Serial Killers and Their Effect on Society

Do the names Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, or Jack the Ripper sound familiar to you? If you are a citizen of the United States over the age of 18 you have probably heard of all of these individuals. You may not know what they did exactly, but you know that they were bad people who murdered many individuals. The point is that serial killers over the years have impacted our society in many different ways. The media plays on these individuals to make money by writing books and making movies about the tragic events that these people are associated with.

If you were to ask ten people to describe to you what a serial killer looked like you would probably receive most of the same answers. They could include someone in their mid to late 30’s, bad hygiene, relatively poor, usually male and not very well educated. However, most of these are not true, except for the fact that 90% of all serial killers are male. According to FBI Special Agent Robert K. Ressler there are 14 characteristics of a serial killer, and here they are:

1. Over 90 percent of serial killers are male.