The Concept of Anomie and Its Association with Serial Murder

So, a person who commits an act against the collective consciousness of a society can be called a deviant person and as we can see, that individual commits an unusual act or so called ‘crime’ maybe because of the pressure and anxiety posed on him by the society itself. Let us come back to the Anomie theory again. Durkheim explained anomie as a behaviour which goes against the normative expectations of a society (Durkheim, 1893). He believed humans to be very passionate and regulations are there to restrain these passions (Durkheim, 1897). He actually suggested to limit those passions and desires. Sometimes the strains remain in balance for long that a small chaos or confusion can break down the harmony very easily, and collective rules make it worse (Durkheim, 1893). Emile Durkheim discussed about passion and desire in his 1897 publication ‘Suicide’. The world has changed extraordinarily after that, so does passions, desires and regulations.

Although the anomie theory has lost its authority over the years (Coleman, 2014), it still explains deviant behaviours coming from satisfying an inner need rather than the material need. The lack of moral restrains over an individual which we call the conscious collective can make a person feel disconnected from the society. Serial killers are obviously driven by unsatisfiable yearning for killing (Bonn, 2015). They kill people only because they enjoy it. It might have stemmed from a complex sociological setting like Jack the Ripper murders, or it might have come from an unsettled childhood like Ted Bundy. But, it is as difficult to explain the reasons behind these murders as it is to understand why people are so captivated by them. However, when serial killers start to kill, and they do not regret it, that is when the danger begins. They do not have remorse, and they are not aware about the ethical norms either. It seems like they live in a cocoon made by themselves, but in a way, it also protects them from irrational thoughts and help them concentrate on what they are doing. Social Construction of the Serial KillersTen years after the Jack the Ripper murders in the eastern London, H. H. Holmes from United States allegedly killed thirty people in the 1890s, cherry-picked his victims from Chicago World’s Fair (Jenkins, 1994). As we mentioned earlier, Jenkins believed serial killing to be a socially constructed phenomenon. He showed data from the U. S. Justice Department from 1900 until 1990 and divided them into different era of serial killers to show the reality on the ground-

• 1900-1940: a murder wave- around hundred cases of serial murders with 24 serial killers, each killing ten or more victims.
• 1940-1965: sex crime problem- only fifty serial murder cases, but this era was distinct by felony activities like sex crimes, child molestation, rape, voyeurism and exhibitionism.
• 1965-1994: acceleration in multiple homicides- the number of serial killers clearly increased, for example- a minimum of 300 serial murder cases in between 1970 and 1990.

There is an important fact of serial killing and that is the American uniqueness, about 74 percent of all twentieth century serial killers originated in the USA (Jenkins, 1994). If we analyse the above data, the first murder wave was a quite one compared to the later periods although it apparently declined in the mid-century and aced again after 1960s which is also defined as the baby boom era. This era was defined by the growing demographic stability, following the end of the mass immigration to the United States (Jenkins, 1994).