America's Monopoly on Serial Killers

What is a serial killer?

According to Wikipedia:

A serial killer is typically defined as a person who murders three or more people[1][2] over a period of more than 30 days, with a "cooling off" period between each murder, and whose motivation for killing is largely based on psychological gratification.[

What makes a serial killer?

These are the things the FBI thinks:

• The murder is rarely "for profit"; the motive is psychological, not material; • The victim may have "symbolic" value for the killer; method of killing may reveal this meaning; • Killers often choose victims who are vulnerable (prostitutes, runaways, etc.)

So there is multiple things that could make someone a serial killer.. It could be psychological or could be the environment.. No one knows for sure, yet, but what is known is the amount of serial killers in America vs. the Rest of the world is a scary statistic..

This was a rough estimate from Wikipedia:

15 murders in austrailia
10 in Canada
4 in china
14 in France
13 in Germany
11 in japan
5 in mexico
11 in Russia
16 in south Africa
49 in UK
140 in USA

That's at least 140 confirmed serial killers in the US... 76% of the worlds serial killers


Now, let's look at some guesses why...

1. Violent Media

Anyone in America knows about our obsession with violence. Every director knows that if they don't include at least one scene where a boat explodes into a thousand different, smaller explosions, your film won't sell. We have some of the goriest horror movies, with the Saw franchise leading the way. But we're not the only ones that like violence.

Chinese films tend to feature more fighting and less sex than Western films. Miao Di, a professor of film and television at the Beijing Broadcasting Institute, told the Los Angeles Times, “The Chinese people have always been very sensitive about sexuality but not worried about violence.” Nurtured on king fu. Many Chinese find American films less violent than home grown ones

link

The Chinese cartoon series called Cat Rabbit Seven Chivalrous Biography has received much criticism from local parents, concerned that its violent and sexual content would mislead their offspring

Link


and they've had 4 serial killers... So, I think it's safe to say it isn't the movies..

2. Broken Homes

This is from the Nature vs. Nurture argument. Do they start out killers or do their environment turn them? I, myself am a believer in the old mantra: "If you kick a dog enough times, it will bite." so i could see how a persons environment could shape them into wanting to kill. Hell, how many of us have had a brief fantasy about murdering someone that's annoying us, or doing away with a person that we think is a detriment to society. The only difference is we don't act upon those impulses.

Now for the sake of time, i am going to assume there are broken homes in every country.Nobody is immune to the trials and tribulations of life.

Drugs cause many broken homes, but coc aine is the only thing America has more users of. Australia leads the world in Meth use and IMO meth is a far more destructive drug. And we are tied with Pakistan and Bangladesh concerning heroin use. So, we have our problems with Drugs, but we aren't alone.
Alcohol is another reason but US is ranked 20th with 8.3 liters of alcohol consumes per capita

Divorce?
America is Number 1 with 5 divorces per 1,000 people, but Puerto Rico has 4.47 per 1,000 and Russia has 3.38 per 1,000.

Broken homes due to divorce and drugs are creating serial killers in some cases, but those are extremely rare cases that also involve abuse and a lot of other factors. It would have to be a 'perfect storm' so to speak, with the Nurture actually supporting the persons murderous Nature.



3. Wild Card- American Arrogance


In an article by Paul J Balles he states that many people in America suffer from an superiority complex and they look down on people. This could be a link into our serial killers as many of them think of their victims as lesser humans than themselves. Many of them were “ridding” the world of these lesser humans.
‘I think it has something to do with the American Ego and our sense of superiority. It explains the lack of empathy and general disregard.

American Superiority


In conclusion, many different things make people become serial killers, but there's something about living in America that is making it a "better" environment to create them.

i think it's that we have better detectives.


not more serial killers.

that means we can find connections between murders that china and mexico won't find.

I wonder if how good the police are at catching serial killers isn't also a factor.

There may well be more in many countries that either aren't captured or aren't even noticed.

Edit to add
Yeah what the person above said..
Cross post

My bet is that the broken homes category does it, but that the psychosis is more related to the abuse that tends to go on in broken homes.

reply to post by davespanners


Some countrys are just better at catching them is all.

There probably is an equal amount of serial killers in all countrys, at least the ones that Dexter does not visit anyway.

reply to post by squirelnutz


Theres also a statistical problem here
Population of the US around
307 006 550

Population of the UK
61,838,154

So for the USA it's 1 serial killer for every 2192903.93
And for the UK it's one for every 1262003.14

The UK wins
I'm so proud

typical american reply... lol "we have better detectives"

There are a large number of contributing factors to skew these statistics; such as population, urban population, infrastructure within judicial systems, lack of or poor technological equipment to track similarities, and state of affairs within an area (for example, Mexican cartels carry out hits every day, every month, every year... and there are rests between...)

