I was just thinking I should go back and add that to my list. That is the prevelant theory on why murder and violent crime is down as a whole.
It also makes me wonder if this account for why violent crime is higher in poorer neighborhoods. Aside from other social ills they are plagued with, older, poorer areas are still more likely to have lead in the environment from old sources: paint, plumbing, etc.
Yeah that’s what I’m saying. If anything the changes on that front would make them more visible than in the past.
It can’t be that numbers went down because serial killers are hiding there. Cause they’ve always been hiding there, and now we know to look at a minimum.
And we’re a lot more OK with women who wear trousers.
It just seems that way: Most are now in Congress as Republicans… and – being psychopathic sociopaths – they get to kill even more people and with less effort.
Men’s Rights groups provide online community for people who otherwise would have suffered in solitude and exploded on their own schedules. Festering resentment is handled differently in these groups. That and free porn.
Body cams?
It could be cyclical,. Their are times of peak serial killing, and then times where it’s at a low.
Possibly mixed news: With the advent of social media the FBI has done a much better job of identifying them before they kill. This info is then used for recruiting purposes.
oh, good point. maybe they all just gave up because they can’t compete with trump’s numbers.
They handle it with spree shooting.
And it’s a little shocking how the ideology of that set perfectly matches the mentality of male entitlement and anger that’s central to the bulk of serial killers. Who are in the West, mostly white and male.
That has implications for how this spike happened in the first place. Cause while it’s clear these crimes have always existed, and part of the bump is down to identifying it as thing you can examine and track. There’s also good evidence that it did become more common through the mid century to the 80’s.
One take on the subject takes it as part of a broad backlash to the civil rights movement, feminist advancement and the sexual revolution. In the context of late 60s political upheaval, 70’s and 80’s economic malaise, and rising income equality.
That in a context where everyone is less well off, less socially mobile and has less opportunity. Men who felt they were owed or due some success or prominence they couldn’t achieve (or were not handed) lashed out in very specific directions.
That those who were more likely to be violent or mentally ill in a particular way were more likely to be tipped over into pathological violence and abuse by means of ideology or social order
that blamed women and minorities for social ills or personal shortcomings.
More to the point, what accounts for their sudden emergence at that time?
After that three-decade surge, a rapid decline followed.
Could we be looking at another byproduct of leaded auto fuel and its link to violence in American society? Other factors — postwar affluence/mobiity, demographic changes — might also be considered.
pft… if anything it’s gotten way easier. I keep leaving clues but I tell ya what, the woods might as well be the city’s official cemetery at this rate…
Very Christmas-y graph.
The modern GOP doesn’t like competition?
I wonder if some of the potentially murderous are instead able to sublimate urges through video games. Not saying that video games lead to potential serial killers, or violence, but that it may allow some to work out their issues in fantasy and never engage in actual violence. Either that or become threatening vicious trolls, which is horrible and should be illegal, but does have a lower body count than serial killing.
Simply put: it’s been done to death already, just like with zombies and vampires. Hollywood made too many goddamn movies and TV shows about serial killers, so it’s not cool anymore. It used to be that people would think you were cool if you were a serial killer. Then Dexter came along and ruined everything. Now if you tell people that you’re a serial killer, they just laugh at you.
Since many holy folk attribute everything to their deity, we should hear the explanation that said deity went on a kill-spree starting some decades back but got bored and has fun in other ways now. /s
Have supposed serial homicide rates in the non-North-American world shown any linkage with rates in USA and Canada? Do we know of correlations with language (say, Anglophone vs Francophone), religion, governmental or economic system, etc?
I’m not a psychologist or even a particularly astute observer of human nature, but that makes sense to me.
Moment to moment, day to day, life is ordered very differently now vs. the 1970s and 80s. (Which, for the record, I’m old enough to remember.) There are all kinds of stimuli present now that used to be absent, and vice-versa. Maybe it shouldn’t be all that surprising that it all has an impact on extreme behavior.
Well, they’re actually quite impressed for the first few years. In particular they like the subtle and unexpected moments of humor, and the well-developed characters you surround yourself with. But then everything starts seeming gimmicky and rushed, as you juggle the incompatible goals of giving them what they expect while not repeating yourself.
