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Nightmare on Elm Street: The Real Killers Beneath California's Safe Suburban Streets

By Jonathan Simor

In the 1970s Californian's were terrified by what seemed like an endless array of serial killers busy breaking into their homes, or snatching their loved ones of streets. There was the Zodiac Killer, the Hillside Strangler, and the Trial Side Killer, the Sacramento Vampire, and no less than three Freeway Killers. All told more than 160 victims were killed by some 15 distinct serial killers (either acting alone or with accomplices). While the trend peaked in the 1980s, and like homicides generally has gone way down, the legacy of those "fear years" is California's massive prison population (more than 6x its levels in the 1970s) and chronically overcrowded prisons which threaten to bankrupt the state. Despite the crippling financial costs and the ongoing human rights crisis, any politician that seeks to release prisoners, or question the need to send so many away for so long, runs into a wall of fear that sees in any early release or effort to solve problems in the community another potential serial killer on the streets...continue to full post

Full post as published by Governing Through Crime on September 11, 2010 (boomark / email).