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In the last few years, millennials have been accused of “killing” mayonnaise, diamonds, American cheese, “education as we know it,” milk, malls, cars, lunch, golf, napkins, and—in a fit of overachievement—both marriage and divorce. After all this killing, which is the only way headline writers are allowed to express that Kraft Singles saw a 1.6 percent decline in sales in 2018, it’s remarkable that there was anything left to destroy. But somehow, we managed. ARE AMERICAN SERIAL KILLERS A DYING BREED? a Guardian headline wondered in 2018, and to me, the answer was clear. Millennials killed the serial killer.
In this context, “killing” means either to be less interested in a product or lifestyle than previous generations, or simply to be unable to afford it. Economically, this is murder. And along these lines, I have joked for years that maybe we see fewer serial killers these days because millennials just can’t afford it as a hobby. To be a serial killer, you tend to need a house with a basement or garage, or at least a car. You need a job that pays well enough to let you waste gas driving around and looking for victims, and one that doesn’t eat up so much of your time and energy that you just want to sleep on your rare days off. The millennial serial killer probably has one of those floral day planners that says hustle on the cover in gold. The millennial serial killer wonders how his dad did it. This is the joke I tell, but is there any truth to it? Are serial killers harder to find, and if they are, does it have anything to do with the economy? Fewer homeowners equal fewer murder basements?
“There could be thousands of serial killers that we don’t know about,” one professor says, rather hopefully, in the Guardian article, “and for some reason we’re not identifying [them] today as well as we did in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s.” But most people quoted in the piece—and most people I talk to lately—agree with true crime writer Peter Vronsky that “there seems to be a decline in American serial killing.” First manufacturing, and now this.
People suggest a lot of possible explanations: There are more security cameras now, so it’s much easier to find a recorded image of a person or their car. Cell phones track our movements, and, to a great extent, our thoughts. DNA evidence makes it easier to link crimes and solve cold cases; advances in technology—some, like ViCAP, inspired by serial killers themselves—mean the authorities have the advantage. Sentencing is harsher than it once was, so serial killers are now less likely to be paroled after committing violent crimes, or a single murder, which means they don’t have the chance to mature into what they would once have become. Or if they do, they now get caught after two or three murders instead of after a dozen. People who would have been serial killers in the past are now mass shooters. People aren’t as trusting now; we have learned from the serial killer stories of the past, and are less likely to be easy victims. True crime has wised us up.
Of all these theories, the last one is the hardest for me to take seriously: the idea that people can educate themselves out of victimhood seems, like Samuel Little, too good to be true. I don’t think Americans have suddenly evolved to be less murderable, and I don’t think you can give the police too much credit either: despite the vast technological resources now available, the homicide clearance rate was 54 percent in 2020, and 77 percent of the homicides for which data was available involved firearms. In 1976—during what we now call “the golden age of the serial killer”—the homicide clearance rate was 82 percent. The homicide rate that year was 8.8 per 100,000 people, and in 2020 it was 7.8 per 100,000. Crime statistics are bound to be imperfect, but if these ones are to be generally trusted, it’s worth pointing out that 82 percent of 8.8 is 7.2, and 54 percent of 7.8 is 4.2. The police have not gotten better at solving murders, but they have managed to create the illusion that they did. Today we understand that we are constantly surveilled, and feel that we therefore must be safer than ever. It would be unthinkable to surrender your freedom and get nothing in return.
Read the full piece here
In this context, “killing” means either to be less interested in a product or lifestyle than previous generations, or simply to be unable to afford it. Economically, this is murder. And along these lines, I have joked for years that maybe we see fewer serial killers these days because millennials just can’t afford it as a hobby. To be a serial killer, you tend to need a house with a basement or garage, or at least a car. You need a job that pays well enough to let you waste gas driving around and looking for victims, and one that doesn’t eat up so much of your time and energy that you just want to sleep on your rare days off. The millennial serial killer probably has one of those floral day planners that says hustle on the cover in gold. The millennial serial killer wonders how his dad did it. This is the joke I tell, but is there any truth to it? Are serial killers harder to find, and if they are, does it have anything to do with the economy? Fewer homeowners equal fewer murder basements?
“There could be thousands of serial killers that we don’t know about,” one professor says, rather hopefully, in the Guardian article, “and for some reason we’re not identifying [them] today as well as we did in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s.” But most people quoted in the piece—and most people I talk to lately—agree with true crime writer Peter Vronsky that “there seems to be a decline in American serial killing.” First manufacturing, and now this.
People suggest a lot of possible explanations: There are more security cameras now, so it’s much easier to find a recorded image of a person or their car. Cell phones track our movements, and, to a great extent, our thoughts. DNA evidence makes it easier to link crimes and solve cold cases; advances in technology—some, like ViCAP, inspired by serial killers themselves—mean the authorities have the advantage. Sentencing is harsher than it once was, so serial killers are now less likely to be paroled after committing violent crimes, or a single murder, which means they don’t have the chance to mature into what they would once have become. Or if they do, they now get caught after two or three murders instead of after a dozen. People who would have been serial killers in the past are now mass shooters. People aren’t as trusting now; we have learned from the serial killer stories of the past, and are less likely to be easy victims. True crime has wised us up.
Of all these theories, the last one is the hardest for me to take seriously: the idea that people can educate themselves out of victimhood seems, like Samuel Little, too good to be true. I don’t think Americans have suddenly evolved to be less murderable, and I don’t think you can give the police too much credit either: despite the vast technological resources now available, the homicide clearance rate was 54 percent in 2020, and 77 percent of the homicides for which data was available involved firearms. In 1976—during what we now call “the golden age of the serial killer”—the homicide clearance rate was 82 percent. The homicide rate that year was 8.8 per 100,000 people, and in 2020 it was 7.8 per 100,000. Crime statistics are bound to be imperfect, but if these ones are to be generally trusted, it’s worth pointing out that 82 percent of 8.8 is 7.2, and 54 percent of 7.8 is 4.2. The police have not gotten better at solving murders, but they have managed to create the illusion that they did. Today we understand that we are constantly surveilled, and feel that we therefore must be safer than ever. It would be unthinkable to surrender your freedom and get nothing in return.
Read the full piece here