I realize this is looking at I suppose 'individuals' whom carry out these acts... here's a big factor... glamor and publicity... in a country who doesn't publicize these sorts of events or even have video cameras... I would assume to kill they would have at least SOME reason. (he stole my chickens, he slept with my wife, he/she told a secret)

reply to post by MavRck


Well, Better detectives maybe but more like "motivated" detectives.

In the US we have such a sensationalist media that highlights these things which cause political motivation to catch said killer. Once the press has it, I am sure resources are much easier to come by to prioritize solving these crimes. Last thing any mayor or police chief wants is the press constantly reporting how inept they are.

reply to post by _Highlander_


dexter was made to turn would be serial killers into vigilante killers of killers and not random citizens.

america is not even a real country, it was born out of violence, since the beginning all it knew was violence and it's a safe haven for evil people, because as long as you don't break any laws you can be as evil as you want to be.

Originally posted by gnosticquasar
My bet is that the broken homes category does it, but that the psychosis is more related to the abuse that tends to go on in broken homes.

...john wayne gacy didnt come from a broken home, as in divorced parents... also, psychosis is not the norm for serial killers because most are not insane and function quite normally in society... at least one abusive and/or domineering parent is common... an extremely strict fundamentalist christian parent is also common... however, none of those are necessarily red flags...

...about the comments that we have better cops here - i dont know about that one... ann rule (the author) believes there are thousands of serial killings every year in the usofa that are never discovered or never labeled as the work of a serial killer...

...heres an interesting article...
www.uplink.com.au...

...bottom line is - there are many factors that cause someone to become a serial killer and even the brightest minds cannot come up with a "one size fits all" explanation...

Yeah the numbers are wrong really, as the other poster stated, the Per Capita is a much better way of showing numbers.

Oh, and by the way, SAW is written by an Australian, not an American.

I think you can add at least one more to Mexicos total judging by this

The estimated homicide toll is speculated by authorities to be about 400[citation needed], but many local residents believe that the true count of los feminicidios stands at an estimated 5,000 victims. Most of the cases remained unsolved as of 2003,[1] and are still unsolved today

wiki

5000

and of course the UK has Harold Shipman

Harold Shipman: AKA "Dr.Death"; doctor convicted of 15 murders; a later inquiry stated he had killed at least 215 and possibly up to 457 people over a 25-year period

It's almost a whole different league of serial killing. Some of the people counted in the list of serial killers killed 3 or 4 people, theres a big difference between 4 and 400

Originally posted by Nick_X
Yeah the numbers are wrong really, as the other poster stated, the Per Capita is a much better way of showing numbers.

Oh, and by the way, SAW is written by an Australian, not an American.

My god if it was down to violent movies then Japan would be WAY ahead in the polls by a long long margin.
Some Japanese gore films (that I probably couldn't even mention the name of without getting banned) make the SAW franchise look like a Sunday walk in the park.

What was it the powers that be said they had plans for america...

lol..

I can see it now.... UN troops walking down a street...

"Excuse me sir, you do know thee is a curfew out?"

Wiping the blood off of his knife ...

Can you write the rest?


As for our Violent history, Compared to the rest of the nations on this mud ball we have a low kill count... Very low...

I'd say it does have more to do with our law enforcement. The FBI pretty much wrote the book on criminal profiling. Furthermore, when it comes to serial killers, most of the information is centralized so patterns can be recognized as quickly as possible.

reply to post by davespanners


The only flaw in that argument is the UK has been keeping track for a lot longer..

America only started keeping track of it's serial killers since about 1900.. UK started around the 1800s

Total numbers of anything are only a simple indicator. Other numbers, such as Serial Killers per capita would be another indicator. Serial Killers with higher body counts would be another number. Victims per capita would give yet another indicator.

How about Serial Killers per square mile?

Serial Killer victims per square mile?

That killing stuff may have a few contributing factors, but at the end of the day, it's because these are some self-centered bastards.

As an American whose ancestors were some of those early on who according to one poster began killing, and as one whose continued the tradition when it comes to enemies, too bad.

Some folks are just better at it than others.

reply to post by squirelnutz


You seem to be right about that, according to the wiki page there are 5 serial killers recorded in Britain before 1900 Including this guy (Thomas Neill Cream) who was born in Scotland, raised in Canada and murdered people in Canada America and England.
He's a real traveller

reply to post by squirelnutz


76% does not constitute a monopoly, also you are not factoring in the ability and willingness of American FBI and police efforts to solve the murders. I believe a lot of the reason why the percentage is higher is due to them being caught and the crimes solved, unlike many other nations that would never put forth this much effort.

reply to post by space cadet


This wiki also lists unsolved cases of serial killers and again the US is by far in the lead.

It's still unclear though if that is down to them being able to detect patterns that indicate serial killings but not necessarily being able to catch the person