Shadowing Practice: Why does America have so many SERIAL KILLERS? - Learn English Speaking with Video

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I keep seeing this statistic online.

The United States has roughly 4 % of the world's population, but apparently it has produced more than 60 % of the world's serial killers.

60%.

My immediate reaction to that statistic was, what the fuck's going on in America?

But then I looked a little more closely at that statistic

and one word started bothering me identified

so today i want to figure

this out properly does the united states really create more serial killers than anywhere else and if it does

why welcome to breakfast cereal my name's josh now before

we go any further i want you to answer the question yourself why do you think america has

so many serial killers drop your answer down in the comments

now then come back at the end of the episode and edit or reply to your own comment

do you still believe it because

when i started researching this i assumed there would be you know just one big american explanation some cultural defect

or historical event something i could just point at

but the deeper i got into the numbers the less

this looked like one explanation it started looking like a pile up

and just one quick disclaimer yes i am canadian

so before the americans

which is like 90 of my audience before

you guys all tell me to just shut my hoser mouth just watch to the end

it might not be as bad as you think i'm certainly not here just to all over america

and if you still want me to shut up after the end hey fair enough free speech right

So, let's start, as usual, with the most boring place.

The data.

But honestly, I know you guys love it when I pull out all the charts and shit.

Okay, so the statistic most people use comes from the Radford University Serial Killer Database.

Yes, it's back.

I managed to get through almost an entire episode without talking about the Radford Database last time. So, congratulations everybody, we had a good run

but it's it's back the 2023 annual report says

that the database contained 5752 identified serial killers from around the world of those 3690 were from the united states

that works out to 64 .16 percent now the same table estimates

that the united states represented about 4 .24 percent of the world's population.

Look at that.

That is not a small statistical difference.

That's not America beating

Canada by a couple of percentage points.

It's not the Dodgers beating the Jays last October.

That's America wandering into the serial killer

Olympics with a team larger than every other country combined.

England was second in total identified killers with 182 got russia

had 164 japan 138 india 130 south africa 129 canada my homeland 125 america had

3690

so there i mean episode over right i mean

there's clearly some kind of chemical being added to american breakfast cereal except

we need to talk about what these numbers actually measure

you often see this table described as serial killers per capita

that's not quite what it is a conventional per capita crime rate would normally count incidents during a defined period

and divide them by the population exposed during that same period.

Like murders in one year per 100 ,000 residents, for example.

Now, this table does something different.

It takes a cumulative historical collection of identified serial killers

and compares each country's share of those killers with its share of the world's population in 2022.

And that creates an immediate problem.

They see that the numerator includes offenders from across many decades.

And the denominator is one recent population estimate.

But I mean, countries have grown at different rates.

Borders have changed.

Legal systems have changed.

The ability to detect murder has changed.

And as we talked about in the last episode, I mean, even the definition of serial killer has changed.

And we're just blending all of that together into one number?

However, the database calls the result a ratio.

For the United States, that ratio is… 15 .12 meaning america's share of identified serial

killers is roughly 15 times its share of the current world population

england's ratio is 4 .66 canada's is 4 .49 australia's is 4 .89 india's is 0 .13 china's is 0 .06

yeah it's a useful comparison but it's not a a clean measurement of the probability

that a person born in each country will become a serial killer.

It's really showing us where the world's documented serial killers are concentrated.

And hey, heads up, documented is going to become the most important word in this episode.

The huge asterisk called known.

The people who made this database are very clear about its limitations.

They say the number of serial killers outside of the United States is greatly underestimated.

Not slightly underestimated, greatly underestimated.

So for a killer to enter this database, several things have to happen.

First, the murders, they got to be discovered, right?

Obviously.

Police must determine that multiple deaths are connected.

then the offender must be identified information about the offender

or victims must become publicly available and eventually the case must be documented in english

so think about how many opportunities

there are for a killer to disappear from the data america

has an enormous english language media industry public court records local reporting true crime books police releases digitized newspapers

and researchers actively looking for cases America is basically standing under the brightest light in the room

so maybe America doesn't have more serial killers maybe it simply has more serial killers whose names we know

that explanation is extremely convincing until you compare America with other countries standing under a similar light look at Canada England, and Australia.

All three are wealthy, predominantly English -speaking countries with functioning legal systems,

active news media, and a long history of publicly documenting major crimes.

Their ratios are high compared with much of the world.

That supports the idea of a documentation bias.

Four of the six countries with the highest ratios in the report are English speaking.

But America's ratio is still more than three times those of Canada, England, and Australia.

So you could say, I guess, like maybe the reporting bias explains part of the difference.

It may be even a very large part, but it probably does not explain everything.

Unless Canada has secretly buried several thousand serial killers beneath Saskatchewan, something unusual appears to have happened in the United States.

especially during one particular period, the Golden Age.

