Cases of Indiscriminate Killing and Society: Toward a Sociological Analysis of Curvatures in Contemporary Society.

Indiscriminate killing is regarded as a radically antisocial act for its transgression of the social contract as well as the legal system. However, previous studies of indiscriminate killing have mainly focused on classifying these acts and their subjective aspects rather than analyzing the society producing and narrating about the acts. Therefore, this article aims to examine the correlations between cases of indiscriminate killing and wounding and social space, with reference to the contemporary Japanese society. In general, indiscriminate offenses are discussed within the social space via narratives disseminated or reported by the mass media. Although these narratives are also adopted by the criminal offenders, victims, media, courts and public, many fail to provide a satisfactory explanation for the offense. Instead of following these narrators and simply speculating about the reasons for these offenses, this article analyzes the correlations between antisocial incidents and the systematical realities of a society. Using this approach, this article examines the possibility of constructing an analytical frame of reference that focuses on the figurative, structural and allegorical correspondences between an aggregation of incidents caused by individuals and a society's systematical realities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]