The Second Golden Age of the Serial Killer

Serial killers are some of the most depraved criminals to ever exist, and their killings used to be sensationalized across the country. One would be hard pressed to find a household that had never heard the names Ted Bundy or Charles Manson both of whom are serial killers from the 1970’s. Since then, it seems that the number of Serial killers has dwindled dramatically. Has American law enforcement conquered these reprehensible human beings through advances in technology? No, in fact, the seeming dying out of the serial killer has nothing to do with the advancements in law enforcement, and all to do with the environment they are surrounded in. The serial killers of the 70’s and 80’s were products of the unstable atmosphere in America around that time, and the country is primed to see a huge increase in serial killings in the near future.

Over the last few decades, America has definitely had one thing going for it; serial killers have been declining. James Alan Fox, a criminology professor at Northwestern University, says that America has seen a serious decrease in serial killings in the last couple of decades. Before the 1960’s there were almost none, then they took off, 19 in the 1960’s, followed by 119 in the 70’s and 200 in the 80’s. In the 1990’s America still saw approximately 141 cases, but then in the 2000’s this number has shrunk to 61. In a sense, the 70’s and the 80’s was the “Golden Age of Serial Killers”,  James Alan Fox thinks that this shrink may have something to do with terrorism being the new serial killer of American interest (Slate). That serial killers don’t get covered in the news anymore, because Americans just aren’t interested in them, yet a lack of interest could hardly explain the number of serial killers themselves falling so sharply. Besides, a lack of interest hardly in serial killers hardly seems to be a problem among Americans, just look at what they are watching on television, Dexter, True Detective, Hannibal. Serial Killers still captivate the American mind. Violence is still sensationalized by American news outlets, terrorism has received rampant coverage for the last decade. So it might seem possible that the terrorism of the 2000’s has taken the fear and place in society that serial killings occupied before. Terrorists themselves not technically being serial killers either, under the FBI’s definition which is that “a serial killer is a person who murders three or more people, usually in service of abnormal psychological gratification, with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant break (a "cooling off period") between them.” (FBI) Yet terrorism is not a new phenomena, in fact there was rampant terrorism during the “Golden Age of Serial Killers”. In the 70’s there were actually hundreds of terrorist attacks throughout the country, bombings, shooting, and hijacks, while in the years since 9/11 there have only been about 2 dozen. (CNN) So it’s not interest that has dwindled, but serial killers themselves, along with surprisingly enough domestic terrorists.

The 60’s were not a calm time in American history, the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, the assassination of both Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy, and the sexual revolution. The country went crazy in these years, and it caught up with us, in a big way, in the form of hundreds of serial killers and domestic terrorists. This wasn’t simply a matter of coincidence either, the atmosphere of a society can have a direct effect on the manifestations of an unstable mind. An article in the New Yorker references this occurrence “Grandiose schizophrenics from largely Christian countries often claim to be prophets or gods, but sufferers in Pakistan, a Muslim country, rarely do. In Shanghai, paranoid people report being pricked by poisoned needles; in Taipei, they are possessed by spirits.” (Marantz). The mind manifests delusion from its own environment, in fact this same article from the New Yorker is about a new kind of paranoid delusion; the Truman Show Effect. It’s an occurrence where a person believes they are part of a vast secret reality TV show, and are followed constantly by hidden cameras. Society manifests its events onto people, and this quickly begins to explain just how the 60’s had the impact it did on the country. The subsequent decade’s 119 serial killers were a result of the violent atmosphere of the previous decade, their crimes the result of the delusional manifestations of a country gone crazy.

A parallel can be drawn with the 2000’s. The United States in the last 8 years has bombed Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, and Syria, that’s 7 countries in total. (CNN) America is currently going through one of the most politically divisive presidential cycles of all time, with Trump’s infamous race baiting and Hillary Clinton’s blatant corruption scandals. Race relations are deteriorating and as of August 26, 38 police officers had been killed in the line of duty, 58% more than last year, which in of itself is a manifestation of societal problems in the form of violence. (CNN)  The country is once again going through a time of great strife and the repercussions of this are going to be wide reaching, and if history shows anything, violent.

It might be difficult to see the connection between domestic violence and America attacking people in 7 countries across oceans, until one looks at one very telling trend. While serial killings and depraved murders might be on the decline in America in the 2000’s, one kind of violence has been on the rise: Mass shootings. According to a study by the FBI using their definition of an active shooter incident “an individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and populated area” there have been 160 such incidents between 2000 and 2013 with a marked trend of increase. The first 7 years showing a rate of 6.4 incidents annually, the next 7 showing a rate of 16.4 annually. War is murder sanctioned by the government, and it is becoming apparent that this violence can not just stay overseas as  had been hoped. While mass shooters are not serial killers, they are a manifestation of a country that is quickly becoming more and more violent. In fact, mass shooters are not only products of larger societal ills in America, but add to the unstable atmosphere becoming prevalent through the country. As the number of mass shooters increases, it’s not unlike a pot slowly rolling to a boil, bringing the country closer and closer to the rebirth of the serial killer.