“That crime is inseparable from civilization-not an aberration but an integral and even necessary component of our lives-is a notion that has been advanced by various thinkers,” including Plato, Sigmund Freud, and Émile Durkheim, he said. In fact, the perpetrators of these crimes might serve an important societal role, as true crime writer Harold Schechter explained to Hopes & Fears. In other words, the actions of a serial killer may be horrible to behold but much of the public simply cannot look away due to the spectacle.” “The public’s fascination with them can be seen as a specific manifestation of its more general fixation on violence and calamity. “Serial killers tantalize people much like traffic accidents, train wrecks, or natural disasters,” Scott Bonn, professor of criminology at Drew University and author of Why We Love Serial Killers, wrote at TIME. … And because we can’t look away from a “trainwreck.” Violent predatory crimes against people go to the top of the list.” 5. And probably 25 to 30 percent of most television news today with crime particularly personal crime and murder. “Our fascination with crime is equaled by our fear of crime.” Later, he noted that “The media understands, if it bleeds, it leads. “Since the ‘50s, we have been bombarded … in the media with accounts of crime stories, and it probably came to real fruition in the ‘70s,” Mantell said. Chris Hondros/GettyImagesĮven if we’ve been fascinated by crime since the beginning of time, we likely have the media to thank for the uptick in the true crime fad. “We want some insight into the psychology of a killer, partly so we can learn how to protect our families and ourselves,” author Caitlin Rother told Hopes & Fears, “but also because we are simply fascinated by aberrant behavior and the many paths that twisted perceptions can take.” 4. We want to figure out what drove these people to this extreme act, and what makes them tick, because we’d never actually commit murder. And we want to know what makes killers kill. Even as kids, we’re drawn to the tension between good and evil, and true crime embodies our fascination with that dynamic. Elizabeth Rutha, a licensed clinical psychologist at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center in Chicago, told AHC Health News that our fascination begins when we’re young. “In every case,” he writes, “there is an assessment to be made about the enormity of evil involved.” This fascination with good versus evil, according to Mantell, has existed forever Dr. Mattiuzzi calls “a most fundamental taboo and also, perhaps, a most fundamental human impulse”-murder. The true crime genre gives people a glimpse into the minds of people who have committed what forensic psychologist Dr. (That said, overconsumption of true crime can have negative consequences, like the perception that crime is worse than it is, or the idea that there’s a serial killer around every corner, which is simply not true: According to the FBI, “Serial murder is a relatively rare event, estimated to comprise less than one percent of all murders committed in any given year.”) 2. all you do is talk about it and you have posters of it, and you have newspaper article clippings in your desk drawer, I'd be concerned,” he said. “I think our interest in crime serves a number of different healthy psychological purposes.” Of course, there are limits: “If all you do is read about crime and. Michael Mantell, former chief psychologist of the San Diego Police Department, told NPR in 2009. “It says that we're normal and we’re healthy,” Dr. Because being obsessed with true crime is normal (to a point).įirst things first: There’s nothing weird about being true crime obsessed. It all raises the question: Why are we so obsessed with true crime? Here’s what the experts have to say.
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