Overkill dan Komunikasi Sosial: Membedakan Kekerasan Emosional dari Pembunuhan Simbolik

Abstract

Research on overkill often treats excessive wounding as evidence of rage, relational intimacy, or loss of control, while studies of postmortem bodily treatment remain separated from research on affective violence and criminal communication. This study aims to distinguish affective excess from symbolic homicide and to identify the evidential conditions under which excessive violence may be interpreted as social communication. A structured narrative literature review was conducted through conceptual-comparative analysis of peer-reviewed studies published mainly between 2000 and 2026 on overkill, affective and expressive homicide, corpse modification, dismemberment, and violence as communication. The findings indicate that overkill is better treated as a descriptive forensic configuration whose causes remain underdetermined; wound count and severity cannot independently establish anger, relational closeness, or communicative intent. Affective excess is supported only when evidence external to wound morphology indicates heightened emotional activation and when violence continues after a change in the victim’s condition could reasonably have been recognized by the offender. Symbolic homicide requires a different basis: wounds or postmortem treatment must be organized so that an anticipated audience can recognize a threat, punishment, or claim of power. Defensive explanations, particularly concealment and transportation, must be assessed before symbolic meaning is inferred, and public reaction must not be confused with communicative intention. The Affective–Semiotic Differentiation Model separates the mechanism sustaining the attack from the mechanism directing meaning toward others, while temporal non-projection prevents postmortem organization from becoming automatic proof of prior planning.