Philip Jenkins - Using Murder: The Social Construction of Serial Homicide (Social Problems and Social Issues (Walter Paperback))

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Using Murder

Using Murder

The Social Construction of Serial Homocide

Philip Jenkins

First published 1994 by Transaction Publishers

Published 2017 by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright 1994 by Taylor & Francis.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Notice:

Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Catalog Number: 93-50051

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Jenkins, Philip, 1952-

Using murder : the social construction of serial homocide / Philip Jenkins. Social power and political influence / James T. Tedeschi.

p. cm.(Social problems and social issues)

Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.

ISBN 0-202-30499-X (cloth : acid-free paper) ISBN 0-202-30525-2 (paper: acid-free paper)

1. Serial murdersUnited States. 2. Serial murdersEurope. 3. Criminal psychologyUnited States. 4. Criminal psychologyEurope.

I. Title. II. Series.

HV6529.J46 1994

364.1523dc20	93-50051
CIP

ISBN 13: 978-0-202-30525-7 (pbk)

Contents

I would like to record my thanks to those researchers and scholars who have done so much to establish as a reputable discipline the academic study of extreme violence, and from whom I have learned so much. This group includes Steve Egger, Tom Fleming, James Fox, Eric Hickey, Ron Holmes, Jack Levin, Elliot Leyton, Robert Ressler, and Candace Skrapec. I suppose it is remarkable that such a potentially unsavory topic attracts such able investigators, who are moreover such balanced, decent, and generous individuals.

I would also note a debt of gratitude to other friends and colleagues who have assisted in the making of this book, especially Baruch Halpern, Kathryn Hume, Jennifer Jackson, and Melinda West. My wife, Elizabeth Jenkins, remains my best advisor. As ever, Joel Best has provided invaluable advice and commentary.

The errors in the book are all my own work.

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When police searched a Milwaukee apartment in July 1991, the discovery of extensive human remains indicated not only that the occupant Jeffrey Dahmer had killed repeatedly, but also that he had been involved in numerous bizarre activities such as cannibalism and necrophilia. Ultimately, Dahmer was associated with the deaths of some seventeen boys and young men, and the case created a national sensation. So much is beyond dispute, but the question then arises as to how such aberrant behavior is to be understood and contextualized. The vast majority of people are likely to agree that Dahmers actions were unacceptable and wrong, but there is little consensus on whether the incident should be seen as a symptom of individual pathology or if it could plausibly be linked to broader social issues. And if the crimes are in fact a component of a wider social problem, exactly what sort of problem do they represent?

According to their ideological perspectives, different individuals emphasize varying elements of the story to produce radically different conclusions, together with the appropriate policy consequences. One observer might focus on the individual and developmental factors that shaped Dahmers personality; another might emphasize the failings of police and official agencies; a third might stress the poverty or social breakdown in the areas from which the victims came. Based on these diverse approaches, a religious or moral enthusiast might blame the killings on declining moral standards, and perhaps the pernicious effects of promiscuous homosexuality. A gay rights activist might understand the incident as the consequence of the violence so often inflicted on homosexuals, as murder by homophobia; while others might emphasize the fact that a white man had systematically killed black men and boys, and draw parallels with other instances of racial violence and persecution. If a comparable incident had occurred in a prescientific society, the crime might be understood as a manifestation of demonic evil or divine wrath. In every case, moreover, the incident would probably be employed as a powerful exemplar to support a particular moral or political lesson, each embroidering and reinforcing the narrative with appropriate cultural cross-references.

A single instance of multiple homicide can be cited in support of divergent rhetorical messages, and none is self-evidently correct or objectively true. Nor is the Dahmer case untypical in this regard. In the last decade or so, repeat homicide carried out over a period of weeks or months (serial murder) has come to be seen as one of the most pressing and widely discussed social problems; and the rich diversity of interpretations suggests the usefulness of the theme for various audiences. It has also proved valuable for the disparate claims-makers to assert that actions like Dahmers are frequent or even commonplace, suggesting quite misleadingly that serial killers pose a substantial menace to public safety.

In recent years, there has been increasing scholarly concern with the construction of social problems. Topics such as child abuse and molestation, satanism, AIDS, and drug abuse have all provided the basis for influential case studies, which explore themes such as the creation and misuse of questionable statistics, and the exploitation of underlying public fears by both bureaucratic agencies and private claims-makers (Best 1989; Goode 1989, 1992, 1993). However, the popularity and diverse interpretations of serial murder make this one of the most promising fields of research into social problems in contemporary North America.

This type of crime has attracted enormous public attention. Serial killers are frequently discussed in the popular media, and interest reached a new height in the early 1990s, with incidents such as the trials of Jeffrey Dahmer, Aileen Wuornos, and Joel Rifkin, and the publicity surrounding the fictional works The Silence of the Lambs, American Psycho, and their countless imitators. This type of crime is now the subject of most of the numerous true-crime books published in the United States each year. Both in fiction and in true crime, there were considerably more publications in the three years from 1991 through 1993 than in the 1960s and 1970s combined. The serial killer novel is now a well-established subgenre in the mystery/thriller world. The serial killer has become an American original, a romantic icon, like the cowboy (Achenbach 1991).

There is clearly a huge public demand for such accounts, to say nothing of the frequency with which the topic is covered on television documentaries and talk shows. Multiple murder has also attracted significant attention from agencies of government and law enforcement. Partly in response to pressures emanating from the media and the culture at large, far more resources are devoted to tracking, identifying, and stopping the tiny number of serial killers than to preventing the great majority of routine homicide cases, in which victim and offender are related by marriage, kinship, or close acquaintance.

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