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Sprawl: The swamp that creates killers?

Date published: 10/27/2002

HE EVENTS of the past few weeks in the D.C.-Richmond corridor were tragic. Yet, however despicable, what the sniper did was not unusual. Besides having the most murders, rapes, and assaults per capita of any developed nation, the United States is also home to 76 percent of all serial killers. Such predators have become commonplace in this country.

For over 40 years, America has been increasingly terrorized by these types of killers. You may remember some of them: Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Charles Manson, the Boston Strangler, the Green River Killer, the Trailside Killer, and the Stocking Strangler. According to FBI serial killer expert John Douglas, who has spent over 20 years combating such offenders, at any given time there are as many as 100 serial killers at large in America. These sociopaths slaughter between 500 and 1,000 innocent people every year, leaving the rest of us cowering in fear. Their impact is disproportionate to the number of people killed, simply because we all know that we could be the next victim.

Between 1906 and 1959, there was an average of 1.7 new cases of serial killers every year--basically the same as what the rest of the world experiences today. Then, quite abruptly, the figure for new serial killers grew to 5 per year in the 1960s. By 1980, the number of new serial killers per year had risen to 15; and by 1990, there were 36 new serial killers identified per year, an average of three a month.

Because of this dramatic increase, the FBI has estimated that serial murders could claim an average of 11 lives a day in the United States in the 21st century. And serial killers are just the tip of the iceberg. In 1990, there were 23,440 homicides in this country. In contrast, Germany had 3,000, Canada 1,561, and England only 669. In the same year there were 102,560 rapes in the United States. In Germany, there were only 5,112; in England, 3,391; and just 687 in Italy. Even if the European totals are increased proportionally based on population, the levels of violence in the United States are still dramatically higher.

Yes, violence in America has declined by 5 percent since 1990. However, that is not much of a drop when our rates of violence are as alarmingly high as they are.

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Date published: 10/27/2002