Free rider (criminology)
In criminology, free riders are people or groups who misleadingly confess to attacks or other crimes they did not commit (e.g. through letters of confession ) or who usually imitate particularly spectacular crimes ( copycat offenders ). As a rule, it is intended to attract public attention.
Free riders as false confessors
False letters of confession are a widespread phenomenon, especially in the case of attacks . Certain groups such as the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades regularly confess to attacks that they did not commit. However, since it is usually in the interest of the actual perpetrator not to let any doubts arise as to who committed the crime, letters of responsibility often contain clearly recognizable elements. In the case of the terrorist Carlos and the RAF , for example, these were fingerprints. Other clearly identifiable elements of the letters of confession were not published by the police so that free riders can be recognized. Failure to publish details of the actual crime can also help identify genuine letters of confession if they contain information about the perpetrator .
Jack the Ripper's letters are a spectacular case of false confessional letters . The police received several thousand letters, but all but three letters of dubious origin were from free riders. Not least because of the Ripper letters, the story of the murderer, whose name “Jack the Ripper” comes from one of the letters, became so popular.
The German filmmaker Christoph Hochhäusler has placed the figure of a false confessor at the center of his film, which premiered in the Un Certain Regard series at the Cannes Film Festival in 2005. “ Wrong Confessor ” tells the story of a boy who, out of dissatisfaction with his life, poses in e-mails to the police that he is guilty of a fatal traffic accident and fire.
Free riders in kidnappings
When kidnappings have become public, free riders demand large sums of money from relatives for alleged information about the kidnap's whereabouts or for his alleged release. They are thus also “false confessors” and are also guilty of extortion. In the case of Madeleine McCann's disappearance , several free riders of this type were arrested.
Free riders as copycats
There are copycat offenders especially after crimes with high media coverage. Not only in terrorist attacks, but also in serial crimes and rampages , there are imitators. For example, the worldwide increase in school shootings after the internationally sensational rampage at Columbine High School in 1999 is attributed to copycats and is referred to as the "Columbine Effect". In the case of suicides, there is also a connection between reporting and acts of imitation, the so-called Werther effect .
Especially after the terrorist attacks of September 11th and the anthrax attacks , there were cases in the USA in which private individuals sent letters and parcels with white but non-toxic powder. Even after the failed bomb attacks on German train stations in July 2006, private individuals deposited dummy bombs on trains or deposited suitcases at train stations.
Criminal liability
So-called free riders can be prosecuted in Germany for pretending to be a criminal offense ( Section 145d ). Whether an official reaction was successfully provoked is irrelevant for criminal liability, but can lead to a higher sentence.
In Austria, "free riding" remains unpunished. (K / Schm StudB III to §§ 297–298)
literature
- Stewart P. Evans, Keith Skinner: Jack the Ripper: Letters from Hell . Sutton Publishing, London 2005, ISBN 978-0-7509-3770-2 .
- Bernhard Unterholzner: Letter of responsibility. Communication as an event . VDM Verlag, Saarbrücken 2007, ISBN 978-3-8364-0591-1 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Die Vulture des Terrorismus Spiegel Online from August 10, 2004.
- ↑ Anna-Lena Braun: Adult Amoktäter: A qualitative investigation of the motives from a criminological point of view. Springer, Wiesbaden 2018, ISBN 978-3-658-20038-1 , pp. 133, 245 f.
- ↑ Schönke / Schröder / Sternberg-Lieben, § 145d StGB margin no. 6th
- ↑ Schönke / Schröder / Sternberg-Lieben, § 145d StGB margin no. 11.