If you've been around my channel for a while, this certainly isn't the first time you've heard this strange term.

And hey, just for the record, I didn't make it up.

People in the comments are always accusing me of being a weirdo for calling it the Golden Age.

100

Like I personally coined the phrase, I didn't.

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Anyway, when people picture the American serial killer, They're usually picturing somebody from the 60s, 70s, 80s, or early 90s.

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You know the guys.

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Bundy, Gacy, Dahmer, Kemper, Rader, Ramirez, Son of Sam, Zodiac, Ridgeway.

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That is not just pop culture selection.

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The data really does show a massive increase during that period.

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You guys have seen this chart here, this one, a thousand times on this channel.

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According to the Radford Report, 93 known American serial killers began their series during the 1950s.

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That increased to 255 in the 60s, then 673 in the 70s, then 840 in the 80s.

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The number declined to 729 in the 90s, 438 in the 2000s, and 215 in the 2010s.

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Now, of course, there's always delays in identifying recent offenders, so the newest numbers will almost certainly rise.

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but that doesn't just erase the overall shape.

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I mean, look at it.

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It's a mountain, people.

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I even have an entire series on that mountain, specifically this decline here.

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The series is called Where Did All the Serial Killers Go?

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All the episodes are in a playlist.

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I'll link it above and down in the description.

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I'm also diving back into that series within the next, I think, month or so.

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So make sure you subscribe if you haven't.

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Things are going to get wild.

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You're not going to want to miss those.

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But back to this database.

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It also estimates the average number of known American serial killers who are active during each year.

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Using the FBI -style threshold of two or more victims in separate events, There were an average of 20 per year during the 1950s,

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39 during the 1960s, 114 during the 70s,

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173 during the 80s, 157 during the 90s,

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98 during the 2000s, and 53 during the 2010s.

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And the apparent peak year was 1987.

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The database identifies 212 known serial killers who were active in the United States during that year under the two victim definition.

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212. That does not mean 212 Bundys were just driving around in Volkswagen Beetles.

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The definition includes many different types of serial killers poisoners, medical killers, financial killers, pears,

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people whose series only lasted two incidents.

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See, told you in the last episode, everybody wasn't sexually motivated.

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But even with all those qualifications, 1987 looks terrifying.

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So what was different about America during this period?

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Well, first of all

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there was just a lot more murder the american homicide rate

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began climbing rapidly during the same broad period homicide not serial

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killers just murder in general in 1965 the homicide rate was 5 .1 deaths per 100 000 people by 1974

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it had reached 9 .8 it peaked at 10 .2 in 1980

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It dropped temporarily, rose again, and reached another peak of 9 .8 in 91.

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Then it declined sharply through the remainder of the 90s.

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Now, I need to be careful here.

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A higher homicide rate does not automatically create serial killers.

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Most murder is not serial murder.

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Most homicide involves conflict between people who know each other, criminal activity, or a single incident that never repeats.

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You cannot take the murder rate, divide by a number, and calculate how many BTKs are going to emerge, for example.

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But serial killers don't exist outside of the society around them.

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The rise in no -one serial murder occurred during a broader increase in American violence.

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There were more murders, more missing people, more unidentified bodies, more overwhelmed homicide units.

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But still, I mean, that doesn't explain why someone wants to kill repeatedly.

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But it may help explain why someone who already wants to kill can continue doing it.

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See, I don't think that America necessarily manufactured thousands of uniquely evil brains.

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But did it create an environment in which a certain kind of offender could operate successfully?

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What about guns?

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This is probably the most obvious American explanation.

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America has a lot of firearms.

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Firearms make it possible to kill quickly, from a distance, and without requiring the offender to physically overpower the victim.

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and the radford data does show a major difference approximately 36

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.7 percent of american serial killers in the database use shooting

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as their only killing method among offenders from other countries

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that figures about 13 .1 percent so guns clearly influence how american serial killers kill

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but i don't think that guns can explain the entire american difference I mean,

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many of the offenders who define the classic serial killer archetype did not primarily rely on guns.

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Gacy, strangled.

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Dahmer, strangled.

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Samuel Little, strangled.

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The Green River Killer, strangled.

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BTK, strangled and suffocated.

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Kemper, used several methods.

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Bundy, frequently used blunt force attacks and strangulation.

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Removing every shooting offender would certainly reduce the American number.

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but it's not going to bring it anywhere close to zero guns are just part of the pile up.

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They're not the whole pile.

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This is where the theories become much harder to measure.

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People argue that America produces serial killers because it's individualistic or violent, sexually repressed, obsessed with fame,

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built around dominance and competition, because American men are taught to suppress emotion, or because the country experienced war,

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racism, rapid urbanization, and sure some of those factors, yeah of course some of those factors can matter,

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but almost every one, every one of those exists outside of the United States too.

