Documenting Acts of Cruelty: The Practice of Violent Criminals Making Visual Records of Their Crimes

The substantive focus of this article is a small collection of image-based case studies of significant criminal acts of interpersonal cruelty that are now in the public domain. In all instances those engaged in criminal acts of violence record and document aspects of their own behavior. The case studies range from military personnel and terrorists to examples from popular culture. Self-created images have the potential to serve as evidence of criminal behavior. For the viewing public recorded images are attributed with a “commonsense” evidential documentary potential. The article looks at the documentary method and the rationale behind recorded images serving evidential purposes.