How the Police Can Create "Monsters" | Psychology Today

How and why do infamous murderers like Ted Bundy become celebrity monsters or iconic symbols of evil in our popular culture? No doubt, it has much to do with the terrible actions of the men themselves. At the same time, however, the monstrous image of these individuals is also due to the massive media exposure they receive and the authority of law enforcement professionals that label them evil.

In our society, the managers of the state, including politicians and law enforcement authorities, define who and what is evil. Those definitions of evil, whether or not they are based on exaggerations and stereotypes, become the accepted reality for the majority of us.

When the police define a murderer as evil or a monster they are exercising their power to construct reality according to their own specifications and needs.

The earliest known use of the term “monster” in this context dates back to 1790 in London when law enforcement authorities sought a sexual deviant who committed a series of “nameless crimes, the possibility of whose existence no legislator has ever dreamed of.” The so-called monster stalked well-dressed women in the streets and slashed more than fifty of them over a two-year period.

One hundred years later also in London, the serial killer known as Jack the Ripper was declared to be a “monster” and a “maniac” by police authorities.

In contemporary society, the terms “evil” and “monster” are frequently used by law enforcement officials to explain serial killers in their public statements. For example, Richard Ramirez, the Satan worshipping "Night Stalker," who claimed to have been inspired by Jack the Ripper and the infamous cannibal and killer, Jeffrey Dahmer, were both persistently described as “evil” by the police.

More recently, the unidentified predator who has stalked the beach towns east of Manhattan, New York, known simply as the Long Island Serial Killer, has been called a “cold-blooded monster” by his pursuers. In addition, the popular memoir of the late FBI profiler Robert Ressler are entitled Whoever Fights Monsters.

The definition of the word “monster” still retains its original implications of supernatural or non-human origins to one so defined. Similarly, the word “evil” strips the humanity from anyone unlucky enough to receive the designation. Significantly, when a law enforcement official uses terms such as monster or evil to describe a serial killer, he is characterizing the criminal as a larger-than-life super predator.

By so doing, he is also presenting himself as a superhero with the ability to defeat the super villain. Stated differently, and borrowing from author Bram Stoker, the wanted criminal becomes Count Dracula and the obsessed police pursuer becomes the vampire hunter, Dr. Abraham Van Helsing.

However, not all law enforcement authorities approve of the use of supernatural terminology to describe serial killers. Some find the practice to be counterproductive or even dangerous. For example, the late FBI profiler Roy Hazelwood decried the practice of labeling serial killers using such terminology for reasons that are both logical and pragmatic. Hazelwood once told me:

When I teach "profiling", I tell my students that, when referring to sexual killers, they are not use the following terms in my class: " Pervert," "weirdo," "wacko," "monster," "sicko"… regardless of the type of crime(s) the serial killer has committed. My reasoning is that when they use those terms to describe the offender, they have begun the process of structuring a mindset as to the type of person they are looking for when in reality he may be a person studying to become a doctor (Craiglist Killer) or a lawyer (Ted Bundy) or a police officer (Gerard Schaeffer).

So no, I don't believe that "monster" is a descriptor that should be used because the lay person then applies his/her idea of what a "monster" looks or behaves like and consequently, when the offender is identified, the public is shocked at how "normal" he appears.

Hazelwood’s powerful observations explain how the police often construct a public identity for a serial killer that is nothing like the actual person. Truth be told, a serial killer is much more likely to come across as the mild mannered Dennis Rader in person than as the socially constructed monster known as “Bind, Torture, Kill”—that is, his alter ego .

When law enforcement authorities describe a serial killer in one-dimensional and supernatural terms, they perpetuate a stereotype that harms society by distorting the true nature and extent of the threat represented by the criminal.

Any and all misinformation about serial killers included in the official statements of law enforcement authorities is quickly disseminated to the public via the news media. That is due to a symbiotic relationship that exists between state officials and the news media.

Specifically, law enforcement authorities require channels of communication to disseminate their official messages and the news media need tantalizing or juicy content to attract large public audiences. Journalists must rely on state authorities to provide them with the official explanations, definitions and details of serial homicide cases.

Therefore, the news media generally report whatever they are told by state officials without question. The cooperative, “no questions asked” relationship that exists between law enforcement authorities and the news media means that inaccuracies, stereotypes and myths about serial killers can be disseminated to the public without anyone even being aware that it is happening.

I examine the public’s intense fascination with serial killers in my best-selling book Why We Love Serial Killers: The Curious Appeal of the World’s Most Savage Murderers.

Dr. Scott Bonn is a criminologist, professor, author and TV analyst. Follow him @DocBonn on Twitter and visit his website docbonn.com