Daniel Robles
Professor – Margaryan
Class – Criminology 102-110W
April 20, 2024
Now that I have gathered my criminal case information and picked out a criminology theory, it’s about time to connect them. To recap the case of the cannibal Joe Metheny was a serial killer in 1995, he killed innocent people, ripped them into shreds, formed their human flesh into human hamburgers, and sold them to people who were unaware of his receipts. Next, is the criminology theory Routine Activities Theory (RAT) which emphasizes how crime ours when there are three existing elements, a motivated offender, suitable targets, and a lack of capable guardians, so how does it connect to the case of Joe?
Well, first we need to know Joe’s purpose for being a serial killer in the first place. When returning home from work he found out that his wife and son were gone. Joe believed his wife took his son and ran off with another man and in rage, he got back to his truck and went searching for them. That’s where you can see the first element of a motivational offender. The idea of another man sweeping his lady made him jealous, and angry, and for his family to even leave without any indication of where they were going like they don’t want him to know is just unforgivable.
Next is suitable targets, his kills were more specific kinds of people, to give context his wife was drug-addicted in their marriage but when she lived life with this new guy she became a prostitute to earn money and keep her drug habits. To put simply the identity of his ex-wife as a drug user and sex worker, he began killing people with those kinds of labels and it wasn’t so hard to find them.
Lastly, the element of lack of guardians nobody cares about the safety of the homeless or sex workers, in our society we mostly ignore them when walking by in the streets because we don’t have time for their problems. People were just like that in 1995 which gave Joe plenty of opportunities to kill. Since homeless people and sex workers have higher chances of being harmed and zero defense it’s no wonder someone as big as Joe can kill about 13 people. I would also like to point out another kind of target like unsuspected consumers. Most people don’t care about what’s inside the food they’ll buy from strangers and Joe takes advantage of their ignorance and sells human meat burgers to people, even though people say the burgers taste funny, it’s not enough for them to believe they’re eating humans.
To prevent criminal behavior like Joe’s, we must change the elements, changing at least one will do just fine. The easiest element to change is the lack of guardians because unlike elements one and two, it’s hard to seek out offenders with the intent to commit a crime and it’s not like you can change anything about suitable targets when it comes to race, gender, religion, etc. To keep homeless people and sex workers safe we must install more cameras in every spot of the city making it impossible for an offender to get a chance to kill them. Having more police patrol the night will also work and adding more night lights around the city too.
Lastly is keeping away from suspicious foods, not saying everywhere you go to eat there’s a place that secretly cooks humans but if there’s a business with food tasting strange It’s best to report it to the health department and they will take care of that. I would also recommend studying the places to go to eat like checking their history. It’s impossible to stop crimes, harder to stop offenders but we could change the battlefield in our favor.
Reference:
Serena, K. (2021, June 15). “Joe Metheny, The Killer Who Made His Victims Into Burgers – And Sold Them To Unsuspecting Customers.”: https://allthatsinteresting.com/joe-metheny
