• dustyData@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Lead poisoning is still the prevalent theory, I think. It fucks up brain development in ways that make kids tend to sociopathic personalities.

      • PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        Availability of weapons mixed with infrastructure development that atomizes communities to the point that the only places some people can find any social activity is nihilistic message boards full of psychopaths that actively encourage terroristic attacks on society but in the oblique way that dodges accountability for it when someone actually goes and does it.

      • cogman@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago
        1. Easy access to guns
        2. The rise of easy access fascist media
        3. The dissolution of public institutions

        It’s simply too easy to grab a gun by anyone. Military grade equipment is available to pretty much anyone with a credit card. Then you combine that with a CONSTANT beating drum from people like Alex Jones talking about how much they want crush, destroy, kill their enemies and how corrupt everything is. Then also talking about how people need to rise up and do “something”. While also in the same breath telling people to go off their meds and how any sort of treatment for mental disorders is actually poison. Then pair that with the fact that there’s pretty much no public infrastructure around public health (thanks Reagan). That means if you are having some sort of mental break down, depression, whatever, if you can’t afford the $100s/$1000s of dollars to get regular psychiatric treatment you are basically just going to be untreated. There is also pretty much no safe place to recoup for someone in distress but not at risk of suicide. But even if there were, even if you could afford it, fascists and preachers know that mentally healthy people are harder to grift so they spend all their time demonizing the very help you’d need.

        However, not everyone that does this is mentally unwell. Some are just hateful fascists that believe killing gets their hate filled messages into the world. It’s why it is irresponsible for any media outlet to publish the name or manifestos of these assholes. Having notorious killers encourages more notorious killers.

      • thejoker8814@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        I’m curious, you got anything light reading you can recommend to ease into the topic, please pm me. I’d appreciate, if it wasn’t another post which basically recites the content of another post, and so on - far too much out there these days)

    • EdibleFriend@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      John Wayne Gacy killed 33 people, that we know of, in his entire life. 21 killed in Uvalde alone.

      We just streamlined things.

  • MNByChoice@midwest.social
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    7 months ago

    Lots of great possibilities listed in article.

    I was shocked that 60% of murders are solved. It was not that long ago that the solving rate was near 20%.

    • WoahWoah@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      It was roughly 60% in 2018, which was lower than it was decades before that. It was 90% in the 1960s for instance. Murder clearance rates have been declining for decades. 2023 was under 50% and is a record low for murder clearance.

      Basically more and more murders are going unsolved, and this is a trend stretching decades. National murder clearance rates have never been 20% since that data has been tracked.

      Some cities are near that currently though, like Oakland. Interpreting police incompetence around murder cases as somehow indicating less serial killing is pretty absurd.

    • andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works
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      7 months ago

      I always thought his fascination with blood on the scene was obscenelly erotical and creepy, but his department thought he’s just quirky.

  • CoCo_Goldstein@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Could it be that not as many potential serial killers are being born? I believe there is a link between criminality and childhood abuse. Less unwanted kids are being born. Less abuse. Less criminals of all kinds, including serial killers.

  • WoahWoah@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Murder “clearance” rates in the US have been declining for decades, meaning police are solving fewer and fewer murders. Unsolved killings were at record highs in 2023.

    Seems to me that there are probably just less serial killers being suspected, investigated, and caught, as police continue to do less and less, rather than there being less serial killers. The United States is now basically the least effective country at solving murders in the industrialized world.

    It’s absurd trying to spin police incompetence as a positive thing. Roughly 27% of murders in Oakland, CA are solved for instance. Who knows if there is a serial killer at work with that kind of solve rate?

  • Minotaur@lemm.ee
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    7 months ago

    I think the lead poisoning theory is a bit overblown, personally. There’s something to it, but “all the serial killers were just brain damaged” is I think trying to put a very neat little bow around a complex package.

    I think a lot of it is simply that it’s harder to get away with murder now. I mean not to make it sound too easy but in 1982 there were a lot of ways to kill someone that basically could not be tracked back to you as long as you weren’t literally seen doing it. People aren’t stupid, they know this, and they change their patterns around it.

    Additionally, I’m sure that (potentially as a result of this) we have more spree/mass killings now, and a decent deal of spree killings have a component of sexual frustration to them as many serial killers had.

    • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I figure it’s mostly the electronics angle. Your phone, if you have it with you it’s really obvious if you travel to the area crimes happen. Heck, even not using your phone or other connected electronics can indicate something. Your car seen on surveillance cameras which are everywhere, from private home’s doorbells to commercial cameras to municipal roadway cameras. Your internet search history of maybe the victim or the location. Automatic toll payments. You’d have to live an almost completely disconnected life and take serious measures to avoid detection, and even then it’s not a sure thing.

      • Minotaur@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        Yep. The Moscow Murders seem to be a good example of this. College student seemingly took a lot of precaution to stab 4 people to death in their rental home, left almost nothing behind, turned his cell phone off during the crime - but he’s still dinged because earlier records show him basically scoping out the house in days prior based off his cell phone location.

        I should say it’s not yet stated in a court of law whether this student actually did the killings, and courts do get those decisions wrong - but even still it’s a good example of how technology can track you essentially all the time