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Britain has individualism, violence, yeah I don't ever heard of Russia.

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Japan, they've got social isolation, I mean not to mention sexual repression, where do you think hentai and the panty vending machines it's come from.

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And hey, it's called World War II.

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Countries throughout Europe experienced war.

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For God's sakes, the United States didn't enter until 41.

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Plenty of societies have misogyny, child abuse, poverty, and emotionally damaged men.

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If we're going to claim that one cultural trait caused America's serial killers,

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we need to explain why that trait produced such a specific form of violence in one particular period.

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And we also need to explain what happened next.

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Because America's culture did not suddenly become peaceful in 95.

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The United States still has all of these things that we just talked about.

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Yet the number of known active serial killers fell dramatically.

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That decline may tell us more than the original rise.

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We should also acknowledge the role of American media.

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The United States did not invent repeated murder.

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Serial killers existed long before the term became common.

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But America helped turn the serial killer into an international character.

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Nicknames.

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The paperback with the worst graphic design you've ever seen.

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The prestigious Netflix series where somebody desaturates Milwaukee and then wins an Emmy Award.

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That publicity affects our perception in two different ways.

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First, American offenders become internationally famous.

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A person in Germany, Brazil, or Canada may know Bundy, Dahmer, and Gacy while being unable to name a serial killer from their own country.

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I mean, even me.

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People seem to think that because I created this channel that I should know every serial killer under the sun.

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I don't, not even close, guys.

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I mean, just last episode in the comments,

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someone was asking me about uh this guy niels hugel sorry about my pronunciation yeah sorry never heard of him

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so i looked him up turns out he's a german serial killer nurse convicted of 85 murders

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and they suspect more than 300 victims okay sure

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but you know there's tons of guys from the 1800s

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or whatever but hold on wait no this niels guy was convicted in 2020.

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how have i not heard of him why examples like neil's

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if you ask me makes the american problem feel even larger than the statistics already suggest

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so america may lead both in serial killers and in serial killer content

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and again i am aware of the irony here welcome back to breakfast cereal

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but yeah i'm not convinced that the media coverage creates large numbers of serial killers I mean, fame may matter to some attention -seeking offenders,

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and I guess, yeah, there's no better place to get that fame than America.

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Hey, become a serial killer, and newspapers will print your shitty manifesto and cipher that's riddled with spelling mistakes.

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I mean, where else are you going to get published?

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Hey, you become big enough, maybe one day they'll cast Zach fucking Efron to play you.

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My God.

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But, counterpoint, most serial murderers do not become famous while they're offending.

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And many, most actually, actively avoid attention.

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So while the media may amplify the archetype, I don't think it substantially increases the number of people who become repeat killers.

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So why does America seem to create more serial killers than anywhere else?

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Partly because it really did have a lot of them, especially during the Golden Age.

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But America's 64 % share is not a clean measurement of human nature.

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It's a measurement of known offenders.

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And America is unusually good at producing the conditions required to create a known serial killer.

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The murders are discovered.

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Police eventually connect them.

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The offender is identified, the records become public, the media covers the case, the information survives in English.

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America didn't create 64 % of whatever evil makes a person want to kill.

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Maybe it did create an environment where some people could kill repeatedly,

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and then created the most detailed historical record of them in the world.

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Vocabulario y notas de pronunciación para esta lección

Esta lección de conversación se basa en el vídeo “Why does America have so many SERIAL KILLERS?”. Las palabras que más se repiten: killer, serial, america, offender, murder. Este vídeo tiene 233 frases y 2645 palabras para practicar shadowing. La parte hablada dura 20:26. El hablante mantiene un ritmo constante de unas 129 palabras por minuto, cómodo para el shadowing. Solo el 80 % de las palabras está entre las 3.000 más comunes del inglés, por lo que el vocabulario es exigente.

Vocabulario clave de este vídeo

15 palabras del vídeo que vale la pena aprender, con su pronunciación y significado:

Palabra	Pronunciación	Significado
killer sustantivo	/ˈkɪlɚ/	matador, matadora
serial adjetivo	/ˈsɪɹ.i.əl/	en serie, serial
offender sustantivo	/əˈfen.dɚ/	ofensor, ofendedor
database sustantivo	/ˈdeɪtəˌbeɪs/	base de datos, banco de datos
ratio sustantivo	/ˈɹeɪ.ʃoʊ/	razón, cociente
homicide sustantivo	/ˈhɑ.məˌsaɪ̯d/	homicidio
explanation sustantivo	/ˌɛkspləˈneɪʃən/	explicación
decline verbo	/dɪˈklaɪn/	periclitar, declinar
fame sustantivo	/feɪm/	fama, nombradía
estimate sustantivo	/ˈɛs.tɪ.mət/	presupuesto, estimación
pile sustantivo	/paɪl/	montón, rimero
measurement sustantivo	/ˈmɛʒ.ə.mənt/	medida, medición
cereal sustantivo	/ˈsɪə.ɹɪ.əl/	cereal, herbal
underestimate verbo	/ʌndɚˈɛs.tɪ.meɪt/	subestimar
chart sustantivo	/t͡ʃɑɹt/	chart

