The New York Times reported that Lorenzo Gulyard of Kansas City was convicted today of murdering 6 prostitutes in the 80s. (They don't show his photo, but I found this one).
Black criminality is so conspicuous in American society, people have hunted around to find some kind of terrible behavior that whites specialize in. Serial killings have been a great one to latch onto. For example, I have heard black comedians say something like: "Us black folks might get violent once in a while, but when whites kill, they go apeshit." According to research by Eric Hickey, 20% of American serial killers have been black. That figure is two times their historical share of the U.S. population.
People also push the idea that it's whites who are the child molesters, and they put this all together to say that non-whites commit the cool crimes like gangbanging, while whites commit sicko crimes. But not only is the serial killer stereotype incorrect, so is the one of the white pedophile. While it is true that, according to the oft-quoted 1991 survey of state prisoners, almost 70% of those convicted for violence against children are white males, people conveniently forget that this number corresponds roughly to their share of the total male population. It's a bit of a stretch to say, you guys are the child molesters because you equal the rates of other groups.
Of course, if you watch the various Law & Order shows you'll come away with the impression that most NYC criminals are white (and, usually, middle- to upper-class).
ReplyDeleteIIRC, about 80% of the criminals depicted on the shows have been white, while in reality the white percentage is <5%.
By the way, for many parts of the country you can find online descriptions and (usually) photos of registered sex offenders living in particular areas. That can give you an idea of their racial makeup.
Peter
Iron Rails & Iron Weights
Intresstingly the "whites are childmolestors" myth is also true in Sweden, and often told by immigrant stand up comedians.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if there is any correllation between being a serial killer and home ownership? My general impression is that a lot of serial killers need the privacy and space afforded by home ownership to ply their gruesome trade.
ReplyDeleteAlso, it occurs to me that there may be a correlation between being a serial killer and IQ, because being a serial killer would appear to require a decent amount of advance thought and planning.
Last, I've been given to understand that serial killers tend to prey on people in their own racial community. It seems possible -- or even likely -- that police were or are more indifferent to crimes committed within the black community.
It seems to me that any of the above factors could affect the statistics of black versus white serial killers.
One of the reasons serial killers tend to get away with their murders so frequently is simply the randomness of the crime. Most murders can be traced to someone the victim is connected with. Many other murders, like those committed by rival gangs against one another, tend to get solved just because a killer cannot keep his mouth shut to acquaintances or because a killer does some other incredibly stupid thing, like selling the firearm they used in a murder to another criminal. Not so with serial murders. They commit their crimes fairly randomly and are not connected to the victim. Furthermore, their crimes aren't the kind that a person would want to brag about, even to other criminals. Also, most serial killers don't tend to be involved in many other crimes that might provide police with more evidence that might eventually connect the killer to the crime. You don't see serial killers who regularly commit burglaries or armed robberies, for example. Most other crimes that serial killers engage in tend to be ones connected with the commission of the murders themselves, like prostitution.
ReplyDeleteThe Mafia, in earlier decades, capitalized upon the difficulty of solving random murders. During the 1930s and 40s, the Mafia used to maintain a hit squad nicknamed "Murder Inc." The group of about a dozen and a half killers committed, by most estimates, around 500 murders nationwide. The system worked liked this: a mob boss in some city like Detroit or Philadelphia would want someone killed. They would pass the word along to the appropriate people in New York who would then dispatch a few hitmen to do the job. Murder, Inc. would not know who wanted the hit and the people who wanted the hit would not know who carried it out. Their would be multiple people between the person requesting the murder and the killers. The killers would slip into town, employing aliases at any hotels they might stay at, do the deed, and then leave. When police questioned locals, they would get nowhere.
The major mistake that brought Murder, Inc. down was the fact that the Mafia authorized the crew to engage in murders and other crimes in their home turf of Brooklyn. Local authorities were able to connect these crimes to some members of the group and get someone to turn. Had the Mafia not been so careless in this respect, the group might have continued on much longer.
Since the Mafia has been under more pressure from law enforcement in recent decades, they haven't been able to revive any sort of national system for contract killings comparable to this one.