Victimology of Pakdasht Serial Murders

This paper investigates the serial murders of Pakdasht form the victimology perspective. The main intention of this study is to find factors that influenced the formation and facilitated the murder of 17 children that were killed in a 19-months period. In this study, three factors including formal control, informal control and the characteristics of victims were investigated as factors affecting the process of killings. This study is based on qualitative research methods, and techniques used comprises of document analysis, content analysis, interviews and observations. It has been tried to provide a clear and realistic image of the process of killings, hence we resorted to first-hand analysis of the document, interviewing the former Police Force officials, interviewing the family of victims, interviewing the youth of the Pakdasht region and analyzing the content of the press from the time that criminals were arrested up to the time that they were executed, through all the available means. The results of this study indicates that factors such as inadequate formal control imposed by the Police and the Judiciary, inadequate informal control imposed by the family and school and local institutions, some characteristics of the victims and the suitable geographical environment, are among the important factors that describe the murder of seventeen 9 to 17 years-old boys in this case.