There is no complete data that tells us which era had the most active global serial killers.
If we look at the USA alone, though, the 70s and 80s did seem to have a lot of maniacs
killing multiple people.
It was in the 1970s when we first had serious criminal profiling as we know it today, as
you might have seen in the show “Mindhunter.”
Such profiling techniques were used to track down the likes of the notoriously brutal Ted
Bundy.
Psychological profiling was not just used to track down serial killers, but it is the
modus operandi (mode of operating) of killers that has made the most compelling tales.
Are these profilers about to get very busy?
That’s what we’ll find out today, in this episode of the Infographics Show, Why this
generation might have more serial killers than ever.
Ok, so first let’s look more closely at the question of if the 70s and 80s really
had more serial killers?
The BBC asked this, and indeed the conclusion was yes, it is a fact.
The Beeb interviewed a man who had been studying serial killers for many years.
He said serial killing started becoming more common in the 1960s, then got even worse in
the 70s and peaked in the 80s.
We might recall the names of some of the worst killers we’ve ever heard about in the aforementioned
Ted Bundy, and add to him the likes of John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer, William Bonin
(the Freeway Killer) or over in the UK the infamous Peter Sutcliffe (The Yorkshire Ripper).
Why did all those killers emerge during those decades?
Criminologist James Alan Fox told the BBC there were a few reasons.
He said all violent crime, at least in the U.S., was on the rise during that era mainly
due to the fact people were moving around a lot more.
Folks often didn’t know their neighbors, and of course vulnerable people often hitchhiked
in those days.
“It just created an environment which was ideal for certain killers to prey on victims,”
said the criminologist.
Add to that that the police didn’t yet have large databases in which to track down killers
and the use of DNA didn’t start until the 80s.
That meant killers could commit way more crimes before they were caught.
Another person interviewed on the matter said there was more to it.
You had public fascination with killers, and this may have inspired more of them.
Then in the book, “Sons of Cain: A History of Serial Killers,” it’s written that
World War II had something to do with it.
Some of the children of those soldiers lived with fathers that had experienced the worst
kind of savagery the world has ever seen, and that, according to the book, may have
had a profound effect on how a few of those kids grew up.
You had this trauma everywhere, and with it came the breakdown of some families.
But the book adds something else.
We might see a rise of serial killers again from this generation.
Why is that?
Well, it’s complicated.
In the book we just talked about, the writer says that recent times might create a generation
that contains more serial killers than before.
He writes that serial killers are “monstrous, misshapen reflections in a distorted mirror
to human civilization.”
These are kids that grew up watching terror alerts on TV, kids that grew up looking at
X-rated videos that show the aftermath of such terror; kids that are not even shocked
by bloody content they can easily see on the Internet.
While people born in the 70s and 80s and 90s can see that, too, they didn’t have it on
their doorstep, so to speak, all their lives.
Such content has become normalized.
The same author is interviewed by Psychology Today.
In that interview he talks about the rise of crime novels and pulp fiction in the 50s
being some inspiration for serial killers.
It might not have made them go out of the door and start killing, but as Psychology
Today writes, it probably created “pubescent rehearsal fantasies.”
Now, with crime fiction turning into real crime that can be seen anytime on the Internet,
the author believes, “We may easily be facing another viral pandemic of serial killing.”
He believes this new wave will come when the new generation grow up to the age most men
start killing, usually late twenties or early thirties.
Some kids of today might turn ugly in the early 2030s.
Another crime expert said this in 2018, “We are raising a generation of killers because
we're raising kids to kill since they are really little.”
What did he mean?
In his book, “Inside the Mind of a Killer” he writes that kids are exposed to violence
from childhood, on the internet, but also movies that involve some pretty insane torture
scenes.
He adds to that video games that have become so realistic you might believe in the actions
you are doing.
He says if you take this fascination with virtually slaughtering people and add to it
a broken home, with perhaps school bullying, and the availability of guns, you might be
looking at more kids going on wild killing rampages.
He believes things such as school shootings are only going to get much worse.
But is there any hard evidence that very violent video games actually make the players more
violent or have violent fantasies?
A 2014 study published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin did indeed
say those playing violent games may become more aggressive because of it.
But this is still a hot potato of a topic, and there is still no substantiated evidence
that playing such games directly leads to extreme violence.
We may know more later.
Nonetheless, if you look hard enough you can find some crimes which could be said to have
been partly inspired by games.
You might look at the case of the young killer, Devin Moore, who is currently on Death Row
in the U.S.
His lawyer said the game “Grand Theft Auto: Vice City” was partly responsible for the
kid’s shooting spree.
Moore even once said, “Life is a video game.
You’ve gotta die sometime.”
There are some other cases, but we may be skeptical regarding if the games really were
such a big influence behind the crimes.
But it’s not just exposure to violence, as we’ve said it’s the era kids grow up
in.
If there is familial discord, there may be more kids with problems when they reach adulthood.
We might look at children born to families that grew up with World War II and The Great
Depression.
Those kids when older were part of what’s called “The Golden Age” of serial killers.
Now we might look at families that grew up with conflicts in the Middle East and the
Financial collapse.
If there have been difficulties and these kids have also been exposed to violence, well,
we guess that’s why some people believe we might again see a rise in serial killers.
Before you get too worried, of course this forecast may not happen.
In fact, if you look at the database created by Mike Aamodt, a professor at Radford University
in Virginia, he says that there has no doubt been a reduction in serial killers and the
number of victims serial killers get away with killing.
He told The Guardian in 2018, “I’m careful to say there has been a decline in the number
of serial killers we can identify – there could be thousands of serial killers that
we don’t know about and for some reason we’re not identifying today as well as we
did in the 70s, 80s and 90s.”
He did add, though, that even if people wanted to kill serially it would be much harder with
improved law enforcement, omnipresent cameras and the fact people have changed their habits
and don’t usually head out onto highways hitching cars without anyone knowing about
it.
This of course doesn’t mean there will be fewer people with the urge to kill, just that
it will be harder to get away with it.
Perhaps we’ll see more mass shootings, and fewer people going on to kill again and again.
The author of the book we’ve discussed told The New York Post that once these killers
are caught we might well hear them tell this kind of story, “We were living as a family
in a home and come 2008, my dad committed suicide.
My dad lost his job.
He became a drug addict.
He was an alcoholic.
He was never the same.
He lost his pride and I lost my dad.”
Do you think that’s going too far?
Have things really been that bad that we are going to see more killers in the future?
Is exposure to violence on the Internet and in games really such a big deal?
As many of you are this young generation we’d love to know your thoughts on this topic.
Let us know in the comments.
Also, be sure to check out our other video Jack The Ripper - Why Was He Never Found..
Thanks for watching, and as always, please don’t forget to like, share and subscribe.