11 ms·
Is it just me or are there fewer serial killers these days?
by anonymousDan 6y ago
Is it just me or are there fewer serial killers these days?
- nscalf 6y agoIt could just be better policing. If you catch someone after they kill once or twice, they don’t get the chance to become a serial killer. But I haven’t looked up any stats on this.
- StavrosK 6y agoOr they know how to hide better. We've always only caught the stupid ones anyway.
- dragonwriter 6y ago> It could just be better policing. If it was “better policing”, you expect the clearance rate for actual homicides to have gone up as well as the identified serial killers to have gone down. Instead, the clearance rate has gone down, as well. “Worse policing” of murder would better explain both reduced clearance of homicides and reduced numbers of identified serial killers.
- oh_sigh 6y agoThere can be multiple factors at play. For example, future serial killers may be caught after one killing, but drug gang murders may go unsolved.
- fnord123 6y agoThere's also the mobile phone effect. The dopamine treadmill has stopped people from going out and murdering.
- cedilla 6y agoWorse policing also leads to more incorrect clearings. Who knows how many murders were incorrectly pinned on husbands or wives, or known petty criminals, or tramps? The same technology we use to find murderers can also exonerate people. We also tossed out a lot of bogus methods based on pseudo-science and learned a lot about the reliability of witnesses; and all the modern technology exposed many expert witnesses as charlatans.
- jti107 6y agohttps://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/what-explains-the-decline-of-serial-killers https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/what-explains-...
- seph-reed 6y agoI was watching point break last week, and temporarily felt bad that bank robberies can't really happen anymore. If for no other reason, because they make a good story line.
- greenburger 6y agoOver three thousand banks were robbed in 2018 in the US alone. https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/bank-crime-statistics-2018.pdf/view https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/bank-crime-statistics-20...
- byecomputer 6y agoI was in the Quad Cities (Iowa/Illinois interface) in the spring and there was a bank robbery pretty much every other week. Turned out to be the same guy each time, but as an East-coaster who's not too familiar with the Midwest there was a couple of months I was convinced that bank-robbing simply never died out in the heartland.
- Talanes 6y agoBank robberies rarely ever happened like Point Break to begin with. The average bank robbery is a quiet affair conducted with a slipped note and the implication of a gun. I interviewed a family friend who had then recently retired from chasing bank robbers in the FBI for a school project a decade and change ago. The biggest take-a-way was his assertion that, at least at that time, anyone could get away with robbing a bank once. It's not getting away with the crime itself that's hard: it's not leaving a pattern on the next one.
- kevinmchugh 6y agoHave also heard this from someone in law enforcement. He said it's the easiest crime to get away with, as long as you only do it once and don't particularly care about the money. The dye packs make it hard to spend.
- 6y ago
- npunt 6y agoLead crime hypothesis probably explains some of it [1] We do have far more mass shootings though :( [1] https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/02/an-updated-lead-crime-roundup-for-2018/ https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/02/an-updated-le...
- sneak 6y agoShootings in general are way down, though, even with mass shootings included. Many people don't realize that the US is at some of the lowest gun violence levels seen in decades right now. The 90s were way, way worse.
- taeric 6y agoIt is actually kind of frightening hilarious to see movies like Predator 2's depiction of the future. Robocop, as well. It is stark how violent things were back then, it seems.
- Apocryphon 6y agoDoes the U.S. even have massive organized crime operations like those in those pop cultural depictions, anymore? Seems fewer than we used to.
- taeric 6y agoNot that I know of. Mayhap I'm just ignorant of them?
- Tuna-Fish 6y agoOrganized crime is more powerful and better organized right now than it has ever been in American history. The reason people are unaware of this is that organized crime is really only visible when they are having problems. Gang wars lead to news coverage, one gang monopolizing an area and effectively extracting revenue from it does not.
