Gender Dynamics and Their Effects on Serial Killing (2020)

This project considers whether traditional Western gender roles will lead female serial killers to adopt less confrontational means of execution (such as poisoning), espouse less sadistic motives for killing, engage in traditional submissive roles in the teamkilling dynamic, and, ultimately, produce lower victim counts. Previous research regarding the subject of serial killers mostly overlooks the impact of gender roles on solo male and solo female serial killers, as well as on female/male and male/male serial-killing teams. This oversight (ignoring half the population) disregards gender norms that are vital for proper analysis of serial killing, as the disproportionate ratio of male to female serial killers simply cannot be explained. A descriptive statistic was conducted using the Radford database to assess a total of 1673 serial killers, considering solo male (1276) and female (158) as well as male/male (198) and female/males (40) serialkilling teams. 

Zaine A. Roberts was graduated with a BA from SUNY Potsdam in Fall 2019.  He completed a Psychology Major and Criminal Justice Major, with a minor in Human Services.