Kurlat. (2006). "Development, democracy, and mass killings", Journal of Economic Growth 11: 129-56.
- ^ Charny, Israel (ed). (1999). Encyclopedia of Genocide, Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio.
- ^ Querido, Chyanda M. (2009). "State-Sponsored Mass Killing in African Wars—Greed or Grievance?" International Advances in Economic Research 15(3), 351-361.
- ^ Holmes, Ronald M.; Holmes, Stephen T. Understanding Mass Murder: A Starting Point. 56 Fed. Probation 53 (1992).
- ^ Fox, James Allen; and Levin, Jack. Extreme killing: understanding serial and mass murder. SAGE, 2005. illustrated edition. 290 pages. ISBN 978-0-761-98857-1.
- ^ Morton, Robert J.; Hilts, Mark A. (Eds.). Serial Murder: Multi-Disciplinary Perspectives for Investigators. Behavioral Analysis Unit-2. National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime. Critical Incident Response Group. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Retrieved March 13, 2011.
- ^ Rummel, R. J. Death by Government. Chapter 2: Definition of Democide. Retrieved March 13, 2011.