- saalweachter 6y ago
- dragonwriter 6y ago> Is it just me or are there fewer serial killers these days? Maybe. OTOH, the decline in identified serial killers tracks with the decline in identifying the perpetrators of killings period, as the clearance rate for homicides has dropped. Plenty of room for serial killers to hide in that: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/10/are-serial-killers-more-common-than-we-think/596647/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/10/are-ser...
- jimbob45 6y agoWhat is the “clearance rate” of a homicide? I see you’ve used that phrase a few times here and it’s keeping me from understanding your contributions.
- chordalkeyboard 6y agoThe number of murders 'cleared' divided by the number of murders recorded. What makes a crime cleared or not depends on who is doing to measuring but consider it to relate to whether the government thinks that they have enough evidence to charge someone with the crime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearance_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearance_rate
- peter303 6y agoNew article this week documents it https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/what-explains-the-decline-of-serial-killers https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/what-explains-...
- mchusma 6y agoOnly 60% of homicides are solved? I would have guessed like 99%. This is sort of crazy to me.
- 14 6y agoI read that in Mexico that number is less then 10%. https://www.animalpolitico.com/kill-murder-mexico/homicides-unpunished-mexico.php https://www.animalpolitico.com/kill-murder-mexico/homicides-...
- Anon4Now 6y agoMaybe they all watch CSI, Dateline, etc. and know how to avoid detection better.
- hobofan 6y agoI guess that influences the perception of "fewer serial killers" at the same time beyond the drop of detection. The way that "big name" serial killers like Zodiac or the Golden State Killer became widely known is by actively taunting the police/public, which nowadays is probably far too risky to do. So we not only have serial killers that know how to hide better, but also ones that know not to seek out media attention.
- werdnapk 6y agoModern DNA analysis and forensics might have something to do with it. It's a lot harder these days than 50 years ago to not leave any evidence.
- CamperBob2 6y agoNot to mention cameras.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- aerovistae 6y agoFunny you ask! I was just pondering that the Zodiac, who only was confirmed to have killed like 5 people, is a legendary serial killer who most Americans are familiar with, because of the mystique around his moniker and his cyphers and who his victims were. Yet the Chicago Strangler [1], who is still active, still operating to this day, 50+ victims, few have heard of....because he attacks marginalized groups like black runaways rather than white people. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Strangler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Strangler
- nerdponx 6y agoThe article said there are something like 40 murders possibly associated with the Zodiac killer even though only 5 are confirmed.
- charlchi 6y agoDo you honestly believe everyone would suddenly know about the Chicago Strangler if they were murdering only white meth addicts? This racial rhetoric is so tired.
- nostromo 6y agoExactly. Just look at the Green River Killer. He’s not well known, but he killed 50 young women, mostly white, but also mostly runaways and sex workers.
- aerovistae 6y agoI feel like the Green River Killer is quite well know... But even if he's not as well known as Zodiac, again, look at the victim profile: runaways and sex workers. It's not just about skin color, although for some reason both of you zeroed in on that. I specified "marginalized groups" such as [mostly black] runaways. It's about being poor, unknown, and not white.
- newnamenewface 6y ago
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- vffhfhf 6y agoVideo games and internet. Bored people are unpredictable.
- Hamuko 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_serial_killers_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_serial_killers_in_the_... It does kind of look like it.
- shakezula 6y agoI’ve read before that the FBI estimates there are ~50 to 70 active serial killers in the U.S. at any given time. The problem is they’re incredibly sporadic and sometimes go dormant for any number of reasons for months, years, or decades at a time.
- chaostheory 6y agoSurveillance is much easier these days with that little computer in our pockets. Doesn't that nearly everyone still publishes their location to services like FB. I predict that the West will move closer to Chinese style surveillance and censorship. Actually, I don't have to predict it. It's already happening little by little.
- sixQuarks 6y agoLike a lot of things these days, people don't take pride in their craft anymore. Everyone takes shortcuts. Today's serial killers are sloppy and just want to do things quick and easy so they can get back to browsing facebook and instagram.
- jacquesm 6y agoThere are more parallel killers though, the number of school shootings is not exactly going down.