Phrasal verbs que vas a escuchar

Palabra	Pronunciación	Significado
pile up verbo		arrumar, apilar
get through verbo	/ɡɛt ˈθɹu/	aguantar, salir adelante
heads up		tate, epa
pull out verbo		retirarse
shut up	/ʃʌt ʌp/	cállate la boca, cállate
turn out verbo		resultar

Frases que vale la pena repetir

Frases cortas y completas del vídeo que puedes reutilizar en la conversación diaria:

I'll link it above and down in the description.
You're not going to want to miss those.
I don't, not even close, guys.
I mean, where else are you going to get published?

Gramática en este vídeo

Las estructuras que más usa el hablante, con las palabras exactas del vídeo:

Estructura	En el vídeo
Present perfect have/has + participio pasado — una acción pasada que sigue importando ahora	has produced · have grown · have changed
Voz pasiva be + participio pasado — importa lo que ocurre, no quién lo hace	being added · are concentrated · is greatly underestimated
Oraciones de relativo who / which + oración — información extra sobre una persona o cosa	people who made · people who know · someone who already

Pronunciación a tener en cuenta

El hablante usa 31 contracciones y formas reducidas, como don't, didn't, doesn't. Dilas en su forma corta, tal como las oyes.

Los sonidos de “th”: bother /ˈbɑðɚ/, beneath /bɪˈniːθ/, wealthy /ˈwɛl.θi/, threshold /ˈθɹɛʃ(h)oʊld/
Los sonidos de “sh” y “zh”: ratio /ˈɹeɪ.ʃoʊ/, explanation /ˌɛkspləˈneɪʃən/, measurement /ˈmɛʒ.ə.mənt/, unusual /ʌnˈjuːʒ(u)əl/, congratulations /kənˌɡɹæt͡ʃəˈleɪʃ(ə)nz/
Palabras largas — cuida el acento: explanation /ˌɛkspləˈneɪʃən/, underestimate /ʌndɚˈɛs.tɪ.meɪt/, repeatedly /ɹɪˈpiːtɪdli/, necessarily /ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/, primarily /ˈpɹaɪ.mə.ɹə.li/

Sonidos difíciles para hispanohablantes:

s + consonante al inicio — sin añadir una “e” delante: statistical /stəˈtɪs.tɪ.kəl/, spelling /ˈspɛl.ɪŋ/, strangle /ˈstɹæŋɡəl/, statistic /stəˈtɪs.tɪk/, strangulation /ˈstɹæŋɡ(j)əˌleɪ̯ʃ(ə)n/
/v/ — no es /b/: los dientes tocan el labio inferior: convince /kənˈvɪns/, actively /ˈæktɪvli/, divide /dɪˈvaɪd/, convict /ˈkɑnvɪkt/, poverty /ˈpɑːvɚti/
/z/ — sonora, no /s/: congratulations /kənˌɡɹæt͡ʃəˈleɪʃ(ə)nz/, phrase /ˈfɹeɪ̯z/, physically /ˈfɪz.ɪ.kli/, racism /ˈɹeɪsɪzm̩/, accuse /əˈkjuz/

Cómo practicar con este vídeo

Escucha el vídeo entero una vez sin hablar y anota las palabras que no conoces.
Haz shadowing frase por frase a velocidad normal, repitiendo cada una hasta que tu ritmo coincida con el del hablante.
Grábate y compara con el original, prestando atención a palabras como killer, serial, offender.

¿Qué es la Técnica de Shadowing?

Shadowing es una técnica de aprendizaje de idiomas respaldada por la ciencia, desarrollada originalmente para la formación de intérpretes profesionales y popularizada por el políglota Dr. Alexander Arguelles. El método es simple pero poderoso: escuchas audio en inglés nativo y lo repites en voz alta de inmediato, como una sombra que sigue al hablante con solo 1-2 segundos de retraso. A diferencia de la escucha pasiva o los ejercicios de gramática, el shadowing obliga a tu cerebro y músculos de la boca a procesar y reproducir simultáneamente patrones de habla reales. Las investigaciones muestran que mejora significativamente la precisión de la pronunciación, la entonación, el ritmo, el habla conectada, la comprensión auditiva y la fluidez al hablar, convirtiéndola en una de las metodologías más efectivas para la preparación del IELTS Speaking y la comunicación en inglés en el mundo real.

Técnica de shadowing: lee la guía completa paso a paso →

Shadowing Practice: Why does America have so many SERIAL KILLERS? - Learn English Speaking with Video

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