Criminologist explains the main reason people in the UK kill and how we can reduce serial murder
A criminologist has explained the main reason why Brits commit murder, and it's far removed from being a serial killer.
Professor David Wilson recently sat down with LADbible for an episode of Honesty Box to answer your questions about crime and criminology.
As he was answering the pressing questions people had, he spoke about the most common way Brits are murdered.
“Think of it as being on a continuum," Professor Wilson said.
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“At one end we’ve got serial murder, that’s the extreme end, at the other end we’ve got a typical murder."
Rather than being murdered by a serial killer, the criminologist explained that Brits were far more likely to be killed in 'five minutes of madness'.
“The most common murder that will take place in Britain is a young man falling out with a young man on a Friday or Saturday night when that young man feels he isn’t being given the respect he deserves," the criminologist explained.
“When he feels that and he’s in the company of his friends, or indeed the friends of the person he feels has disrespected him, and he’s been drinking too much or using other kinds of substances, he wants to lash out.
“He wants to regain a sense of who he is in that five minutes of madness, he might not set out to kill but he certainly is setting out to physically harm the person he believes has disrespected him. That is a typical murder in this country."
Professor Wilson went on to say that it was 'appalling that two women a week are murdered in this country by their partners or ex partners' and said 'misogyny' was the cause of that, but that 'seven out of 10 murder victims in the UK are men' and 'nine out of 10 perpetrators are men'.
"This is a male phenomenon and this is about men owning that phenomenon, and it’s about men in my generation talking to younger men about how to perform masculinity.
“Which is something men are very reluctant to do and we leave that discussion to social media influencers like the Tate brothers and all that does is store up further problems for us in the future.
“But the main reason people commit murder in this country is because in five minutes of madness a young man will lash out at another young man he feels has disrespected him.”
This was quite different to the reasons why serial killers committed murder, with Professor Wilson explaining that serial killers would 'exercise a godlike power' where they got to decide who lived and died.
He added that a common thing linking serial killers was targeting specific groups of people.
He explained that here lay a potential way to reduce instances of serial murder in the UK, saying: "People are always obsessed by something in the biology of the individual serial killer. What’s more interesting is who it is they’re able to kill.
“If we look at those victim groups we’re much more likely to reduce the incidents of serial murder.
“Serial killers in our culture have only targeted five groups of people. Four of those groups serial killers will target in the UK are dominated by women and girls. There’s one group of men that by and large gets targeted by serial killers, that’s gay men.
"The two groups of women and girls that are most regularly targeted by serial killers are women over the age of 60 and sex workers.
"If you really wanted to reduce the incidence of serial murder in our culture you would challenge homophobia, have a grown up debate about how you police those young women and some young men who sell sexual service, and above all we would start trying to give a voice to older people in our culture as opposed to seeing them as a burden on the state."
Perhaps by focusing on protecting the people most likely to be targeted by serial killers lives could be saved.
Joe Harker