The serial killer industry

Abstract

Serial sex killing is developing into the moral panic of the 1990s but unlike previous moral panics about sex crime the activity of serial killing in Britain is very limited and the current concern is probably overstated. American definitions of the problem are becoming too influential and we are moving towards socially constructing a world-wide epidemic of serial killers. A serial killer industry is building up which gains much by a growth in the fear of serial killers. There are benefits for social control agents, particularly the police; for business interests as technology expands; for media interests as serial killing ‘sells’; and for newly created ‘experts’ who have career interests to look after and reputations to enhance. However, the questions currently being asked are too narrow and there is a general failure to address the wider issues. The Canadian anthropologist Elliott Leyton has provided the most useful insights into why serial killers seem to operate in certain periods of history and not in others, arguing that the serial killer is the embodiment of the central themes in a civilization as well as a reflection of that civilization's critical tensions.