Serial killers and sick societies

**Brucelles** · 08-05-2007, 11:04 AM

I was reading about the Virginia Tech mass murderer and noticed a comment to the effect that the availability of weapons is not the issue, it is the lunatic who wants to kill people who is the issue.

This seems abundantly clear to me, given the complete lack of gun crime in Europe's most heavily-armed country, Switzerland. So I thought about how one could look at violent crime generally and see what there is that causes some killers to just go ape**** and start a murder spree. So I looked at serial killers.

Serial killers are usually sad losers like Seung-Hui Cho.

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

Many noted serial killers have had dysfunctional backgrounds. Frequently they were physically, sexually, or psychologically abused as children and there is often a correlation between their childhood abuse and their crimes.

Serial killers are specifically motivated by a variety of psychological urges, primarily power and sexual compulsion. They often have feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness, sometimes owing to humiliation and abuse in childhood and/or the pressures of poverty and low socioeconomic status in adulthood, and their crimes compensate for this and provide a sense of potency and often revenge, by giving them a feeling of power, both at the time of the actual killing and afterwards. The knowledge that their actions terrify entire communities and often baffle police adds to this sense of power. This motivational aspect separates them from contract killers and other multiple murderers who are motivated by profit. For example, in Scotland during the 1820s, William Burke and William Hare murdered people in what became known as the "Case of the Body Snatchers." They would not count as serial killers by most criminologists' definitions, however, because their motive was primarily economic.

So I would say that these guys are a pretty good indicator of the mental health of a country. If you are breeding lots of serial killers you have a country that is abusing many of it's children in one way or another. You can point to kids like the young Jeffrey Dahmer and say that the had a normal upbringing, and I would agree, that guy just seems to have been born bad, but the majority of serial killers seem to be pushed that way.

So. We all know that America leads the world in, like so many things, serial killers. I did a little superficial research and I found that America has had a plethora of serial killers, but it's a big country, it will have. Breaking down the list of serial killers by country taking only the bigger numbers and mapping to population gives a league table.

Unsurprisingly the US tops the world with a fabulous 93 either convicted or at liberty, Britain comes second with a still impressive 31 and Australia is third with 16.

But it's when you look at the ratio of killers per head of population that it gets interesting.

Here's the table sorted by number of serial killers per head:

No. of killers___Pop’n_______People/Killer

Australia

16__________20,434,176__________1,277,136

UK

31__________60,776,238__________1,960,524

USA

93__________301,139,947__________3,238,064

Canada

8__________33,390,141__________4,173,768

Poland

6__________38,518,241__________6,419,707

Germany

10__________82,400,996__________8,240,100

France

7__________63,713,926__________9,101,989

So the Aussies take the lead, Britain is second and America is third.

I cannot speak for Australia, I have never been there and the numbers are inflated by a gang of 6 that perpetrated the Snowtown Murders, but the gang was really led by only one traditional serial killer so we could realistically drop Australia's count to 11, which still leaves them in the lead, but not far above Britain.

However, I have to say that Britain's serial killer success story doesn't surprise me. It is a dreadful place and there is a grimness about it that makes it unsurprising that so many of it's denizens want to kill people.

I realise that the numbers alone leave little to discuss. So Britain is a more serial killer-rich country than the USA, big deal.

I am interested, though, by who is surprised. I am not, but I'll bet a lot of you thought that the good ol' US of A would win.

Secondly, I think it is a significant indicator of a nation's collective mental health. This seems to make a sort of sense, in that a country that breeds a lot of serial killers would, one feels, have to have something wrong in it's national pyche, but it's nothing I could prove or even argue. I just don't have any evidence.

You can dispute the details, some of these murders go back 500 years (Gilles de Rais, France), but the overall picture doesn't change much. Britain is a sicker society than the USA.

Does anyone think I am wrong?

**Hans Voralberg** · 08-05-2007, 11:14 AM

I wouldnt conclude that our society is sicker base on just that

**jamin** · 08-05-2007, 11:25 AM

You can't base an assumption that Britain is a sicker society than the USA on that.......

However, I have to say that Britain's serial killer success story doesn't surprise me. It is a dreadful place and there is a grimness about it that makes it unsurprising that so many of it's denizens want to kill people.

Do you want to flesh that out a bit? Actually don't bother, I'm not even going to bother reading your answer if you do! I find that statement quite insulting mate and quite worrying. "Success story"?? What gives you the right to make a stark generalisation like that based on 0.000051% of the population (based on todays population figures, if you compound the figures over the 500 years you suggest then this percentages becomes even tinyer!)

Britain, Grim and dreadful? Pardon? I guess the rest of the world has gold paved streets and 0% unemployment then?

I could go on picking your narrow minded generalisations to pieces, but I have got better things to do. Suffice to say, your maths is flawed, your arguments are unfounded and shocking generalisations don't go down well with me!

**b0redom** · 08-05-2007, 11:29 AM

...noticed a comment to the effect that the availability of weapons is not the issue, it is the lunatic who wants to kill people who is the issue.

