I designed this course based on a paper I did in a class I had titled "Theories of Crime". The final was to pick a serial killer and use different crime theories to explain why they committed those crimes. I chose Jack the Ripper because he was never caught, but we can speculate potential reasons why he committed his murders. The criminal mind fascinates me, and I want to understand why they decide to kill, and crime theories are a good starting point. Much of the information presented here is from that paper, with some additional information added. For those of you who are fascinated with serial killers like me, this is the course for you. Understanding the criminal mind is an endless endeavor, but we can attempt to understand their motivation.

Jack the Ripper terrorized the Whitechapel neighborhood of London in 1888, and he brutally killed five know women who were prostitutes. Why did he commit these vicious crimes? We will never know, but we can speculate based on current theories and apply them to his crimes. In this course, we will look at the Psychoanalytic Theory, Moffitt's Life Course Persistent Offenders, Theory of Human Ecology, MAOA: The Warrior Gene, and Concentric Zone Theory. Each of these theories can be applied in an attempt to understand why Jack the Ripper terrorized London in 1888. We do not try to identify him, just understand what possibly led him to commit these crimes.