Well yeah, but if the guy only had access to a cheese knife, massacreing a load of college kids would have been a tad more difficult.

Those figures presuppose that murders have been assigned correctly to a specific killer though too. You may find that somewhat inaccurate.

Human rights abuse and physical / sexual abuse probably is far more widespread in places like Africa and the poorer countries in Asia - did you manage to get any figures for there?

I'm not sure I'd classify Seung-Hui Cho as a serial killer. He had a one off killing spree then killed himself. My understanding of serial killers is that they usually have some sort of cooling off period between murders?

Finally I reckon:

It is a dreadful place and there is a grimness about it that makes it unsurprising that so many of it's denizens want to kill people.

and

Britain is a sicker society than the USA.

Are vaguely insulting, especially coming from a Beligian

**arbitor** · 08-05-2007, 11:47 AM

I think that people blame the "its to easy to get a gun" act to much.

If i wanted to i could get a gun within this week probably, i think its alot down to possibly some music that heightens the gang culture in usa which imo is much larger than here.

In the usa each part of the country has a very large and substantial gang, that commit murders, and this is then glorified through music and film, so people see it as cool.

Trenchcoat mafia, they didnt probably just think up to do something like that without watching possibly films.. reinacting something..
Where as here in the uk, we have a murder problem and a drugs problem, but the gang side of it isnt really glorified and tellyvised as much as in usa, in some music from london it is, but the amount of people in this country that listen to that is small when compaired to the amount of americans that listen to gang rap music or w/e.
Also as said dude who shot up the uni wasn't a serial killer by nature i dont think, by default yes as he killed 30 odd people, but as said a serial killer in my book is someone who commits a murder then plans their next one trying not to kill themselves or get found out..

but i think its pretty hard to stop the odd person like Korean dude coming out of the woodwork as when that train of thought is on your mind i doubt theres much that can change it, knowing your going to be all over the news and what not and having your final way is sweet for some people.

Also as said i don't class the uk as a dreadful place in the slightest, sure i wouldn't wanna be in some parts of it at certain times, but generally the country is strong, and a good place to live and educate hence the amount of foreigners sending their kids to our uni`s *cough*

**TiG** · 08-05-2007, 11:51 AM

The stats aren't even close to being right, you need to take into account over what time period those figures occur over. Incidents per year per population would be much more appropriate to start with.

If 1 person becomes a serial killer in a small country this sways your whole set of stats as well.

You really need to pay attention to some "random" element to the stats to rebias the whole chance accurance of someone losing the plot that badly that they go and kill a lot of people.

If you really were doing this scientifically you'd need to take into so many more factors. Making assumptions based on the most broad things doesn't bring any useful conclusions.

TiG

**nichomach** · 08-05-2007, 11:56 AM

Originally Posted by Brucelles

I was reading about the Virginia Tech mass murderer ...blah blah blah...

Leaving aside the apparent inability of the OP to distinguish between a spree killer and a serial killer, given that he apparently feels that Britain is "...a dreadful place and there is a grimness about it that makes it unsurprising that so many of it's denizens want to kill people." then I fervently hope that he does himself and us a favour and stays in Belgium.

**SiM** · 08-05-2007, 12:07 PM

In america serial killers kill a lot more people than here...

AFAIK McDonalds has killed 1000s in America

**ACiD303** · 08-05-2007, 12:29 PM

noticed a comment to the effect that the availability of weapons is not the issue, it is the lunatic who wants to kill people who is the issue.

"Guns don't kill people - people kill people" ?

So I would say that these guys are a pretty good indicator of the mental health of a country.

I would say it's a pretty good indicator of the mental health of the perpetrators. The mental health of a country is far too general and vague a conclusion based on your superficial research.

However, I have to say that Britain's serial killer success story doesn't surprise me. It is a dreadful place and there is a grimness about it that makes it unsurprising that so many of it's denizens want to kill people.

I don't deny that are more than a few places less than desirable, but there's not been anything I've seen that will incite someone to go on a spree. We have unwelcoming weather for tourists....thats about it - plenty other places have it far worse. I'd say we don't do too badly for ourselves given our land mass and detachment from the continent.

To answer your 1st question:

I am interested, though, by who is surprised.

If the results went either way, I'm not. Hell, if the Americans place somewhere in these kind of statistics, we're bound to place somewhere near. Some people call us the 51st State....

To answer your second question:

Britain is a sicker society than the USA.

Does anyone think I am wrong?

Provisionally yes. You did say it was superficial research and that you are arguing a point that you cannot prove. Again, I'm not going to deny that Britain's not in perfect mental health, but few places (if any) are. Your argument pinpoints a nations state of mental health based on [documented] serial killer statistics alone.

I would read a properly researched article with no bias, but given the vast amount of variables to consider, research and write about (not to mention draw conclusions) I think you're better off going back to your day job.

**Brucelles** · 08-05-2007, 01:26 PM